The ECN No Name Newsletter is no longer being published. This is an archived issue.

ECN Historic View: ECN Evolves Over The Years

In 1976 Electrical Engineering under the direction of Dr. C.L. Coates, acquired its first department owned mini computer, a Digital Equipment Corportion PDP 11/70. Thus with user accounts, 10 terminals and 3 support staff, the Engineering Computer Network was born.

In 1980 with 5 CPUs and 8 staff members the ECN developed a "star" system topology, making Purdue one of the first University computer systems to make practical use of intermachine communication. This network was limited by a single point of failure problem (ie... if hub machine goes down, all intermachine activity stops). There were 200 user accounts and terminals.

In 1983 the first ring configuration was used circumventing the single point of failure problem. Agricultural Engineering was tied into the network with a link of over 6000 feet. 13 staff supported 8000 user accounts, while terminals grew to 776.

In 1988 the proliferation of workstations on the network resulted in the creation of many new subnets within buildings. Network file sharing developed between workstations and servers. Redundant network gateways were implemented to reduce failure. By the end of 1988, user accounts had grown to 10,300, terminals to 1,424. The number of support staff was increased to 18.

In 1990 new technology permitted higher network speeds while redesigned subnets resulted in improved network efficiency. Vax equipment dating back to the early days of the network was retired. An almost 100% increase in workstations required increased dependency on automatic distribution of software and configuration files. User accounts were no longer given on all machines, but only on machines as needed. The number of terminals was slightly reduced to 1,379. The number of staff was 18 and user accounts were 10,500.

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