Development of analog/hybrid terminals for teaching system dynamics

A recent study completed by the School of Engineering at North Carolina State University brought to light a very serious weakness in our program to employ computers in the engineering curricula, i.e., the inherent limitation on student/computer interaction with our batch, multiprogrammed digital system. The primary digital system available to students and faculty is the IBM SYSTEM 360/Model 75 located at the Triangle Universities Computation Center in the Research Triangle area. This facility is shared with Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition, the Engineering School operates a small educational hybrid facility consisting of an IBM 1130 interfaced to an EAI TR48 analog computer. We use some conversational mode terminals on the digital system but it has been our experience that they are of limited value in the classroom and, of course, only accommodate on the order of two students per hour.