Many researchers or research groups in our department own their own computer facilities. Here are some of them.
There are many multi-user computers in addition to the departmental RS6000s. The following are just a few examples. The Pocanic group has two DEC Alpha computers running OSF/1 and several PCs running Linux. The Institute for Nuclear and Particle Physics (INPP) owns two DEC VAX workstations running VMS. Rogers Ritter's group owns a Sun 4/110 running SunOS. Ralph Minehart's group has an HP Apollo workstation and several Linux PCs. The Far Infrared Receiver lab has a Sun workstation and an HP Apollo. All of these computers are primarily used for data analysis and data acquisition.
Many people in our department have their own PC or Macintosh on their desk. By installing ethernet cards and a suite of software, we can allow these users access to our departmental file servers, to various departmental printers, and to the internet.
Although not part of our department, the Thornton stacks (a computer lab in Thornton hall, across the street from the physics department), is a useful resource for us. It is a large microcomputer lab, with computers which have capabilities similar to those in our own, much smaller microcomputer lab.