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October 25, 1979
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Fr. Paul Locatelli
Academic Vice President
University of Santa Clara
Santa Clara, Ca 95053



Dear Paul:



\JNow that we have been assured that the PDP 20/60 has been ordered
and is due to arrive sometime next summer, we are concerned with
the issues of access, peripheral equipment, and software for the new system.
We would like to be able to count on five or six high speed lines being run
from wherever the machine itself is located to terminals in the Engineering
Center, this is less than 20% of the available ports
that have been ordered for the machine.
Once we know we have the lines coming we can plan appropriate work areas
in which to put the terminals.

In order to plan ahead for class use of the facilities we need to know what
equipment will be available and what software packages supplied by DEC
or other sources can be run.  
We need to know specifically what operating system is to be used in order to 
determine compatibility of software from non-DEC sources. It is also very
important to determine what kind and how many terminals will be purchased.

As far as we know, none of these questions are currently being investigated.
These issues may seem premature at first glance, but we assure you they are
not.  The time to consider this is now, while we HAVE the time.  If 
everything is planned well in advance, the installation of the new system
will run much more smoothly.  If we start looking now at the various
options available, we will be better able to make well-informed judgements
that serve the entire university computing community.

There is a myriad of choices to be made about the computing
environment that surrounds the processor.  Fortunately, there are several
highly qualified research and university facilities in the area that
have comparable equipment and would be willing to share their experiences:
Stanford, SRI, Xerox PARC.  Their personnel would be able to help us make
informed judgements leading to effective utilization of the computing
resource.  We feel the best way to tap this knowledge base is to initiate
a committee of prospective users to talk with that university/research
community.  It will take time to collect and digest all the pertinent 
information, thus we must begin immediately.
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Sincerely,




Ron W? Danielson
Ruth E. Davis
Dan L? Lewis
Henry ? Nettesheim

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