Channel, Issue No. 4

Abstract

[evdate 1991-02-15] The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Newsletter of the Centre of Computing Services & Telecommunications Channel FEBRUARY 1991 Issue No.4 The HKUST Office Network FDDI Wishing You a Prosperous Year of the Ram ! Inside : From the Director of Educational Technology Centre 3 Logical Design of the HKUST Ofice Network 5 FDDI 13/F, World Shipping Centre, 7 Canton Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong channel@usthk.BITNET

2 Channel Issue No. 4 In this issue . . . . . 3 From the Director of Educational Technology Centre Technological Partners - ETC and CCST Progress of our Network 5 Logical Design of the HKUST Network 7 FDDI 8 Development of the HKUST Office Network Other News 10 11 Application for Access to HKUST's Network Services Computer Training Courses: April 1, 91 - July 31, 91 Next Issue : On the HKUST Phase I Campus Network Cable Plant System, and Academic Computing In the coming issue of Channel, we will include an introduction to the I-IKUST Phase I campus network cable plant system, to be installed in the Sai Kung campus. In addition, academic computing in the HKUST will also be discussed. Editor's Notes Editor's Notes Channel is a bi-monthly publication of the Centre of Computing Sevices and Telecommunications (CCST) of HKUST. Prepared by the Computing Information Centre (CIC), Channel provides valuable information about CCST plans, developments and services. Topics on new trends in computing technology or other related topics of interest are also Channel is a bi-monthly publication of the Centre of Computing Sevices and Telecommunications (CCST) of HKUST. Prepared by the Computing Information Centre (CIC), Channel provides valuable information about CCST plans, developments and services. Topics on new trends in computing technology or other related topics of interest are also included. User contributions to Channel are welcome and should be sent to the Editor along with the author's name and included. User contributions to Channel are welcome and should be sent to the Editor along with the author's name and department. Channel is distributed to all University to all University members who are members who are registered users of the registered users of the CCST services. Other CCST services. Other parties who would like parties who would like to have their names to have their names added to our mailing list added to our mailing list for Channel may for Channel may complete and return the form on the last page to the Computing Information Centre. Esther Chan, Editor of Channel c/c ccesther@usthk.BITNET

Issue No. 4 Channel 3 Technological Partners: ETC and CCST Following in the footsteps of Peter Dobson in a previous issue I too have been asked to author an article which I am pleased to do as it gives me an opportunity to share some views and biases. I am a rather recent convert to daily use of computers in that in my previous position there was no departmental PCs when I got there and when I left in June last year there were approximately eighteen for a staff of twenty one. My seven year long experience there showed me the invaluable nature of the PC as a tool which served in several capacities: word processing, accounting, inventory control, supply ordering/tracking, personnel records, signal control ( routing and program scheduling ) for video and multi-faceted computer graphics. Toward the end of my tenure there I got heavily involved in what is increasingly a very common activity- electronic mail. I found that having the ability to communicate the eight thousand plus miles from New Mexico to Hong Kong and vice versa efficiently and at virtually no direct cost was mind boggling and infinitely quicker and more reliable than using the mail. To me, at the time I came to Hong Kong, I would characterize myself as excited at how well technology worked when I was using it myself. Now that I am at HKUST I foresee a number of partnership activities between CCST and ETC upon which I would like to expound. Aside from the routine uses of the computer network and its more mundane services such as some of the same as those mentioned above, (including word processing, and data base management functions), I know that ETC will be a heavy user of computer services. One area where this will be most apparent will be in the Graphics unit. The primary working environment will be the Macintosh for a variety of reasons including the amount of software available and how user- friendly it is. However we will also be able to operate in the DOS environment as this is the predominant environment for PC at HKUST. Much of the day-to-day production work can best be fit within the category of desktop publishing even though some of the unit's output will be camera ready hardcopy for printing or reprographic duplication, other output will be photographic. Of the latter some will be 35mm slides, others will be color prints and still others will be for overhead transparencies (vu-graphs). Ultimately there will be several options of how production can commence. Some clients will bring their basic ideas of what they want to ETC Graphics to have the staff visualize the concepts from start to finish. Secondly, the client can have done the basics in his own office on either a DOS or Mac environment machine and then bring the disc to us to either image as is or enhance and image. The last option is to send the prepared data through the campus system to be downloaded in ETC and imaged. All of these activities require a close cooperation between CCST and ETC. Should technical problems arise we will rely on the CCST staff for assistance regardless of the particular environment involved. I feel very comfortable with this latter statement based on how efficiently and quickly the staff has responded in the past six months whenever I or my staff have had problems. Another key area where there will be close cooperation between the two departments is with video distribution. As is probably well known by most staff, CCST plans for installing a fibre optic data distribution system and this will be operationalized for the campus beginning in Phase One. Although the current FDDI technology will not allow for video signal distribution on the same identical equipment, the fibre backbone can carry video and then ETC will need to have separate encoding/decoding devices at each end of the cable. Considerable discussion has taken place on which technology combination to use with video distribution and we have heard from several vendors/consultants as to what our options appear to be. Regardless of the choice, there will be a necessary but willing cooperation between the two departments. One compelling reason for this is that many of us see that there is much overlap of technologies between CCST and ETC and even with the Library. While there are easily defined parameters which define the basic functions of these three departments, the technologies shared in common do not fit neatly into discrete compartmentalizations. To view the solving of problems through cooperative effort rather than territorial competition is refreshing and promises to make what we do here at HKUST unique. Dr. Donald M. Boehnker Director of Educational Technology Centre efcdmb@usthk. BITNET

