Psychology Computer room circa 1978

The department has used computers for research and teaching since 1971, when a DEC PDP-11/20 and PDP8/e were purchased. These machines were initially used for the realtime control of experiments, data collection and analysis. The first use of computers for teaching was a computer applications course offered as a third year option in 1973. The computers were progressively expanded, with major upgrades occurring with the purchase of a PDP11/44 in 1981, a VAX 3500 in 1988, and DEC Alpha's in 1993-1994, 1998 and 2000. Personal computers were purchased as they became available, with a preference for Macintoshes, especially for teaching. A dedicated computer teaching laboratory using thirteen Apple Macintosh Plus was established in 1989. Currently there are seven computer teaching laboratories with a total of one hundred and ten machines, and some smaller rooms for use by postgraduate and honours students. There is a dedicated graphics laboratory, containing an Alpha DECstation with realtime video and hardware image compression, a SGI Indy, two high performance Macintoshes, HP colour scanners, an Agfa slide maker and various inkjet, dye sublimation and laser printers. The department is spread across six buildings, with all rooms having ethernet available. The buildings are interconnected with 1Gb/s fibre optic cables and Cisco switched ethernet hubs. Every full-time member of staff has a computer in their office, and all postgraduate students have a machine available in a shared office. There are twelve networked laser printers in various locations and a local modem pool for staff access. The department has a network of over 400 computers in total. Over the years, the department has made several strategic decisions that has allowed it to be at the forefront of computing in Psychology. The purchase of the original model PDP-11 in 1971 was an excellent choice for general and realtime computing, with the machine still being manufactured in 2000. In 1977 we obtained our first licence for Unix which is now the operating system of choice for workstations and high performance computing. In the early 80's we had network connections via Basser to the outside world, initially using ACSnet and finally full TCP/IP. The early purchase of personal computers and network equipment allowed a department fragmented across several buildings to have some cohesive communication and easy exchange of documents. The purchase of Postscript laser printers in 1985 set the standard for document presentation. The use of Webster Multigate gateways for establishing an extensive AppleTalk network in 1988. A reliable central computer facility for file serving, print spooling and mail (lock it away, don't let anyone near it and never turn the power off!). We had a well defined upgrade path using Unix, from PDP11 (16 bit) to Vax (32 bit) and then the DEC Alpha (64 bit) architectures.