Kiewit Expands

The Kiewit Computation Center has reached a new milestone in computing capabilities, making it one of the largest general purpose time-sharing systems in the nation. With the addition of a second GE-635 Central Processing unit and a second mass storage device, the system can now handle 140 simultaneous users and has a memory capacity of 288 million characters or nearly two billion individual "bits" of information.

The increased storage space will be most useful to Project IMPRESS which will store the forthcoming 1970 census. Project IMPRESS, subject of an article in our May 1970 issue, uses the Kiewit computer for student and professional research in the social sciences.

One new phase in the use of computers in education is the formation of a Computer Educational Materials Development Center (CEMDEC) directed by Prof. Arthur W. Luehrmann of the physics department. CEMDEC's mission is the writing, testing, duplicating and publishing of text materials to aid teachers in using the computer in their courses. The center adds another favorable element to the environment which Professor Luehrmann considers second to none for experimenting with educational computer uses.