4 Channel Issue No. 4

Issue No. 4 Channel 5 Logical Design of the HKUST Office Network Born in August 1989, our Harbour City office network has increased from 30 nodes up to 300 nodes recently, more than 10 folds. "What are the philosophy behind the design?" This paper will present a brief discussion on the logical design, for the actual network layout, please refer to another article in this issue. Following the most innovative universities in the States, like Stanford and MIT, the HKUST office network is based on the server and client model, with special emphasis on multi-vendor, multi-protocol, reliability, performance and security. At the heart of the design is the 1OOM bits per second FDDI fibre optic network with Ethernet subnets fanning out to each floor. Unlike the networks in the other universities in the States, one of the major characteristics of our network is bilingual, supporting both English and Chinese. Multi-vendor, Multi-protocol

To meet the research and teaching needs, it is very important for a technology university, like HKUST, to support

a multi-vendor. and multi-protocol environment. Unix, VMS, MS/DOS and Macintosh are the major platforms currently supported on our network. We now have hundreds of PCs running MS/DOS, 20 to 30 Macintosh's,

two dual host VAX clusters and several Unix workstations from various vendors. The protocols supported are

mainly TCP/IP, Decnet, Appletalk and OSI in the future. Server and Client With the advanced development of the desktop workstations, traditional centralised computing has given way to the new server and client model. Instead of a large mainframe with dumb terminals or PC with terminal emulation through the network, front end processing is now performed on the desktop workstations and access to the servers is initiated only when such need is required. Our PCMail system is one typical example. Mails are stored in the mail server, but all the editing and mail preparation work are done on the local PCs. The new software SAS Connect is another example. All the editing and graphic output are prepared on the PC, while all the calculations are done on the CPU server. As time goes on, more server and client software packages will appear. Currently, we have two dual host VAX servers on the network. The first one is the Administrative Information Server, ADMIS. It is a dual host VAX 4000 with two CPUs, each of 8 VUPS (8 times the speed of the VAX 11/780) with 32MB memory. The total disk storage on the server is 2.3GB. This is the server where all the administrative information, such as financial data, personnel records and student data, are provided. The other server is the general network server, USTHK. It is a dual host VAX 3800 with two CPUs, each of 3.8 VUPS with 64MB memory. The total disk storage on the server is 2.4 GB. This system provides all the other services including network printing and plotting, e-mail, PC applications, bulletin board and academic services. New servers coming up include the library systems developed and operated by the Library, and the Unix file and application servers. Reliability and Performance Reliability is always a big issue in networks. As the network now becomes the backbone of computing, all services will be disrupted when the network fails. On the server side, both the ADMIS and USTHK servers are dual host systems. They have dual CPUs and dual memory modules. We will investigate the possibility of duplicating important data on two disks (volume shadowing) when cost permits. To provide further resilience, a new version of the HKUST office network software is being developed. The new software enables

