Computers for Polytechnic

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 28

Computers for Polytechnic

Mr Malcolm Fry (left), South Island manager for Microprocessor Development, Ltd, and Mr Derham McAven, manager of the computing resource centre at Christchurch Polytechnic, with a suite of 12 BMC 800 microcomputers installed at the Polytechnic. Christchurch Polytechnic has just confirmed an order with MDL for another 12 BMC 800 s, worth $40,000, which will be installed in the secretarial studies department to complement an

existing suite of Televideb microcomputers. The first set of BMC 800 s are installed in the Polytechnic’s new premises in the old National Bank building in Ferry Road. They are not used for regular scheduled classes, but are instead are reserved for seminars, special classes and for the one-off training requested by local companies. This year the BMC 800 s were used in the Polytechnic’s summer school pro-

gramme. They are due to be used soon for a class in the C language, a series of seminars on software packages, the “Microcomputers for Small Business” seminars and a pilot series of courses for pre-appren-tice classes aimed at introducing computers The new BMC 800 s, due to arrive at the beginning of April, will be used in the secretarial studies courses on data entry, microcomputer operating and word processing. Some of

these courses are now scheduled in the week-ends by the Polytechnic to suit students’ schedules.

Part of the funding for the new microcomputers came from grants made to the Polytechnic to help it run classes for the Y.P.T.P. and S.T.E.P.S. programmes. The suites of microcomputers are networked to a central microcomputer, which controls a hard disc drive and a printer. Each BMC 800 also has its own printer.