% This file should talk about Athena, the new kid on the block. It's % going to be somewhat difficult to differentiate between what belongs % to computer services and what belongs to Athena, since there's a lot % of overlap. In general, there are some things that are definitely % Athena specific, such as modems for Athena, SIPB contributions to % watchmakers. Dialup access to Athena. Whatever other cracks that % we've filled in. % Dialup service started early Jan, 1988. Charon 10/87? % cce input. computer environment committee. what did we say/do? % Suggestion box. % SIPB OLC % Project Athena liaison group % RFS official support? % Graduate students on Athena. %% reference ``inessential'' docs as well? %% perhaps mention how we've drifted athena-ward since our move to W20? \section{Project Athena} The creation of Project Athena in 1983 fundamentally changed student access to computing, and SIPB has changed in response to it. Before Athena, SIPB was the major source of computer access for students, with SIPB-funded Multics accounts. After the opening of the Student Center cluster, students had general access to Project Athena, fulfilling a major function of the SIPB. Although Athena brought a new vision and more funding to student computing, at times the SIPB felt there were gaps in what Athena was providing. In some cases we tried to convince Athena to provide more, and in other cases we used our resources to fill in the gaps ourselves. \subsection{Dialup Access} The original Athena model of computing did not include dialup access for students. Athena originally had a bank of dial-in modems for faculty and staff use, but none for students. In 1985 the SIPB donated 8 modems to Athena for general student use. These modems were used for access to the Student Center timesharing machines. In 1987, when Athena switched to the workstation model of computing, there were no provisions for dialup access. The SIPB allowed public dialup access to Charon, SIPB's timesharing machine, until Athena donated SIPB a Microvax as a dialup server. The SIPB ran the dialup service from 1987 until February 1990, maintaining two Microvaxes for general use. In February 1990, Athena installed a number of dialup servers, accessible via the new 5ESS phone switch. \subsection{Graduate Student Access} As mentioned above, graduate students were not originally given Athena accounts. The SIPB provided graduate students with Multics accounts, but this was no longer possible after Multics went away. SIPB asked for permission to give out 100 (later 200) graduate student accounts on Project Athena as a way of providing some graduate access without overwhelming Athena's resources. In Fall 1989, Athena opened up access to all graduate students. \subsection{Suggestions} To provide feedback to Project Athena, SIPB placed suggestion boxes in clusters asking for feedback. At certain intervals SIPB members would collect the suggestions in these boxes, and enter them online for Athena staff and SIPB members to read. The SIPB also set up mailing lists for online suggestions, one for normal suggestions and another by which suggestions could be submitted anonymously. \subsection{Other Feedback} There have been a number of other feedback mechanisms between the SIPB and Project Athena. In 1986, Project Athena formed a student liaison committee for soliciting feedback, and a few SIPB members joined this committee, although it is not clear if this committee accomplished anything., In 1990, the Student Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP), a part of the Undergraduate Association, held a meeting about Project Athena, which several SIPB members and Athena staff attended. Again, not much came from this meeting, except demonstrating the need for better communication between Project Athena and its users. An effective way the SIPB has provided feedback to Project Athena has been through members who are Athena employees. Discussions in the office or various Chinese restaurants would sometimes result in a consensus opinion, which these members would convey to the appropriate Athena staff. For example, this happened in 1987 when many SIPB members had strong feelings against using the Remote Virtual Disk (RVD) protocol for user lockers. RVD had primitive sharing capabilities, and would have prevented users from sharing files. The SIPB provided resources for the testing of RFS, a public-domain remote file system that was an alternative to RVD. Although RFS was not the final choice for user lockers, the SIPB did encourage a look at other alternatives. The large overlap of SIPB members and Athena student employees (watchmakers) has benefited both organizations, although it has caused concern among some members that the SIPB is too closely tied to Project Athena at the expense of other campus users.