% This file should talk about things that would normally go under % computer services in the minutes. These are services that SIPB % provides to users in various forms, such as Laserwriter service, % discuss development, netnews, SIPB file system, spinwriter. % Graduate access to Multics after undergrads got kicked off. % Normal access before '85. MITVMA funding for statistics research, % BITNET access % Access to Mac for file transfer. % x9700 support for Athena & Multics. % chaosnet gateway. % TeX & LaTeX. % Coop % Terminals in Student Center library. % ECS (governor?) % Laserwriter -- (Athena uses Postscript 9/87) % Multics -- accounts for student groups, individual users - text % processing, Macsyma, learning languages, research projects, % Netnews/Discuss. % xdvi. % Approximate dates of hardware acquisition (sources: minutes, % oliver_changes and steve_changes discuss meetings). % \begin{tabular}{whatever|is|supposed|to|go|here} % enterpoop (RS/6000): 9/91 % quiche-lorraine (Intel 486): 6/91 % bloom-picayune (DS 3100): 11/90 % cutter-john (PS/2): 11/90 % hodge (DS 3100): 6/89 % podge (DS 3100): 6/89 % milo (NeXT): 1/89 % portnoy (RT): 3/88 % steve-dallas (RT): 10/86 % oliver (VS/2): 10/86 % % Still need to find: % % binkley (VS/2): % bill-the-cat (RT): % bloom-beacon (uVAX II) % ronald-ann (RT): % snorkelwacker (RT): % banana-sr (Mac): % sipb-kbox (Kinetics): % Rob's Amiga (Amiga): % yaz-pistachio (VS/2): (dialup until 2/91) % charon (uVAX II): (dialup2 until 2/91) % rosebud (Mac): (from ??? until 8/89) % \end{tabular} % % Also, SIPB owns a few VT100's which have been used by the R/O center % in recent years, though they've now been replaced by Athena % Workstations. % % Current Network Services: % News server % Webster (dictionary) server % hearts server % postscript previewer service (on decmipsen) % AFS service (projects, guests) including backups % NFS service (projects) % sipb locker(list this elsewhere?) % % Other Office Services: % media conversion: % NeXT optical (would like to add NeXT floppy) % IBM PS/2 DOS % Mac % Exabyte % QIC % Amiga \section{Computer Services} When Project Athena began to provide more computer access to students, a large part of the SIPB's chartered purpose started to evaporate. Although there have always been computer access gaps that were left unfilled, applications could no longer be the Board's primary focus. The SIPB started to concentrate on providing computer services, such as writing and supporting new software, handling new printers, or providing access to different computer networks. In some cases, these services have been successful enough to be officially adopted by Project Athena or Information Systems, leaving the SIPB ``to push the envelope'' of computer services. \subsection{Multics Services} Before Multics shut down in January 1988, the SIPB provided a few services to Multics users. Even though the SIPB no longer runs any of these services, many current SIPB services are similar to the original Multics services. \subsubsection{Spinwriter} The SIPB maintained a NEC5525 Spinwriter until late 1986, for letter quality output from Multics. The SIPB provided manpower to run the printer, allowing users access to the printer whenever the office was open. After the Xerox 9700 became operational, demand for the Spinwriter steadily decreased until 1986, when the SIPB donated the printer to its last major user. \subsubsection{Coop} The SIPB's Coop project on Multics was an arrangement between SIPB and Information Processing Services (IPS) User Accounts so that individual MIT community members could pay for their own computer time. Instead of setting up many small Multics projects, User Accounts allowed SIPB to administer the Coop project. Users would come into the SIPB office and set up or maintain an account by paying the SIPB by cash or check. SIPB would deposit this money, and write checks to User Accounts for project usage. Many students had Coop accounts for editing their theses, since we did not fund thesis work. Also, some student activities had Coop accounts so that they could use Multics to aid their record keeping and accounting. Individual Coop accounts were like bank accounts; the user paid an initial amount when creating an account, and this balance was reduced by computer charges. When a user closed an account, he could collect his remaining balance. Because of account registration and disk usage charges, a number of Coop accounts went negative before SIPB got around to deleting them. These negative charges represented cash money, for which the SIPB was responsible. Fortunately, the surplus balances of Coop accounts when Multics shut down covered these losses. If all the Coop users had come back to collect their remaining balances, the SIPB would have faced an embarrassing shortfall. This episode showed that the SIPB needs to be very careful about providing services for cash money. \subsubsection{ECS} The Educational Calculator Service (ECS) had capabilities for solving numerical calculations similar to those of a powerful hand calculator. We provided this