1971 - 1984

  --   Era of MTS (Michigan Terminal System)    --

-- 1971 --

On January 1, the University of Alberta adopts the Michigan Terminal System (MTS) for general-purpose timesharing on the IBM 360/67, which now has 768K of main memory.

Computing Services' first Director, Dr. Dale Bent, is appointed. CS implements user registration and soft-dollar charging. Department computing budgets are allocated centrally.

During the next decade, central computing funds grow 17 percent per annum, while actual central computer usage grows by 30 percent per annum. This is feasible because of growing external revenues.

-- 1972 --

The University of Alberta installs its first Gandalf PACX network (4,800 bps).

-- 1973 --

Front-end communication processors (PDP 11/45s) are used for the first time to manage terminals. The first Tektronix terminal is installed.

-- 1974 --

The first annual MTS Consortium Workshop is held and UBC converts MTS to run on IBM/370 systems. The CS System Programming Group (left) plans for adoption of the IBM/370 system.

A direct computer output to typesetter service is implemented, as are Remote Job Entry stations.

Campus users are frustrated with heavy system overloading.

-- 1975 --

Computing Services replaces its IBM 360/67 with a $4.5 million System/370-compatible Amdahl 470 V/6 mainframe (right), the first such installation in Canada. System performance is nine times better than the IBM 360/67's.

The Office of Administrative Systems (OAS) installs an IBM 370/145.

The use of punched cards is declining because of the trend toward remote terminal processing.

Computing Services capital budget is $279,500.

-- 1976 --

Support starts for DECwriter hardcopy terminals and Lektromedia terminals.

-- 1977 --

The Amdahl 470 V/6 mainframe is upgraded to 4 MB of memory. It becomes the first Canadian commercial host on the Datapac packet-switched wide-area network.

There are 260 terminals on campus.

The capacity of the Gandalf PACX Exchange doubles.

-- 1978 --

The Word Processing Equipment Committee is established.

An NCS 7008 optical mark reader is installed.

Support starts for IBM 3270-type terminals. The first AJ510 and Courier terminals (left) are installed.

-- 1979 --

A new Amdahl 470 V/7 mainframe goes into production.

The University's first high-speed Xerox 9700 laser page-printer is installed.

The one-millionth MTS batch job of the year is submitted by Dr. S. Huzinaga of the Chemistry department.

The Student Oriented Batch Facility is replaced by terminals.

-- 1980 --

Computing Services forms an Instructional Systems group and installs a PLATO Cyber 170 system (right) for computer-assisted instruction under a $2.3 million deal with Control Data.

The first of several Floating Point Systems, an FPS AP-190L array processor, is installed for numerical computation.

-- 1981 --

The Amdahl mainframe is upgraded to a 470 V/8.

There are 700 terminals on campus.

An MTS service rate schedule is established, stipulating that:

*  campus departments are charged 60 percent of the actual cost
*  off-campus educational groups are charged 100 percent of the cost
*  government/non-profit groups are charged 150 percent of the cost
*  commercial entities are charged 300 percent of the cost

-- 1982 --

The MTS Message System (e-mail) is released.

Computing Services forms a Microcomputer section and the Word Processing Equipment Committee becomes the Committee on Office Automation.

There are 1,100 terminals on campus (241 are public) and 50 word processing machines.

The PLATO Control Data Cyber system is upgraded with $2.8 million worth of equipment.

The University's Amdahl 470 V/8 mainframe is the first single-processor computer of its type to use more than 16 MB of main memory.

-- 1983 --

Hard-dollar charges for labor and material services are introduced.

A new Amdahl 580/5860 is put into production (32 MB of memory). It provides 75 percent more computing power than the Amdahl 470 V/8.

External revenue is $2 million a year.

The first campus PC microcomputer laboratory is built, featuring 12 IBM PCs. There are 250 additional IBM PCs on campus.

Computing Services recommends that no further ASCII terminals should be ordered for campus departments.

The FPS-164 array processor is installed.

-- 1984 --

PLATO services, running on a new Cyber 830, are sold to commercial customers during non-prime hours.

The HYPERbus network facility is installed for testing.

The VM/CMS OS is tested on the Amdahl 580/5860.

There are 1,616 terminals and 122 word processing machines.

The University and Apple sign a consortium agreement and the first MicroStore opens (above).

1967 - 1970: Timesharing Begins

1985 - 1990: Mainframe/Micro Communications

Computing Services at the University of Alberta