Word: computerizes
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The consoles are inadequate, says Mosteller, because "it is possible for a man to think up a legitimate problem that would tie up the computer." The SDS 940's on-line operation involves a relatively small amount of total input, even when all 32 possible teletypes are in contact.
Mosteller and others frown on this trend. They see money being wasted on new hardware while the existing computers continue at less than capacity. And if more hardware should be required, Mosteller's committee would like to see it purchased by the Computer Center rather than by individual departments.
As a rule, computer work done by math, statistics and physics students is of the sort the SDS can accommodate: small in input, even when the solution process is complex. The Humanities and Social Sciences, and in some cases the Natural Sciences, often require work with a much larger input...
The inefficiencies suggested by departmental requests for computer hardware were only part of the reason for creating Mosteller's committee. It was also prompted by the dramatic leaps which another school, Dartmouth, has recently taken in the instructional use of computers.
Dartmouth has its own time-sharing system, somewhat different from Harvard's, but more extensive and more extensively used over the last few years. Many of the computer committee's suggestions were based directly or indirectly on the comparative success of Dartmouth; "Harvard," Mosteller says, didn't seem to us...