© 1965 by British Computer Society
The organization of a data link computing service
Cripps Computing Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
The results of two years experience of using the Manchester Atlas via an off-line data link are presented. Towards the end of the period, traffic representing a Mercury computer was carried by the link, and an average turn-around of one day or less was achieved. Although technical faults developed in the link equipment occasionally, the main problems met were of an organizational kind, and the operating system eventually developed is described fully in the paper. The link has played a very important part in the expansion of computing at Nottingham University, and the organizational experience gained will be reflected in the systems adopted with the KDF 9 to be installed at Nottingham at the end of 1965.