ECN History: Historical Grants/Financial Contributions

Gould Computer Company

According to a report by George Goble in 1987, "Purdue was chosen as a test site [for Gould] due to our reputation for pushing computers to the limit and beyond; some say, we push our computers the hardest of any facility in the world."

Gould donated a Gould PN90/80 with the intention of having Purdue test how it would function in a large student environment. Through this testing process, ECN and Gould developed an excellent working relationship. ECN found several problems and bugs in the operating system and worked closely with Gould to design system corrections. The machine turned into a very effective piece of equipment and suited Purdue Engineering's needs nicely. This led to ECN purchasing several more Gould computers for the schools of engineering at a discounted price, which made a significant impact on the computing environment of the schools in terms of total computing power available. Later, ECN upgraded to Gould NP1's, also at a discount.

Sun Microsystems

After the Gould systems had been in place for several years, Sun Microsystems donated three Sun 3 workstations that allowed ECN to get started evaluating the Sun environment. This may have seemed like a relatively small grant at the time, but it made a big impact. Because of Sun's generosity, ECN quickly found funds through the school of Electrical Engineering and other engineering schools to purchase large numbers of Sun products in the early days of the Sun movement. From the time ECN received the initial grant from Sun until the present, Sun has provided discounts and ECN enjoys a good working relationship with Sun.

Intel

Professor W. Kent Fuchs, head of Electrical and Computer Engineering worked with Intel to procure a total of approximately $6.2 million dollars worth of hardware and software for all of Purdue's campus computing in 1997. The Intel grant infused a large number of Intel and Microsoft windows workstations into engineering. This grant was a turning point for ECN because prior to Intel's influence, ECN supported only UNIX operating systems. ECN began supporting Microsoft products, and added an additional staff person to help set up and maintain the new equipment. To view a news article from Purdue News on the subject visit Intel Corp. Awards $6 Million to Purdue, August 18, 1997.