DCS Infrastructure

The coordination activities provided to the DCS researchers were:

Academic Coordination

The coordination appropriate to each research project varied according to its nature. Effort was concentrated on the following aspects:

• Minimise duplication of funding by holding informal discussions with investigators prior to submission of formal applications.
• Promote ongoing liaison between research teams.
• Review the objectives of each project in the light of the results obtained, and the progress of the programme as a whole.

Industrial Coordination

The main task was fostering industrial interest in the programme, with the objectives of promoting collaborative projects and facilitating technology transfer via:

• Inviting industrial researchers to technical meetings and conferences.
• Organising dissemination meetings specifically for industry.
• Developing links between specific companies and research groups.

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Support

• Access to specialised services such as the FR80 microfilm recorder, mainframes and microelectronics design and fabrication.
• Support for the Unix operating system.
• Software to link troff to the FR80.
• Assembly and distribution of software to drive the Cambridge Ring.
• Construction of 6 Cambridge Rings for the DCS equipment pool and procurement from industry of a further 10 6-node ring systems.
• Procurement, distribution and maintenance of the equipment pool.
• Ran the Programme's electronic mail facility.
• Placed EMR contracts for
  • Unix X25 communications software,
  • the Pascal Plus compiler from Belfast
  • X25 communications software for Unix from the University of York.