service without requiring applications, so anyone with access to a Multics terminal could use it. \subsection{Software} The SIPB maintains a sizeable amount of software for the Athena and MIT communities in the SIPB locker. Some of this software has been written by SIPB members, while other programs are public domain or equivalent software that has been ported and installed by SIPB members. Originally the small directory {\tt /usr/unsupported/sipb} on Athena time-sharing systems, it is now a standard Athena locker available via attach. The SIPB locker has grown to 110 Megabytes of executable, documentation, and configuration files. It is provided both from the SIPB AFS cell and Athena AFS cell, supports 6 machine architectures, and is the most used locker on Athena machines. \subsubsection{X Utilities} The SIPB provides a number of X window utilities, most notably {\tt xscreensaver}, which allows users to lock their screens while leaving their machines for a while. This program has been a source of controversy, since some Athena users in public clusters have locked their screens for more than the policy limit of 20 minutes, forcing other users to reboot the workstations to reclaim them. Users and consultants have complained about {\tt xscreensaver}, saying that the program encourages users to violate the policy. At one point we installed a new xscreensaver that automatically logged the user out after 20 minutes, but this generated complaints from private workstation owners, and some users got around the limit by compiling their own versions of xscreensaver. We backed out the change, but a few years later implemented a compromise where a ``logout'' button pops up after 30 minutes, making it easy for a user to reclaim an idle workstation without rebooting. This controversy highlighted the diverse users of SIPB software, and the inability to restrict user behavior with software controls. Other X utilities that SIPB provides are graphical appointment calendars, {\tt xcal} and {\tt xkal}, X versions of non-graphical utilities like {\tt xzwrite}, {\tt xfortune}, and {\tt xalarm}, and amusing ways to use spare CPU time, such as {\tt xneko} and {\tt xfish}. \subsubsection{\TeX/\LaTeX} The SIPB was an early sponsor of \TeX\ and \LaTeX, a text formatting system ideal for formatting mathematical equations. Unlike Scribe, the text formatter originally supported by Athena, \TeX\ and \LaTeX\ are available free of charge, and more likely to be encountered by students after they leave MIT. Many academic journals now prefer \TeX/\LaTeX\ submissions. The SIPB support of \TeX\ and \LaTeX\ has gone beyond simply providing the software in the SIPB locker. The SIPB has written user documentation, taught IAP classes on \TeX\ and \LaTeX\ and provided help to users with questions. We maintain the MIT redistribution of TeXhax, the electronic journal of the \TeX\ Users' Group, and the \TeX fonts locker. Eventually, Project Athena switched from Scribe to \LaTeX\ as the supported text processor. The SIPB still provides documentation and newer and more powerful versions of \TeX\ and \LaTeX\ than the standard Athena versions. \subsubsection{Webster} The SIPB provides an online dictionary. Users can look up words from their workstations, using a simple command-line program or an X utility. Although the dictionary is several years old, it still provides a useful service to users writing papers or arguing definitions online. We are currently looking at acquiring a newer version. SIPB has looked into providing an online thesaurus, but has not yet found a good package. \subsubsection{idraw \& xfig} The SIPB provides {\tt idraw} and {\tt xfig}, two drawing packages. Both allow users to create simple diagrams for including into papers. \subsubsection{Japanese Language Software} Since early 1991, the SIPB has also made available to the user community a set of Japanese language-processing applications, including j\TeX/\LaTeX, {\tt nemacs} (a Japanese-capable version of emacs), {\tt kterm} (Japanese xterm) and {\tt jserver} (kana to kanji conversion utility). These programs have been widely used by students studying the language, as well as by international students and researchers at MIT. \subsubsection{archie \& xarchie} The SIPB locker contains both {\tt archie} and {\tt xarchie}, programs that allow users to find files available via anonymous FTP. These programs query a remote database of file names and print out matching entries, making it easy to find software packages and other resources available on the Internet. \subsection{Printing} Another service that the SIPB has provided is giving users high-quality printer output. In addition to the Spinwriter service mentioned above, the SIPB has provided access to alternate laser printers for Athena users. The SIPB supported development of the gateway between Athena and the Xerox 9700. In 1986, the SIPB was one of the first organizations at MIT to get a PostScript printer, an Apple Laserwriter. This was available without charge to Athena users before Athena purchased PostScript printers in November 