About UPSCALE

The Department of Physics has been providing computational services to our undergraduates since the 1970's. Originally running the APL language on University mainframes, we converted to the C language on our own central UNIX computer in 1984; this was the first UNIX computer in the Department of Physics. We began using the X-window system in 1990.

In 1996 we started using the web to deliver materials in support of our educational program. At that time we also committed UPSCALE to developing the capability of delivering all instructional material in web form: this intention is now nearly realised.

Dancing penguin UPSCALE's main server segued to GNU/Linux from UNIX in early 1999.

Virtually every year for the past twenty, usage of computation as an integral part of our undergraduate educational program has grown, as has the usage of this technology by our students.

Here we provide information on:

The hardware of the facility.
An overview of the software.
The level of service provided to students.

In addition, from time to time UPSCALE staff disseminate information about what we have discovered about using computational technology in undergraduate education. Access to some of this information may be found here.

This page was last revised (m/d/y) on 05/08/05