Thread: Poll: you and computers

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Bob,
Sorry I missed the poll somehow. I was a slide rule guy back in the early 1960s and was hooked on computers by being spoiled with access to an IBM 7090 in 1963 which was the supercomputer of the day. It inflamed my mind to realize what the computer could do compared to tedious slide rule operations. Perhaps Quantum Chemists use as much computer time or more as the obvious Physics researchers. There are groups of Chemists who have developed programs to compute just about everything about compounds and their reactions and the main limitation is that we can never get enough computer time. I spent 35 years as a Quantum Chemist and still teach part time. I have built my own PC cluster of four duocore PCs in parallel and found the parts are amazingly standardized to the point that I constructed the entire cluster using only a single cross-point (Philips head) screwdriver! I have been busy since last November working on a textbook in which I use my own computer program designed for student use on PCs and I have justifably neglected my car through a long cold winter but need to finish the book by September in time to put a few months of work on the car in the mid-temperatures of the Fall. At present we have at home seven PCs, four of which are in my cluster but I am retired and no longer use the university computers of my former employer. I have used large parallel clusters and supercomputers in my former research on molecules.

Best Wishes,
Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder