A REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF EXPENDITURES
In this chapter we present a review and an analysis of total
expenditures for on-line computing in a large number of laboratories
supported by the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Science
Foundation through 1968. (Appendix B gives the background for this
economic survey.)
A. THE NATURE OF THE DATA
Laboratory directors were requested to supply a separate report
covering each data-acquisition system currently in use or under
construction and, in addition, to supply an estimate of anticipated
future requirements for the period 1970-1974. The high-energy field
was excluded. Information was also requested on process-control
applications, e.g., systems to control accelerator operation or to
monitor progress and to execute control functions during the course
of an experiment. In every case details were to be supplied regarding
the nature and capability of the system and its cost in dollars and
manpower during the design, construction, and operation phases.
In all, 46 different systems were reported by 22 different
institutions (listed in Appendix B). Berkeley, Brookhaven, and Oak
Ridge together reported 21. The various systems range in total cost
(including manpower) from about $40,000 to about $1,000,000. Most are
in operation, but a few are under construction, and a few others are
in the advanced proposal or design stage. Plans for 16 substantial
expansions and proposed expansions of existing systems were also
reported. There was a wide range of thoroughness of compliance with
the request; for example, cost estimates ranged from the most
meticulous analyses down to one case where no cost information
whatever was supplied. In assessing the reliability and completeness
of the data the reviewer concluded that in general the costs of
manufactured hardware items such as central processors (CPU's), line
printers, card readers, rotating memory devices, etc. should be
regarded as reasonably accurate, while estimates of the amount of
manpower used, and its cost, seemed much less reliable; in fact, the
manpower item was frequently not covered, especially in connection
with the preparation of systems software. Whenever a report was more
or less complete, and there seemed to be a reasonable good basis for
doing so, the reviewer estimated appropriate values for missing items
by making use of figures given in more complete reports on similar
systems constructed or operated under similar circumstances.
[Illustration: FIGURE 12 Breakdown of system for analysis.]
With regard to labor costs, government laboratory people seem to be
in a much better position to supply figures than are university
people. The reviewer got the impression that the university
respondents have, on the average, a much less clear idea of the
dollar value of people's time and a much less clear idea of how to
estimate realistically the man-hours consumed by various projects.
B. BREAKDOWN OF DATA FOR ANALYSIS
Because of the nature of the data the reviewer separated each system
into three parts for the purpose of analysis: (1) the data-acquisition
central processor (CPU); (2) the standard computer input-output (I/O)
devices such as magnetic tapes, disks, card readers, printers; (3)
the complete data-acquisition subsystem (DAS). (See Figure 12.) This
breakdown has the advantage that the costs of the first two parts
of the system are usually fairly accurately known. The cost of the
DAS includes the price of all manufactured units closely involved in
its assembly, including scalers, ADC's, pulse-height analyzers, and
the like (but not detection equipment), together with the expenses
associated with all special construction, including engineering,
fabrication, and parts. All engineering and fabrication costs
associated with the entire system can logically be charged against the
DAS, because the CPU and I/O parts, being assembled from standard
manufactured items, generally are installed by the manufacturer without
much effort or expense on the part of the laboratory personnel.
Questions occasionally arose in connection with the assignment of the
cost of interfacing the DAS to the CPU. Such costs were assigned to the
DAS when the units involved were of a custom-built nature and to the
CPU when they were manufacturer's items incorporated in the computer
frame. The very wide range of types of data-acquisition equipment
in use necessarily contributes to the spread in DAS costs. Although
a number of items of uncertain costs are lumped together in this
definition of the DAS, the procedure adopted is believed to have led to
a valuable overall picture of the pattern of expenditures.
