CLOSING

WDPC closed in June, 1966, at the end of its 10 year contract with IBM. Those UCLA campus users who had migrated from SWAC to WPDC once again migrated to another computer center on campus. Those with ties to health sciences migrated to the Health Sciences Computer Center (HSCF) under its Director, Professor Wilfred Dixon. All others migrated to the Campus Computing Facility (CCF) under its Director, Professor C. B.Tompkins.

Faculty and students at GSM fell into the latter category. They were to use the computing facilties at CCF which became later the Campus Computing Network (CCN) unitl the early 1980s. This use is briefly documented under the heading, The Middle Years, on the home page.

My Evaluation

Was WDPC successful? My judgment then was an unqualified YES. That judgment is reinforced by this historical review so that it is still an unqualified YES.

It was certainly a success for IBM because faculty and students at over 100 schools in the Western United States were introduced to IBM computers. It was a success for those 100 Participating Institutions because it introduced electronic computers to their campuses and gave them a period of time to gear up for establishing their own computer centers. It was a success for UCLA because it gave faculty already using SWAC the opportunity to move to a larger computing facility on their way ultimately to HSCF or CCF. It was a success for the management school not only for the computing services it provided but, perhaps more important, it gave Dean Neil H. Jacoby the opportunity to argue successfully for a new and separate building facility and library, and a Ford Foundation Grant that established the Western Management Science Institute.

When I ponder the reasons why WDPC was succcessful, I come to believe that it was primarily because of the culture that the first Director, Professor George W. Brown, established for the Center. It was a culture of service to the User. No matter how unwieldy were those packets and boxes of punch cards and continous rolls of striped paper, jobs got done. Data were processed and output returned. The introduction of teleprocesssing and remote terminals, although advancing computer technology, was also motivated by providing better service to users at the geographically dispersed Participating Institutions and at remote sites on campus. I leave it to Emeritus Professor Brown to refute my claim that he was the one most responsible for a successul ten year partnership between a major public University and a major US Corporation.

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