History of the CEC
From CECWiki
In the beginning
The construction of Fisher Hall and its computer facility was completed in 1964. The Seeber Computation Laboratory, established in 1958 through the foresight and encouragement of Dr. Rex Seeber (1879-1957), was moved to this new facility. There was much discussion at the time as to the direction of computing at MTU. Digital versus analog computing was the issue of the time. Partially due to this issue the facility was split into two separate units and the name was changed. A reorganization created the Digital Computer Laboratory under the direction of Dr. G. Cleaves Byers, Head of the Department of Mathematical and Computer Science and the Analog Computer Laboratory under the direction of Dr. K. M. McMillin. Because the directorship of the Digital Computer Laboratory monopolized a good portion of Dr. Byers time and efforts, Mr. Scott Johnson was appointed a full time position as the new director in 1967. At that time the name was changed to Michigan Tech Computer Center and along with the Analog Computer Laboratory, later to be known as the Simulation Laboratory, served the academic needs of the entire university. In October 1967 the first Computer Center Newsletter was written. The computer at that time was the IBM-1620. A new IBM-1311 disk drive was added that summer allowing the use of the MONITOR-I operating system.
In 1976 the Computer Center, later known as Academic Computer Services, was moved to the newly completed EERC building. The Simulation Laboratory was expanded to accommodate a newly acquired hybrid computer known as the EAI (Electronic Associates, Inc.) model 8800 Scientific Computing System. As the term hybrid implies, this was a system consisting of a digital computer and an analog computer along with sixteen channels of digital to analog and analog to digital conversion. Systems like this provided the best way to do simulations in real time. The cost of memory was too great to make it economically feasible to store the needed data points to perform a simulation in real time on digital computers(8KB of memory then cost about ~$27,000.00). During the next decade much use was made of the hybrid computer. Many projects were performed for the military and other research funding units. Some projects were simulations and testing of the hydro-pneumatic suspension system of the M113 A1 tank, stress analysis of helicopter blades and rotor, St Lawrence Seaway and many more. Math and Computer Science classes and labs were taught by Dr. McMillin utilizing this hybrid computer during this era.
In 1984 Dr. McMillin retired and Dr. Powers, Dean of the College of Sciences and Arts, decided to reorganize the Simulation Laboratory by folding it into Academic Computer Services (ACS). The name was changed to Engineering Computer Services and one year later was again changed to ACS-Fisher. This reorganization did not serve the university well and was destined to change. In May of 1986 another reorganization took place. ACS-Fisher was returned to the College of Sciences and Arts and the name was changed to Center for Experimental Computation (CEC). The Center for Experimental Computation (CEC) was established and directed by Dr. A. Barry Kunz to coordinate efforts in high-speed modern scientific computation. Within the first year a three year rotating directorship was set up and the new director was Dr. Darrell Hicks from the Math department. The next director was Dr. Donald Beck from the Physics department followed by Dr. David Poplawski from the Computer Science department. Then Mr. James R. Hoel who had been this facility's System Engineer since 1979 was appointed the Director of the CEC for the next ten years (1992 - 2002). In 2002 James Hoel stepped down from Director to focus his professional energies as a Senior Systems Engineer within the Center for Experimental Computation providing systems integration and consultation primarily for the departments of Physics, Mathematical Sciences, Computer Science, and CS&E. The CEC provided computing services of a diverse nature. Everything from hypercubes to PCs to mini-mainframes such as DEC VAXen, Alliant, Floating Point Systems, Stardent Titans, CRAY T3Es and Sequents and many more were supported by the CEC and complete data acquisition systems were designed and built by Mr. Hoel in the CEC for various research projects. Due to the explosion of distributed computing vs. centralized computing systems from 1988 to the present, and the required resources needed to support those systems, a CEC reorganization took place in the summer of 2002.
The CEC today
Today the CEC continues to provide computer services, hardware, software, and networking, to the departments of Mathematical Sciences, Computer Sciences and Physics. The staff of the CEC include Dave Kraus (Director and Senior Systems Programmer), Jim Hoel (Systems Engineer), Pat Krogel (Systems Administrator), and Christopher Linn (System Administrator). The staff of the CEC assists the various departments by evaluating, purchasing, and installing computer systems and software packages. User services such as backups and restores along with general computer and network maintenance are also provided. The CEC, located in Fisher Hall room 201, serves over 3000 faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students who use over 300 workstations, PCs, and mini-mainframes.