TABLE 8 Types of Computers Used in the Systems Reported
-------------------------------------------------------
Type Number
-------------------------------------------------------
ASI 210 1
ASI 2100 2 (3)
CDC 160A 2
CDC 3100 1 (3)
DDP 116 1
DDP 124 1 (2)
EMR 6050 1
EMR 6130 1 (2)
IBM 1800 2
IBM 360/44 2
IBM 7094 1 (5)
PDP-4 2
PDP-5 1
PDP-6 1
PDP-7, 7A 6
PDP-8, 8I 8 (24)
PDP-9 6
SCC 660 1 (1)
SDS SIGMA 2 1
SDS SIGMA 5 1
SDS SIGMA 7 2
SDS 910 1 (8)
SDS 920 1
SDS 925 1
SDS 930 1
SEL 810B 2
SEL 840A 1 (3)
Varian 620I 2 (2)
---
TOTAL 53
-------------------------------------------------------
A fourth item of importance in the analysis is the cost of system
software programming. This is almost entirely a manpower item,
assuming that program testing and debugging can be carried out
without charge for the computer time involved. Here there is
considerable uncertainty in the estimates, especially with respect to
university installations as well as systems which have been in
operation for a long time, e.g., the large system at Argonne.
The total cost of a system is taken to be the sum of the four items
listed above, namely, the CPU, the standard I/O system, the DAS, and
the system software expenditures. In all likelihood the total costs
tend to be too small rather than too large because of incomplete
assignments of charges of various sorts, especially manpower. In many
cases the totals seem reliable to 10 or 20 percent, while in a few
others an error of 30 or even 40 percent would not be surprising.
C. TYPES OF COMPUTERS
Table 8 gives a listing of the 27 different types of computers
incorporated in the systems reported, together with the number of
units of each type mentioned. Of the 27 types, 24 are machines
designed with this general sort of application in mind; the
exceptional three are the CDC 160A, the CDC 3100, and the IBM 7094.
Evidently, the PDP machines are the most popular (24 units), followed
by SDS types (8 units), and IBM types (5 units).
D. SOME TOTAL COSTS
Of the 46 system reports, 35 were sufficiently complete to be useful
in a detailed analysis. A histogram showing the distribution of these
in total cost is given in Figure 13. One immediately sees that few
systems cost less than $100,000; in fact only four were reported in
this range. However, it must be pointed out that information was
solicited regarding only those systems which had cost approximately
$50,000 or more. The most common range is $100,000 to $200,000, with
12 examples. The total cost of the system at the Yale Van de Graaff
laboratory was not known when the histogram was prepared, but the
hardware is reported to cost about $750,000 to duplicate and about
$655,000 to copy, so if allowance is made for the cost of developing
the software and for other manpower uses the cost would rise
substantially. (This system is not one of the 35. The conditions
under which the Yale-IBM development are being carried out are so
special that manpower costs cannot be assigned on the basis used in
other cases. See Chapter 2, Section E.)
[Illustration: FIGURE 13 Histogram showing the distribution of 35
data-acquisition systems in total cost.]
A breakdown of total costs for the 35 systems is given in Table 9,
showing separately the total amounts involved in each of the four
categories defined above. Evidently, about 60 percent of the cost
goes for standard computer hardware, while about 40 percent goes for
special hardware and software required for data acquisition. Table 10
shows separately the hardware and labor costs in the DAS item.
Evidently, hardware is twice as expensive as labor in this case, on
the average.
TABLE 9 Summary from 35 "Complete" Reports
----------------------------------------------------------
Percentage
Subsystem Cost of Total
----------------------------------------------------------
CPU's with memory
and TTY $ 3,933,000 38.5
Standard peripherals 2,293,000 22.4
Data-acquisition
subsystem 3,038,000 30.0
Systems software 931,000 9.1
----------- -----
TOTAL $10,195,000 100.0
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TABLE 10 Data-Acquisition Subsystem
----------------------------------------------------------
Hardware $2,022,000
Labor 1,016,000
----------
TOTAL $3,038,000
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[Illustration: FIGURE 14 Cost of standard peripheral equipment
plotted against central processor costs for 36 systems.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 15 Cost of data-acquisition subsystem plotted
against central processor costs for 36 systems.]
E. BREAKDOWN OF COSTS BY SYSTEMS
In Figure 14 the cost of the standard I/O equipment is shown plotted
against the cost of the CPU for 36 different systems. The high point
labeled "T" represents a system having many high-speed magnetic tape
drives. The low point labeled "R" represents the Rochester system,
which must be considered unbalanced, because its only "standard" I/O
equipment is four Dectapes, which should, perhaps, have been defined
as CPU items, since they cannot be used for communication with most
computing centers. If a line printer and two IBM-compatible tape
units were added, the Rochester point would have to be raised at
least as high as the position R'. The straight line shown in Figure
14 was drawn with a slope of one half. It may perhaps be taken to
represent a rough statistical reflection of the collective experience
accumulated over the past six years or so regarding the relative
costs of I/O and CPU equipment. In Figure 15 DAS costs are plotted
against CPU costs for the same 36 systems. Here the spread of the
points is worse than in the previous case, as expected for the
reasons mentioned earlier. The exceptionally high point labeled "PHA"
represents a system with three large pulse-height analyzers, two of
them 20,000-channel units, in the DAS. The straight line shown has
the equation _y_ = 8.0 + 0.7_x_. The overall DAS cost is 77 percent
of the total CPU cost.
F. ROTATING MEMORY DEVICES
One magnetic drum unit and 11 disks were reported to be in service
(in eight different laboratories). Plans were reported for the
installation of six more disk units and one drum (in five different
laboratories). Recognition of the importance of rotating memory
devices in display applications is evident in the reports.
G. SYSTEMS ON-LINE WITH COMPUTING CENTERS
Two systems were clearly stated to be in successful on-line operation
with external computing centers. (At least one more example, at the
University of Manitoba, is known: there a PDP-9 system is linked to
an IBM 360/65.)
There are plans in various stages of development to connect nine
different data-acquisition systems on-line with computing center
machines, in most cases to operate on a delayed-access basis.
H. ANTICIPATED FUTURE EXPENDITURES
In cases where updating or enlarging of existing systems was said to
be in progress, the costs reported were usually assigned by the
reviewer to the present system, especially when money for the
expansion seemed already available or very likely to become
available. In many cases plans were in a less advanced state, but a
fairly definite idea of the amount of money to be requested for
expansion or for completely new systems was expressed. Table 11
summarizes these anticipated costs.
TABLE 11 Anticipated Future Expenditures
------------------------------------------
For expansion of systems $3,280,000
For additional systems 1,455,000
----------
TOTAL $4,735,000
------------------------------------------
I. INVESTMENT IN ACCELERATORS, COMPUTER SYSTEMS, AND LABORATORY
BUDGETS
C. V. Smith and George Rogosa have kindly made available approximate
AEC budget figures for nine typical university laboratories chosen
from those which had returned information in response to Dr.
McDaniels' request. (The laboratories are Colorado, Kansas, Maryland,
Minnesota, Texas, Wisconsin, Washington, Yale Linac, and Yale Van de
Graaff.) After adding similar information for Rochester, it was
possible to get a rough idea of the relative capital investments in
accelerators and in computer systems and to compare those figures
with the annual operating budgets (for 1969).
total annual budget
------------------------ = 0.33
cost of bare accelerator
total computer cost 0.22 ± 0.06 by averaging
------------------------ = 0.23 -> separate ratios for each
cost of bare accelerator system
total computer cost
------------------------ = 0.70
total annual budget
If the ratio of the total computer cost to the annual budget is
calculated for each of the ten cases, and then the results are
averaged, one gets 0.6 ± 0.3. If one quite unusual set of data (from
a laboratory with a small AEC budget) is eliminated the last result
becomes 0.56 ± 0.21, while the earlier results remain essentially
unaltered. For the same nine examples we find that the average of the
ratios of total computer system costs to bare accelerator costs is
0.22 ± 0.062, thus this ratio is significantly more consistent. It is
emphasized that the results given in this paragraph refer only to
experience at universities.
J. PROCESS-CONTROL APPLICATION
Tables 12 and 13 give a summary of present and anticipated
process-control applications disclosed by the survey.
TABLE 12 Current Process-Control Applications
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Laboratory Systems
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ANL Van de Graaff accelerator; large
scattering chamber setup; x-ray and
neutron diffractometers; automatic
plate scanner
BNL Neutron spectrometers; x-ray and neutron
spectrometers, nine in all
Michigan State Cyclotron shim coils
ORNL Slow neutron time-of-flight to measure
capture and fission cross sections
Yale Electron linac and beam optics; experiments
with the linac
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TABLE 13 Future Process-Control Applications
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Laboratory Systems
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Michigan State Control of entire accelerator system
Minnesota Tandem Van de Graaff accelerator and
beam transport system
Stanford Nuclear reaction experiments
UCLA Limited control of cyclotron
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