Computer capabilities at western european universities

Abstract

This report on the author's trip to universities in Western Europe in the summer of 1966 gives brief descriptions of computing activities at each institution visited. Present equipment capabilities vary from moderate to large scale; however, many institutions plan to acquire complex time-shared systems in the near future. In the author's opinion, the state of the art lags behind that on this continent. This lag is attributed to four principal factors: (a) the handicapping organization of academic procedures; (b) the university-government financial relationship; (c) the subordinated organization of the computing facility; (d) the paucity of professional interchange of knowledge. The effects of these constraints are explicated.