PR1ME
From SWILwiki
The PR1ME was a super-mini computer that arrived at Swat in 1983.
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SWIL usage
Anonymous RPGs, graffiti files, co-stories, and quotes lists happened on it. So did the first compilation of what was then known as The SWIL's Ilk Filkbook.
The SWIL history timeline says that it was 'decommissioned for academic use' in 1986, though it was still used for extracurricular things until the VAX replaced it in 1988. In this same window Macs began to appear in scattered public locations around campus. Those were non-networked, thus unsuitable for the things listed in the previous paragraph.
PR1MOS
The PR1ME operating system was an odd mix of modern features and bewildering omissions; for example, users' could nest directories within directories, allowing them to organize their files, but a directory contained no link to its parent directory, and it came with no means of maintaining one's files other than the command line.
The PR1ME came with a line-oriented text editor named ed, and without a screen editor; a Swarthmore student spent a summer adding a screen editing mode to the line-oriented editor, and everyone used the result, which he named edc, since his first name began with a C.
No word processor was available; instead, everyone used PR1ME's runoff, which mingled formatting instructions with the text. The resulting file had to be compiled, the result proofread with edc, and final copy spooled to a printer in Beardsley. When the computer got around to sending them to the printer, work-study students who tended the printer retrieved printouts and then filed them in bins by the first letter of the PR1ME user's last name.
The OS was written, not in C, but in PL/I.
The sad thing is that when the PR1ME was chosen for Swarthmore, the runner-up was a VAX that could have run UNIX.
Sharing the PR1ME with Other Swarthmore Students
The PR1ME sat in the basement of Beardsley Hall; rooms of terminals sat in Beardsley's basement, in the basement of Trotter, and in a few other places around campus. Terminals sat in rows of five or six, so close to one another that each user had just enough room for a notebook.
The terminal rooms would fill at critical times during the semester, and the PR1ME would struggle with the workload of running edc and runoff. When under end-of-semester usage load, the PR1ME might take two minutes to provide the command prompt when one logged in, and fail to update the terminal to keep up with the text typed into edc. This added to the tension that came with the rush to finish work; at those times, the the Beardsley terminal rooms stank of of stress and fear, which was probably adrenaline.
Rationing
Since the PR1ME's CPU time was precious, the administrators in charge of the Computer Center rationed it: each log-in came with a quota of funny money, which the PR1ME spent as it did work. When the funny money ran out, one had to meet with one of the administrators and explain why the administrators ought to provide more funny money for the account.
It was easy to run out of money in a class that required writing, compiling and running programs.
Applying to the administrators at crunch time during the semester added to the unpleasantness of using the PR1ME. Mitigating this somewhat, each student was entitled to a personal account and to an account for each class.
The Year of Many Crashes
After I graduated, the original PR1ME was replaced with one that was (faster?) (able to hold more memory?). Problem was, it wasn't stable. Running the same PR1MOS used on PR1ME computers everywhere, the Swarthmore PR1ME crashed often. PR1ME had an engineer on campus for much of that year, trying to figure out what caused the instability. When the engineer was unable to track down that cause, PR1ME had to replace the computer with one with a different configuration, on the assumption that something in the configuration of the unstable machine was responsible for the problems.
I leave the task of describing the experience to someone who used the PR1ME during that year.