6 Channel Issue No. 4 the ADMIS system, or other system, to act as the backup network server (in a trimmed down manner) when the USTHK server fails. Security On the network itself, backup fibre optic path is provided by the dual rings (refer to another article for details). The The goal of HKUST is to have electronic data and "paperless" office. As administrative data has to be bridges also serve to isolate erroneous Ethernet packets, so that erroneous packets generated in a subnet will not distributed to the desktops of all major academic and flood the whole network. On the subnet, the Ethernet is administrative staff, security becomes a major issue. An mainly connected in a star topology. Generally not more effective, but very costly, solution is to have two separate than six nodes will be connected on a single network networks, one with administrative data, one without, being segment, so that the impact of malfunctioned segment bridged up by a gateway. However, this solution will be will be minimized. In the future, dual bridges will be too expensive. We are investigating the possibility of installed to provide backup paths for critical Ethernet using the bridge filtering features to limit the packets originated from the ADMlS server to certain network segments. segments. However, what most important, but difficult, is network monitoring. It is highly desirable to identify a deteriorated network segment before it comes to a total failure. We now have the network monitoring software DECmcc which gathers statistics from the bridges continuously, so that we can be alert of the abnormal situations, such as enormous erroneous packets. Besides, with the new version of the HKUST office network software, messages will be sent back to the operator console whenever a PC cannot get access to the network printers or disks. With such data, we can identify a deteriorated segment, when PCs on the segment often got temporarily disconnected. CCST engineers are also acquiring hardware devices to monitor the waveform on the cable. All these tools help to identify the deteriorated segments at an early stage, so that we can take actions before they become a total failure. Security can also be maintained from the server side. Currently, login access outside the HKUST network is blocked. Very tight control of data access, possibly with multiple passwords, are being designed. Chinese Performance is another important issue on a complicated network. This issue can also be addressed from both the network and the server sides. The HKUST office net- work is divided into subnets by the FDDI bridges which help to localise the network traffic. In the future, we will make use of the filtering feature in the bridges to further block unnecessary traffic from the subnets. On the server side, we will keep monitoring the system performance and balance the load across the different servers. How- ever, what most difficult is the adjustment to the dynamic load which depends on the working habit of our users. That would take time in gathering statistics to predict the workload trends. Chinese on the network has to take time to gear up due to the lack of international standards. On the PCs and MACs, all Chinese software systems use two byte codes. However, the Library systems use three byte codes for Chinese, and the VAX systems use four. Even within the IS0 standard committees, .there are two camps - one proposes three byte codes whereas the other endorses four byte codes. We have set the standards on the PCs and MACs with BIG-5 codes. Tests on using the PCs to access the VMS have been very successful. However, much still have to be designed and tested on the MACs, library systems and Unix areas. The HKUST office network is changing every week. New nodes are being added, network cables are being extended and new technology, both hardware and software, are emerging. Facing these complicated environments, CCST will put RELIABILITY as the top priority. Network monitoring and tuning is a big and continuous task. We are still at the stage of gathering statistics and acquiring monitor equipments. A lot have yet to be planned and tested in the future. Building the state-of-the-art network is difficult, but challenging. We just begin and still have a long way to go. Mr. Lawrence Law Manager of Systems and Operations cclaw@usthk.BITNET

Issue No. 4 Channel FDDI Many of you have lots of experience with networks, but, do you know that you are actually using one of the most advanced network now. Yes, under the very roof of the World

