PROJECT ATHENA NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 15, 1984 VOLUME 1, NO. 2 EDITORIAL POLICY The Project Athena Newsletter is the official publication of Project Athena, a five-year experiment in the use of computer technologies to improve the education of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Newsletter prints articles of interest to members of the MIT community who participate, or who are interested, in the Project. These articles present the general purpose, philosophy, technical development, and direction of Project Athena, and specific news items about Project Athena facilities and projects. We encourage article submissions from the community and publish appropriate contributions whenever possible. If you have any comments or questions on the newsletter-- Will Doherty Editor Project Athena Newsletter MIT E40-426 Cambridge, MA 02139 (617)253-1300 1 What Is Project Athena? Project Athena is a five-year educational experiment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed to enhance the education of all MIT undergraduate and graduate students through the widespread use of professional computer workstations. MIT fund-raising and major grants from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and International Business Machines (IBM) finance the Project, supplemented by numerous, smaller contributions from other corporations. Other goals of the Project include: - development of educational software - incorporation of this software and related concepts into the MIT curriculum - exchange of educational software and related concept with other universities - evaluation of a variety of educational computer experiences - development of a network that links workstations within the MIT community - growth of a stable, coherent software and hardware environment supportive of the development and use of educational software 1.1 Athena Development Projects Many students and faculty have discovered an important part of Athena--they have joined one of the 66 existing development projects. The courses online today result from the hard work of these course developers. One example of an Athena project is ``Interfacing Student Laboratory Experiments with Project Athena,'' otherwise known as the ``Real Time'' project. This project will allow students and faculty to link academic laboratories to Athena machines, allowing effective computational analysis of their experimental results. To find out more about the Athena development projects, consult Project Athena Faculty/Student Projects available from Project Athena staff in MIT E40-443. 1.2 Project Athena Courses Fall 1984 marks the first term the Project has tackled courses head-on. Athena now supports 10 courses with computational resources. One of the smallest is a tutorial to acquaint 11 inexperienced computer users who are students at MIT's Experimental Study Group with the basics of computer software and hardware. The Mechanical Engineering department has the largest course--2.10 or Elementary Programming and Machine Computation-- which boasts about 150 students learning to program with the Fortran programming language. Altogether, Project Athena services about 700 students, with plans to add up to 10 more courses, and as many as 400 students, by the end of the term. Eventually, Project Athena plans to make computing resources available to the entire student body. 1.3 The Project Athena Staff Project Athena staff members divide their work hours between administrative activities, user services, software development, and operations. A diagram of the staff organization appears on the last page of the Newsletter. Project Athena Director Steve Lerman, a professor of Civil Engineering at MIT, guides the administration of the project, assisted by Associate Director Rip Parmelee from IBM and Associate Director Ed Balkovich from Digital. Jim Bruce, Director of Information Systems at MIT, serves as head of the Athena Administration/Operations Committee and actively confronts management issues related to administration, operations, and networking of the project. Assistant Director Cecilia d'Oliveira heads the User Services group that provides consulting and documentation services for Athena users and curriculum development projects. Within ``User Services,'' Beth Anderson coordinates a dedicated team of student consultants, crowned with owl insignia caps, who provide on-the-spot help in the terminal rooms. Applications consultant Ed Moriarty devotes his technical expertise to current courses, while application consultants Mark Levine and Jennifer Pinkus work with the development projects. Linda Merims organizes the documentation of the Project. Doug Wilson, formerly of the MIT Joint Computer Facility (JCF), is Athena's Manager of System Development, heading a team of system programmers, employed by Digital, IBM, Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN), and MIT. Tony Della Fera, Jim Gettys, Steve Miller, and Bob Souza are from Digital; Mark Colan, Nancy Crowther, Mike Johnson, and Arnie Miller are from IBM; Dave Mankins is employed by BBN; and Mike Gretzinger and Joachim Martillo are MIT staff members. Project Athena is in the process of recruiting a permanent Manager of Operations, but in the meantime, Doug Wilson acts as Manager of Operations in addition to his system development position. He directs Operations Coordinator Eva Tervo, System Programmers Dave Grubbs, Bertha Hoskins, and Barbara Pease, Technician Larry Peatfield, and User Accounts Administrator Connie Correia. Digital Field Service personnel Gary McDonald and Matt Morse aid in installation and service of Digital equipment. And fifteen student operators help Eva Tervo with operations tasks, like machine installation and maintenance, that range over the entire campus. Codex, a subsidiary of Motorola Corporation, has donated the services of Chuck Wade, as Manager of the Codex Networking Group, along with two System Programmers working on the network, John Chambers and Peter DeWolf. Jeff Schiller and Dennis Baron, both of whom work in Telecommunications Systems of MIT's Information Systems department, are telecommunications experts who set up communications for the Athena network. Administrative Secretary Connie Donaghey and Secretary Beverly Pottinger, as well as Digital's Campus-Based Project Coordinator Tami Brennan, provide important additional administrative support for the staff and committees of the Project. 1.4 Past and Future This chart shows significant fenceposts in the history of Project Athena and events we think will be significant in the future of the Project: {NOTE: This chart needs further work--suggestions welcome.} Date Event _______________ Past: Fall 1982 Project Athena negotiations begin in School of Engineering May 27, 1983 Advent of Project Athena--Phase 1 December 1983 A few IBM XT personal computers available to faculty January 1984 Steve Lerman hired as Director of Project Athena Three clusters of Digital VAX/750's available to faculty February 1984 First round of grants for curriculum development projects Formal release of Athena software system Total of eight staff members move to new staff offices March 1984 Project Athena had about 50 users ??? 1984 Second round of grants for curriculum development projects July 1984 Deadline for third round of project proposals August 1984 Athena accounts available to all interested faculty September 1984 Students register in Athena courses Four clusters available to students; one to Athena staff Future: November 1984 Cluster of Digital VAX/750's opens in MIT Student Center September 1985 Transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2 September 1985 Digital MicroVax's arrive for installation in student living groups unknown Athena accounts and equipment available to all students June 1988 Project Athena ends Personnel and equipment merge into the rest of MIT 2 Upcoming Articles No description of Project Athena can be complete because no one person can access all of the experiences carried by those who encounter Athena. So this Newsletter will provide a variety of articles in upcoming issues from a variety of people who each know the Project in their own context. Coming attractions include articles like these: - Curriculum Development Project-of-the- Month - Overview of Athena-Sponsored Courses - New Staff Announcements - Corporate Interest in Athena - Overview of Athena Hardware - Overview of Athena Software - How Can I Use Athena with my PC? - What Computer Should I Buy to Be Athena-Compatible? - Will I Get to Use Project Athena? - The Athena Committees - Students Who Work at Athena - The Database Working Group - The Statistics Working Group - Athena System Distribution Mechanism - Athena Consulting - Athena Operations - Athena Network and Machine Performance - Athena's Window Management System - Athena's Distributed File System - Why Does Athena Use Unix? - Other Projects Like Athena The deadline for submission of articles and article ideas for the 11/5/84 issue is 5pm on Thursday, October 25. The deadline for submission of articles and article ideas for the 11/19/84 issue is 5pm on Thursday, November 8.