A physics computing bureau

The author first reviews the services offered by the Bureau to the user community scattered over three separate physics departments and a theory research institute. Limited services are offered also to non- physics research in the University, in collaboration with the University Computing Center. The personnel is divided into operations sections responsible for the terminal and data archive management, punching and document services, etc. and into analysts sections with half a dozen full-time scientific programmers recruited among promising graduate level physics students, rather than computer scientists or mathematicians. Analysts are thus able not only to communicate with physicists but also to participate in research to some extent. Only more demanding program development tasks can be handled by the Bureau, most of the routine data processing is the users responsibility.