The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist

27. Case Study: A Joint Computer Center Organization: Triangle Universities Computation Center

Triangle Universities Computation Center (TUCC) organization chart as of 1980

The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.

RICHARD W. HAMMING [1962], NUMERICALMETHODS FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS

Highlights and Peculiarities

Bold Decision

Establish this as a joint center. Three universities would pool their resources, co-own, and operate a single high-performance computation center.

Pooling Resources

To exploit the quadratic performance/price curve, resources would be pooled. At the time, and for many years, spending n times as much typically ...