The Committee approved the Minutes of the meeting held on the 26th April 1966. It was agreed that matters arising from the Minutes would be dealt with during the discussion on the various papers before the Committee.
Dr Howlett presented his report on the Laboratory, and corrected the date of the delivery of the disc file shown on the covering page of the report as January 1967, to July 1967.
2.1 The Work Load The Laboratory continued on three shift working with the same type of workload as previously reported. Dr Howlett gave examples of the type of large jobs run by major users and agreed to circulate a list to the Committee. The Committee considered in general terms how priorities could be allocated if the Laboratory became overloaded. At present no charge was made to university users, but rationing by money was one method of allocating time. Unless this was followed rationing would have to be by merit, and merit in the work's own discipline rather than in terms of its interest as a computer problem. This would be a difficult and invidious job for the Director or even for the Computer Committee since it would require considerable knowledge of specialist fields. Rationing by merit, however, was equivalent to a grant of time, and the problems were not essentially different from those involved in a grant of money. There would be no merit in a system which involved firstly obtaining the Laboratory's agreement to the computation and then duplicating this by applying to the Council for money. Broadly, it seemed better to rely on the sensible judgement and responsibility of the universities, guiding them through the weekly statements which showed the notional cost of their computing work. At present it seemed unlikely that an overload would develop, since the Rutherford Laboratory would be carrying out its own computations shortly.
In answer to a question from Professor Buckingham, Dr Howlett said it was possible that some of the time releases by the Rutherford Laboratory could be given to London University; he would discuss this further with Professor Buckingham outside the meeting.
In answer to a question from Professor Kilburn, Dr Howlett said the Laboratory had every intention of going on to a fourth shift as soon as possible. There were certain maintenance problems and problems of staffing and transport to be resolved first. The Laboratory already worked the occasional weekend shift on an overtime basis.
On the percentage distribution of time amongst languages, Dr Howlett thought that although the Rutherford Laboratory's withdrawal might seem to imply a relative drop in the use of Fortran, nevertheless if the whole field was filled with university work, Fortran would still remain important: and indeed if, as he suspected, the gap was filled by the longer jobs, then the distribution might hardly change as the majority of such jobs were written in Fortran.
2.2 Software It was agreed that if Professor Brooker, on moving to the University of Essex, wished to continue with his work on the Compiler Compiler, this would be an admirable project for the Laboratory to support through an extramural research contract (if this was needed), or was a field which the Laboratory itself should work in if Professor Brooker decided not to continue his work. The Compiler Compiler had proved surprisingly efficient.
2.1 Extensions to the Installation The disc file would be delivered in mid 1967, and Dr Howlett thanked Dr Pickavance for the help on the interface being given by the Electronics Group of the Rutherford Laboratory under Mr Wilde.
GEC had said that they would be unable to manufacture an S-2 computer in time to meet the contract delivery date and, as provided in the contract, they would import a machine from America. Mr Walker said this possibility had been foreseen and would present no contractual or financial difficulties.
Dr Howlett commented on the high number of faults experienced in the core store. The Laboratory was discussing with ICT the desirability of replacing the store, and the terms on which this might be done. If such replacement was thought to be necessary it would be submitted to the Committee for approval.
The Committee took note of the Minutes of the 14th, 15th and 16th Meetings of the Atlas Users' Committee.
The Committee noted that the Users' Committee had discussed their function and membership. Since the Committee had been set up there had been a marked change in major users; far less work than expected had come from AERE, and the Rutherford Laboratory would largely cease to use Atlas in 1967. On the other hand university use, which had already proved greater than originally thought, was increasing, as was also the number of Government users.
It was suggested that a better composition could be:
| Universities | 2 |
| Atlas Computer Laboratory | 1 |
| Ministry of Technology | 1 |
| Department of Education and Science | 1 |
| Regional Centres | 3 |
| Total | 8 |
The Ministry of technology and the Department of education and Science were included as the parent bodies of a number of potential Government users, and the regional Centres (as they were set up) since they were alternative sources of university computing.
In discussion it was thought that the structure of the Users' Committee should be more nearly proportional to the time taken by different classes of users, and that the university representation should be strengthened; in particular, the Chairman of the IUCC should remain an ex officio member. Mr Laver said that the Ministry of Technology would be content to receive the Committee's papers and not be formally represented if this would help to keep the Committee at a reasonable size.
It was agreed that the Atlas Users' Committee should be reconstituted, but that before a final decision was made the views of the IUCC should be obtained on university representation.
4.1 Dr Howlett said that the present paper on the future development of the Atlas Laboratory set out in more detail some of the ideas advanced at the last meeting of the Committee in a paper with the same title. The Laboratory as a whole had been impressed by the response to its existence: there was clearly a need for such an establishment and much of the work done in the past eighteen months, for example by the Meteorological Office, could not have been done without a laboratory of this type. It was difficult to make other people's cases, but it was apparent from growing university demand and from conversations with Government departments and research Councils (for example, the Ministry of health, the Medical research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council, and also in the economic field) that there were large but as yet ill formed problems requiring large scale computing. Likewise it was possible to see in outline quite large demands on multi-access facilities. These arguments were somewhat qualitative and needed sharpening, but there was undoubtedly a large potentially unsatisfied demand for computing time which, at the moment at least, could only be met by the Atlas Laboratory.
4.2 The Ministry of technology was considering supporting the development of the ICT 1908 and the programme envisaged seemed to fit into the broad time scale of demand on the Laboratory. Mr Laver outlined the Ministry of Technology's discussions with ICT and said that the Ministry would probably reach a decision on supporting the development within the next three months; he understood that ICT would develop a series even without the Ministry support, though without the support the development would take longer.
In discussion the following points were made:
| Year | Provided in last year's forward look approved by the Council £000's |
Present Atlas Laboratory proposal £000's |
|---|---|---|
| 1968/69 | 754 | 1,054 |
| 1969/70 | 643 | 1,849 |
| 1970/71 | 623 | 1,675 |
| 1971/72 | 6284 | 1,647 |
| Total | 2,648 | 6,225 |
4.3 The Committee concluded:
Dr Howlett presented his paper on the microfilm plotter. The finance paragraphs could no longer stand, the British agents for the SC 4020 having telephoned that morning to say there was an error in their quotation for two year purchase.
It was agreed to recommend to the University Science and Technology Board that, subject to finance, the Laboratory acquire an Sc 4020 microfilm plotter at a cost of approximately £70,000.