Shipping Centre, located in the 13/F, lies a small Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) network; a miniature version

of our full-scaled Campus network. But, what is FDDI ? Well, simply stated, FDDI is a TOO-Mbps Local Area Net- work (LAN) standard developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). It uses a timed-token access method and allows up to 500 dual attachment stations to be connected with a total optical fibre length of 200 kms. One of the unique features of this standard is that normal traffic is not restricted to data alone, time constrained traffic such as voice, video, and real-time applications are also supported (in a later version FDDI-II). The FDDI network takes the appearance of a ring structure, but in contrast with common practice, the FDDI ring consists of not just one but two rings, with one transmitting

clockwise and the other transmitting anti-clockwise (as in diagram a). The dual ring has two purposes; in normal function, one ring is used as life while the other ring acts as

backup, and in the event of the life ring failure, the backup ring will become life; and if both rings break at the same point the two rings will join together to form one single ring (as in diagram b). (4 (b) How does it work ? The mechanism of a FDDI ring is very similar to a Token network. A special frame, known as the token, is passed from one station to the next around the ring. When a station decides0 that it has something to transmit, it will wait until it gets hold of the token. When it receives the token, it will remove the token from the ring, and starts transmitting information frames down the ring. This station is allowed to transmit as many frames as it wishes within the predefined time limit. A has a frame of data to transmit and captures token. At completion of transmission, A issues a new token. B receives and retransmits Fl, taking no action. C copies frame addressed to it. 2. A begins transmitting frame Fl with Destination Address (DA) = C and Source Address (SA) = A. 4. B captures token and transmits F2 with DA = D and SA = B. C completes copying and sets status of Fl. 5. B issues a new token. D copies F2. A, recognizing its S A, strips Fl from ring. 6. B sees its SA and strips F2. When the station completes the transmission or when it reaches the time limit, it will issue a new token on the ring. Each station on the network retransmits the frames it receives and copies from the ring those that are addressed to

it. When a frame returns to the sending station, that station is responsible for removing the frame from the ring. As stations copy frames, status will be added to the retransmitted frames, and based on these information, the sending station is able to determine whether or not the intended information has been passed to the receiving station.

8 Channel Issue No. 4 How does the network knows it has problem ? There is no special station destined for monitoring the net- work. In fact all stations in the FDDI ring share this responsibility. Each station monitors the ring for abnormal

conditions, which include ring inactivity longer than the internal timer T, invalid frames on the ring, or a physical or logical break in the ring. To detect a lack of ring activity, stations have an internal timer T used to track the length of time between receptions. If no receptions can be made when T expired, an error condition is indicated and the ring will initialize itself. Can the ring fix a physical break by itself ? The answer, believe it or not, is yes. When the stations discover that there is a break in the ring, all the stations will enter the Beacon process. In this state, all attached function- ing stations will continuously transmit a special frame known as the Beacon frame. The stations will do one of three things in a Beacon process. If it receives Beacon frames from its upstream neighbour, it will cease Beaconing and release the incoming frames to the next station. If it does not receive any Beacon frames, it will transmit a continuous Beacon stream; and if it receives its own Beacon, then the ring should be alright, and the ring will reinitialize itself. Station D Station C A break in primary ring 1. A break in the primary ring causes stations to begin issuing Beacon frames. 2. C receives Beacon frames from upstream neighbour and ceases Beaconing. 3. D receives Beacon frames from B and C and stops Beaconing. 4. A receives Beacon fiarnes from B, C and D and stops Beaconing. 5. Location of the break point is thus detected by A and B. 6. Stations A and B wrap the primary to the secondary ring and the ring reinitializes. When the break has been located, the hardware of the stations between the break will wrap the primary ring to the

secondary ring and then the ring will reinitialize to this new condition. Mr. Joseph Pang, Senior Computer Officer Systems Engineering ccjoseph@usthk.BITNET

