Re: delta early days

[Alan Flippen <flippen@nytimes.com>]

At 01:22 PM 4/29/98 -0400, Ron Minnich wrote:

>it changed a lot when it went to willard. I never really was happy with
>the change. in EE there were two goals as I saw it: get computing to the
>schools, and for those who ran it, get them up to speed as
>computer/electrical engineering students. The production of quality folks
>from the latter program was quite amazing.

Agreed, and you can add me to the list of folks who believe it was better at
DuPont Hall, even though I only had a brief exposure to it there (one summer).

I've always assumed that the change was basically a question of funding:
that after the DSAA money ran out, DELTA was supported somehow by funding
connected with the thesis research that Dan Grim and his group did using the
DELTA machine. Perhaps Dan or someone can shed light on this point? (This
is, of course, in addition to the fees the high schools paid.) After that
was over, it fell into the hands of the College of Education and got pushed
in the direction of applications development because that was where the
money was. (And just think about the bidding advantages that DELTA, with its
free-or-cheap high school student labor force, must have had over commercial
software providers.)

And while the Willard Hall years also produced their share of sharp software
people, including many of the regular contributors to this list, I somehow
suspect they -- we -- had less fun than those who came before us ...

Cheers,
Alan