History of the Computer Center
(Many thanks go to Dr. Brad Spencer for his contribution to this record.)
The Chemistry Computer Center has a proud history for which this document may not do justice.
Legend has it that the proposal for acquiring the Center's very first computer was passed late on a gloomy Friday evening, when most of "normal" folks had been gone for the weekend (it's TGIF, after all). Yet, a small group of theoretical chemists still persistently and dedicatedly pursued their burning desire: to establish a Chemistry Computer Center that would allow chemists to perform their "chemical experiments", not in a traditional sense at a lab bench with chemicals and glassware, but with computers and their imagination as the only required tools. As one reads along this passage, the Chemistry Computer Center has come a long way starting with some rather bulky computers using punch cards, to supercomputers and Beowulf clusters, as it has nowadays.
First we had an IBM 7094. The air conditioning system in the computer room was designed for this computer. (This air conditioning system is now dead.) Then a Harris slash 7, then a Vax 8650 (the first BERT, with a 6 VUPS rating). (A VUP is a Vax Unit of Performance.) Then a Vaxstation 3200 (BERTHA - now retired). This had a 3 VUP rating. Next, we got the Stardent 3000; then we got a Vax 4000, and sold the Vax 8650. The Vax 4000 had an 8 VUP rating. Then we got 4 DecStations (animal, fozzie, gonzo, piggy - all retired). Then we got an IBM Risc 6000/320 (count) and an IBM 6000/530 (ernie). These were 20Mhz and 25Mhz machines, respectively. Then we sold the Vax 4000 and bought a VaxStation 4000/60. This had a 12 VUP rating. We used a VaxStation 3100/76 (BIGBRD) as a temporary system between when we sold the Vax 4000 and when the Vax station 4000/60 was delivered. Then we bought 3 used Vaxstation 2000 systems. These had a 0.9 VUP rating. (old BERT03, BERT04, BERT05 - all gone, retired). Then we upgraded the IBM RISC 6000/320 to an IBM RISC/6000 320H, and upgraded the IBM RISC 6000/530 to an IBM RISC 6000/560. (These were 25Mhz and 50Mhz systems, respectively.) Then we bought another IBM RISC 6000/560 (ernie0). Then we bought another VaxStation 4000 (BERT01). We also bought an upgrade of this system to an Alpha-based processor (gone). Then we traded a DecStation for a VaxStation 3100/76 (BIGBRD). This was rated at 6 VUPS. Then we upgraded the first Vaxstation 4000/60 (BERT) to a Vaxstation 4000/90. This had a 32 VUP rating. Then the upgrade to an Alpha processor for BERT01 arrived. We called it BERT02 and kept BERT01 running. We returned BERT01 to Digital. Then IBM donated two more RISC 6000's to us. One was a 6000/370, the other was a 6000/580. Both were 62.5 MHz systems. These were ernie1 and ernie2. The 6000/580 (ernie1) has 512 Mbytes of memory.
After that we got the SGI (Statler) and an SGI Power Challenge (Waldorf, now gone: 4 processors). A little while after that we got 3 dual-processor SGI systems: pauling, wilson, and dumas. After that the next step was Linux boxes, which are still the main power of the department. The IBMs were all retired.
The Chemistry Computer Center is continuously upgrading and expanding its computer resources. Currently, it has several research clusters and desktop computers that run a wide variety of applications, from mathematics, quantum mechanics, and molecular mechanics, to biotechnology and drug design.
August 2004