Development of the HKUST Office Network System From the very beginning, IEEE 802.3 10M bits/s thick coaxial Ethernet is chosen as the backbone in our TST office network system to provide network services to users on different floors. Originating from CCST in 13/F, the Ethernet backbone covered 12/F and was later extended to 5/F. Computing and network systems/devices are either directly attached to the Ethernet backbone or indirectly through thinwire Ethernet repeaters, from which, networks of radiated thinwire Ethernet cables provide the computer power/ connection to user's table top. Figure 1 shows the original thick Ethernet backbone network configuration. With the introduction of the state-of-the-art 100 M bits/s FDDI (Fibre Distributed Data Inteface) as our network backbone months ago, we have enjoyed a 10 folds increase r in our backbone bandwidth. (i.e. from 10 M bits/s increased to 100 M bits/s.) Minor modifications have been made in the thickwire Ethernet layout to suit the FDDI ring backbone configuration. To achieve user transparency, each floor (5/ F, 12/F, 13/F) has a separate thickwire Ethernet segment (or subnet) connected to the FDDI ring through a FDDI bridge, others remain unchanged. In order to monitor the performance of the FDDI network, the FDDI ring and bridges are installed in the CCST area. Figure 2 shows the FDDI ring backbone network configuration. Through the high bandwidth FDDI backbone and bridges, we now have a more efficient and reliable network system for all our users. Readers are reminded that our present FDDI network is only a miniature of our full-scaled campus network system. More comprehensive description for the campus network cable plant system will be covered in the coming issues. Mr. Michael Tang Manager of Systems Engineering ccwctang@usthk. BITNET

Issue No. 4 Channel 9 13/F 12/F Thick Wire Ethernet Fig. 1 10 Mbits/s thick wire Ethernet backbone network configuration (before implementation of the 100 Mbits/s FDDI ring backbone) Thick Wire Ethernet

VAX 4000

DECconnect DCC Wiring Cabinet

Dialup PC/ MaC /Printer-

Fig. 2 Current 100 Mbits/s FDDI ring backbone network configuration

10 Channel Issue No. 4 Application for Access to HKUST's Network Services University staff who need to gain access to HKUST's net- work services should obtain a VAX account from the User Consultation Coordinator of CCST. Each computer account has a username composed of at most eight characters. The first two characters are the department code followed by up to six characters of your choice pro- vided that the username has not been allocated to somebody else (a colleague of your own department). Examples of username are FOWINNIE, CSLILY, CCSCOTT, etc.. Accompanying each computer account is the account pass- word. The password is "precious" and should be safeguarded at all time. If other people obtain your password, they can impersonate you and read information (e.g., e-mails) you have stored in the system, or even worse, change or destroy it. . When a new account is established, the password is defaulted to be the same as the username. On fist logon to the sys- tem, your first task is therefore to give your account a new password which is known only to yourself. Thereafter, try every effort to keep your password secret - try to memorize it and don't write it on a piece of paper. You should also change the password from time to time (follow the procedures listed below to change the password at any time).

There are people who take a great delight in trying to discover other people's passwords.

If you have not changed your default password, the system will stop you from using PCMail or any other network services. In the case of PCMail, you will receive the error message: "Fail to connect to the mail service" If such situation does happen to you, please follow the steps described below to change your password immediately. (1) Connect to VAX machine USTCC2: From the PC Main Menu, select "Host Connection" to bring up a submenu which lists all the machines available for connection. Select "USTCC2" to make contact with the VAX machine USTCC2. Afterwards, you should see a login prompt. The prompt indicates that the system is waiting for you to identify your- (2) Change your password Enter the command SET PASSWORD. You will see the system respond with the prompt: Old password: Respond to it by entering your old/assigned pass- word. The system will ask you to supply the new password: New password: and then ask you to enter it again: Verification: Again? Yes, the system just wants to make sure that you have not made a. typing mistake. Note that all the passwords you entered are not echoed on the screen for obvious reason. (3) Leave the VAX system self. After entering your username (e.g., AAWINNIE), the system will ask you for the associated password. Enter your old/assigned password

to complete the login process. At this point, you should see a $ prompt meaning that you have successfully logged into the system and the system is now waiting for your command. Now, you should see the $ prompt again. The sys- tem is ready to accept another command from you. Enter the command LOGOUT to get out of VAX and press<CTRL><FlO> (press the <CTRL> key together with the function key F10) to get back to the PC Main Menu.

