Toward a computerless computer facility

Abstract

Over the past 3 years we have begun to redirect a portion of our biomedical research facility’s efforts toward the eventual goal of eliminating facility ownership of any computers. If completely successful our computer facility will consist of hardware personnel who will design and construct new pieces of equipment and software types who will design and construct new systems. None of our personnel will be devoted to maintenance of existing hardware nor to the task of running “user” programs for them. Rather our goal in this project is to build complete systems (both hardware and software) for our colleagues, install these systems in their laboratories, and assist in the further development of these systems. This paper will describe the rationale and procedure for this experiment. However, before going any further it should be emphasized that only a portion of our efforts are devoted to this experiment and we retain the option of continuing our existing centralized service. Hopefully, we will be able to make an honest, convincing comparison of the values in each approach.

Supported by National Institutes of Health Grant #RR00374.