Transformational Education > New technologies
Warren McFarlan on computer time-sharing woes
Transcript
That in terms of transforming the educational process, I think the first really big thing was the computer game that Jim McKenney had brought with him from UCLA. And this was a game which he ran in a pilot fashion in his first year (section) I think in 1960. And it was then scaled up in 1962 to the entire first year.
And he and I then worked very aggressively on it. As the new technology came on campus, the first thing was that we then develop a series of time-sharing based computer models. And I can still recall in Baker Library that we had 200 students all working on terminals running then off an SDS 940 run by the university. And it was in the second move of the game. And all of a sudden all 21 terminals typed, "Panic, panic, panic. Memory (crack) at core location eight hundred twelve thousand three hundred and ten." And the entire room stopped. This led to the second time we phased up, and again it collapsed.
This led to significant unrest on the part of the students. And even more unrest on the part of myself, who was responsible for it. Who felt that I had been betrayed by inept computer administration across the river. Therefore deepening my natural hostility, as a Harvard College graduate, to the problems of the University in a technological sense. Lou Ward was, fortunately, able to forget all the things I said, and we went on.