Issue No. 4 Channel 11 Computer Training Courses : April 1, 91 - July 31, 91 CCST offers training courses to members of the University. The following is a brief description of the courses

scheduled for the period April 1,91 to July 31, 91. Hands- on exercises are included in every course. Users should consult the Electronic Bulletin Board newsgroup named Computer-training-courses for details of the courses. (1) Introduction to MS DOS This course presents the basic ideas and operations of DOS (Disk Operating System) on PC. It is a prerequisite for other PC based courses. April 24 June 26 am am (2) Introduction to WordPerfect 5.0 This course presents the basic ideas and operations of word processing using WordPerfect. April 24 Pm June 26 pm (3) Advanced WordPerfect 5.0 This course completes a general WordPerfect training. It covers the advanced WordPerfect functions:

multiple documents handling, macros, column documents and graphics. May 23 am July 8 am (4) Introduction to Lotus l-2-3 The objective of this programme is to introduce the concept of electronic spreadsheet to general computer users. By using Lotus l-2-3 as the software,

it also aims at teaching users to use l-2-3 effectively. April 25 am June 27 am Advanced Lotus I-2 -3 This course completes a general Lotus l-2-3 training. It covers the advanced Lotus functions: windows, macros, linking files, multiple files handling, advanced allways graphics, etc. May 23 Pm July 8 Pm Introduction to dBASE III Plus The propose of this comprehensive course is to intro- duce the relational database management system dBASE III Plus to the participants. April 25 Pm June 27 Pm Introduction to Network Services This course introduces to our users the network services : electronic mail, electronic bulletin board, file

transfer, and network printing. 8 repeating sessions : April 10 (am, pm) June 5 (am, pm) July 9 (am, pm) Changjei Chinese Input Method This course introduces the concept of traditional characters Changjei input method which is the most popular Chinese input method in Hong Kong. Roots and radicals defined by Changjei as well as input rules are discussed. April 11 am May 9 am June 6 am For registration, call Mrs. Anna Ho at 302 1570.

12 Channel Issue No. 4 User Consultation Coordinator - CCST Contact Points Mr. Tony Chan - 1476 cctony UNIX support - Mr. David Yeung - 1538 ccdyeung Problem Reporting E-mail Account - Problem Reporting E-mail Account - CCHELP - CCHELP - For users to send in their problems and difficulties via For users to send in thei

e-mail. A consultant will respond to messages sent to e-mail. A consultant will respond to messages sent to

this account as soon as possible. this account as soon as possible. Suggestion E-mail Account - CHANNEL - For users to send in their queries, ideas, suggestions and comments concerning services we provide. A consultant will respond to messages sent to this account Telephone Services Coordinator - Mr. Scott Cheung - 1760 ccscott

as soon as possible. Phone E-mail Training Courses Registration - Mrs. Anna Ho - 1570 Requests for Computing Resources - Mr. Danny Tang - 1512 ccanna ccdanny

Centre of Computing Services and Telecommunications. Channel Mailing List . . . A mailing list is maintained for the distribution of Channel. To be placed on the mailing list', fill out this form completely and mail to the Computing Information Centre, CCST, 13/F, World Shipping Centre, 7 Canton Road, TST, Hong Kong. Please print clearly. 0 Add my address to the mailing list 0 Address change (write new address below) q Remove my name from the mailing list Name : Organization : Address : Phone E-mail address ccmax cclaw Director Dr. Wm. Max Ivey

Mgr. Systems & Operations Mr. Lawrence Law

Mgr. Information Systems Mr. William Tung 1443 Mgr. CIC Mr. Danny Tang

Mgr. Systems Engineering Mr. Michael Tang Editor of Channel Miss Esther Chan 1537 ccesther

