 Bruce Attfield, director Computer and Communications Services Branch (left), Georgina Chung, shift supervisor, and Lee Tripp, manager computing operations system (right), view new NAS/9060 in-house computer. |
Photo and text were originally published in
the September / October 1986 edition of Zephyr
New AES computer The National Advanced
Systems NAS/9060, the new mainframe computer, at the Downsview
Computing Centre's (DCCS), is capable of carrying out instructions at
the rate of approximately 11 million per second. This is about four
times faster than the previous AS/6. The DCCS computer
installation
currently has more than 500 user accounts stretching from headquarters
to the regions and including other federal and provincial government
departments.
Principal AES users are the Canadian Climate Centre and the Administration Branch. The former will now be able to computerize its entire data management system - which includes management and presentation of archived climate data. The latter will be able to put all AES assets on computer and expand its warehousing programs. Bruce Attfield, Director, Computing and Communications Services Branch, comments: "Due to increased flexibility and speed of the new installation, users are now better equipped to meet the computing challenges that arise as AES strives to meet its mandate as efficiently as possible". The new NAS/9060 has the capability of storing 24 million characters in its main memory at any given instant. The computer is fully compatible with IBM systems and uses numerous software products commonly used in the industry. More and faster communication lines were also installed, making the machine more accessible to the general AES community. |