Case Study: Use of the Microcomputer as a Scientist's Personal Workbench

摘要

A preliminary field test in which a scientist was provided with a Terak 8510a microcomputer for use as a personal office computer and as an interface to larger computers demonstrated a substantial improvement in user efficiency. As a result, such systems were judged to be cost effective, and 40 of these microcomputers were recently obtained for utilization by a variety of scientists and programmers involved in a broad range of applications. In addition, a VAX 11/780 computer supporting a comparable user community via VT1OO terminals has recently been installed. Results of a study on the effectiveness of these two approaches for improving the efficiency of these user groups are presented.