1987. The SIPB has also encouraged interest in the PostScript language itself, providing a publicly writable locker for interesting PostScript programs and teaching classes in PostScript. \subsection{Networks} The SIPB has provided gateways between the campus network and other types of networking. The original Charon, a VAX 11/750 donated to SIPB by Project Athena, was used as a gateway between the Chaosnet, an early campus networking technology, and the Athena network. For a few months in 1984, this served as Project Athena's only connection to the Internet; Charon would send the traffic to the Laboratory for Computer Science via Chaosnet. Even as late as 1990, users could send mail or transfer files to Chaosnet hosts through Charon. A more recent gateway SIPB has provided is the Zephyr/BITNET gateway running on Charon (the name is now attached to a MicroVAX), which allows Athena users to communicate interactively with BITNET sites. Originally the SIPB planned to use the UREP software package from the Penn State university for running the BITNET software on a Unix machine, but switched to a Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) implementation that was available for no charge after running into licensing problems with Penn State. The service has been up and running for a few months, and is reducing the demand for SIPB VM accounts. \subsection{Electronic Communication} The SIPB has provided and supported three electronic communication packages -- Network News, Discuss, and IRC -- to improve electronic communications both externally and internally to MIT. \subsubsection{Usenet} Network News, also known as ``netnews'' or ``Usenet'', is a bulletin board shared among many computer systems around the world. Usenet is a logical network sitting on top of several physical networks, including UUCP, BITNET, and the Internet. Usenet sites include numerous universities, private companies, and research organizations. The number of Usenet sites and the traffic volume has grown tremendously over the past few years. The SIPB provides Usenet access to Athena users. It runs three netnews servers, which receive and transmit articles with other Usenet sites. The servers currently store 565 megabytes of articles, and process around 11,000 articles (around 40 megabytes) per day. The SIPB servers are part of the ``Usenet backbone'', which are the sites that transmit most of the Usenet volume through the country. The SIPB MicroVAX named Bloom-Beacon also gateways a few Usenet groups with Internet mailing lists, such as the X window system mailing list {\tt xpert}. Two recent additions to the Netnews service are Clarinet and USA Today news, which are paid services delivered to a subset of the Usenet community. With funding from Information Systems, SIPB delivers UPI news flashes and syndicated columnists like Dave Barry and Miss Manners to the MIT community. \subsubsection{Discuss} The SIPB has also written and supports an electronic conferencing system called ``Discuss'' for use by the MIT community. Based on a similar system called Forum available on Multics, Discuss provides a set of electronic ``meetings''. While Usenet is for wide-spread communication among many network sites, Discuss is designed for a smaller number of users, who may have privacy concerns or long-term archival requirements. Discuss can restrict meetings to a given set of users, and retain discussion for a long period of time. Discuss is often used to save logs of mailing lists, or provide a forum for MIT-specific topics, such as the MIT Harassment policy ({\tt harass} meeting) or proposed Student center art ({\tt hairball} meeting). The SIPB wrote the Discuss software from scratch. There are several client programs available, with terminal, emacs, and X interfaces. The SIPB provides disk space for over 100 Discuss meetings. There have been over 32,000 messages written to Discuss since 1986. Project Athena has included Discuss as part of the standard release. \subsubsection{IRC} The SIPB runs a server for Internet Relay Chat (IRC) for Athena users. This is an interactive broadcast system that connects users from different Internet sites. Users connect onto ``Channels'', which allows groups of users to send messages among each other. \subsection{Media Access} The SIPB provides a way for users to transfer files quickly from campus machines to different types of media, such as Macintosh and PC disks. Users can come to the SIPB office and use the SIPB Macintosh and PS/2 to perform file transfers over the campus network. The SIPB NeXT machine can also be used to store information on optical disks, although this service is not presently available because of problems with the machine. \subsection{Other Services} The SIPB provides a large number of minor services that are not provided elsewhere. Examples of these are servers for programs in the Athena games locker, disk space and computer access for useful projects. The SIPB supports FTP service for software distribution; some OS/2 utilities and UNIX microprocessor emulators are distributed from Charon.