1440 1442

1512 1533 FAX 736 7088 Dialup 736 9181 Computer room 1494 SE workshop 1535 ccbtung ccdanny ccwctang I 'Registered users of the CCST services are placed automatically on the mailing list

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技術伙伴一一ETC和CCST 繼杜家磊教授之後，我也被邀為本刊寫一篇文 章。我自是非常樂意，這樣我便有機會跟大家 分享一些我自己的看法。我於近年才轉為每天 使用電腦，我上任前一份差事時，部門還沒有 任何個人電腦，但到去年六月我離任時，二十 一位員工中已有差不多十八部個人電腦了。那 兒的七年工作經驗告訴我，個人電腦在好幾方 面都非常有用，包括文字處理、會計、存貨管 理、物資訂購和進出追蹤、人事記錄、影像及 多方面電腦圖像的信號控制〔路徑選擇和節目 編徘〕等等。那邊任期將滿時，我己大大投入 電子郵遞這項愈來愈普遍的活動中，我覺得電 子郵遞的能力不可思議，它既有效率又免費〔 事實上，費用由公司整體支付〕地讓我縱橫八 千多哩於新墨西哥卅與香港兩地之間通訊，而 且比紙郵快和可靠多了。我初在香港使用電子 郵遞時，看見先進的科技我非常興奮。目前在 科大，我可預見計算及電訊中心〔CCST〕和教 學科技中心〔ETC〕會在好幾方面上維持一個 伙伴關做，接著我想就這幾點說明一下。 ETC除了日常使用電腦網絡和上文提及的一 般電腦功能〔包括文字處理及數據庫管理〕 外，它運會大量使用其他的電腦服務，而這尤 以ETC圖像設計組為甚。鑒於現有軟件的數量 和軟件的易用度等問題，圖像設計組將在 Macintosh機器上建立主要的工作環境，但由於 科大廣泛用IBM PC作為工作環境，我們也 必須能在D0S環境下運作。圖像設計組的製作除 了印刷或復印用的可付印硬拷貝外，還有攝影 製作如35毫米幻燈片、彩照和投影膠片等。儘 管如此，大{????}篧牊陶]計組的日常製作都可歸 納為桌面印刷一類。日後我們會提供幾個製 作選擇，用戶可將自己的意念授意ETC圖像設 計組人員，然後請設計組一手包辦把意念形像 化起來。此外，用戶亦可在自己的辦公室用IBM pc或Mac先做底稿，然後把磁碟送去給圖像設 計組依樣製作或加工製作。當然，用戶還可將 準備好的數據通過大學網絡下載給圖像設 計組加以製作。要做到這些，CCST和ETC必須 緊密合作。碰上技術性問題，無論涉及哪一個 特殊電腦環境，ETC都會求助於CCsT員工。這 一點我毫不擔心，因為在過往六個月來，不論 是我或是我的員工遇上困難，CCST總會迅速有 效地作出回應。 影像分佈〔video distribution〕是另一個我倆部門 將緊密合作的重要領域，大家也許已知道CCsT 計劃安裝一個光維數據分佈系統，在大學第一 期建設即推出使用。雖然在現時的光纖分佈式 數據接口〔FDDI〕網絡下，影像分佈系統並不能 與數據分佈系統共用同一設備，但光纖主幹 〔fibre backbone〕能傳送影像，ETC在電既兩端 分別設置編解碼設備即可。有關影像分佈 需要甚麼配備，我們已作過不少討論。從供應 商及顧問口中，我們隱約看到在我們面前有哪 些選擇。無論如何選擇，我們兩個部門都有需 要衷誠合作，其中一個主要的原因是我們不少 人都認為CCST和ETC之間，甚至進一步與圖 書館，技術方面都有一定的重疊{????}驉C三個部 門固然各自有清楚界定的功能，但其中涉及的 共通技術則難以一一劃分。令人振奮的是，我 預見我們可以摒棄門戶之見，和衷共濟地解決 問題。這樣，將使我們在科大所作的一切更難 能可貴。 班克禮博士 教學科技中心(ETC)主任 〔朱少冰譯〕