Experiences with Interactive Computing System

The advent of problem-oriented languages (POL's) and time-shared remote-access computer facilities has opened new horizons to the engineering profession. Time-sharing affords the practicing engineer almost immediate access to a computing facility. POL's combined with time-sharing provide the engineer with a capability to communicate with the computer in a conversational mode. The advent of time-sharing and POL's has caused more than a few changes in the required management and operating procedures both in the design office and at the computer facility. Covered herein are the experiences of the consulting engineer design office manager and staff and the experiences and responsibilities of the computing center management and staff during two years of operation of the Civil Engineering Systems Laboratory (CESL) remote terminal computer facility of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.