With regard to labor costs, government laboratory people seem to be in a much better position to supply figures than are university people. The reviewer got the impression that the university respondents have, on the average, a much less clear idea of the dollar value of people's time and a much less clear idea of how to estimate realistically the man-hours consumed by various projects.
B. BREAKDOWN OF DATA FOR ANALYSIS
Because of the nature of the data the reviewer separated each system into three parts for the purpose of analysis: (1) the data-acquisition central processor (CPU); (2) the standard computer input-output (I/O) devices such as magnetic tapes, disks, card readers, printers; (3) the complete data-acquisition subsystem (DAS). ([See Figure 12.]) This breakdown has the advantage that the costs of the first two parts of the system are usually fairly accurately known. The cost of the DAS includes the price of all manufactured units closely involved in its assembly, including scalers, ADC's, pulse-height analyzers, and the like (but not detection equipment), together with the expenses associated with all special construction, including engineering, fabrication, and parts. All engineering and fabrication costs associated with the entire system can logically be charged against the DAS, because the CPU and I/O parts, being assembled from standard manufactured items, generally are installed by the manufacturer without much effort or expense on the part of the laboratory personnel. Questions occasionally arose in connection with the assignment of the cost of interfacing the DAS to the CPU. Such costs were assigned to the DAS when the units involved were of a custom-built nature and to the CPU when they were manufacturer's items incorporated in the computer frame. The very wide range of types of data-acquisition equipment in use necessarily contributes to the spread in DAS costs. Although a number of items of uncertain costs are lumped together in this definition of the DAS, the procedure adopted is believed to have led to a valuable overall picture of the pattern of expenditures.
| TABLE 8 Types of Computers Used in the Systems Reported | ||
| Type | Number | |
| ASI 210 | 1 | |
| ASI 2100 | 2 | (3) |
| CDC 160A | 2 | |
| CDC 3100 | 1 | (3) |
| DDP 116 | 1 | |
| DDP 124 | 1 | (2) |
| EMR 6050 | 1 | |
| EMR 6130 | 1 | (2) |
| IBM 1800 | 2 | |
| IBM 360/44 | 2 | |
| IBM 7094 | 1 | (5) |
| PDP-4 | 2 | |
| PDP-5 | 1 | |
| PDP-6 | 1 | |
| PDP-7, 7A | 6 | |
| PDP-8, 8I | 8 | (24) |
| PDP-9 | 6 | |
| SCC 660 | 1 | (1) |
| SDS SIGMA 2 | 1 | |
| SDS SIGMA 5 | 1 | |
| SDS SIGMA 7 | 2 | |
| SDS 910 | 1 | (8) |
| SDS 920 | 1 | |
| SDS 925 | 1 | |
| SDS 930 | 1 | |
| SEL 810B | 2 | |
| SEL 840A | 1 | (3) |
| Varian 620I | 2 | (2) |
| TOTAL | 53 | |
A fourth item of importance in the analysis is the cost of system software programming. This is almost entirely a manpower item, assuming that program testing and debugging can be carried out without charge for the computer time involved. Here there is considerable uncertainty in the estimates, especially with respect to university installations as well as systems which have been in operation for a long time, e.g., the large system at Argonne.
The total cost of a system is taken to be the sum of the four items listed above, namely, the CPU, the standard I/O system, the DAS, and the system software expenditures. In all likelihood the total costs tend to be too small rather than too large because of incomplete assignments of charges of various sorts, especially manpower. In many cases the totals seem reliable to 10 or 20 percent, while in a few others an error of 30 or even 40 percent would not be surprising.
C. TYPES OF COMPUTERS
Table 8 gives a listing of the 27 different types of computers incorporated in the systems reported, together with the number of units of each type mentioned. Of the 27 types, 24 are machines designed with this general sort of application in mind; the exceptional three are the CDC 160A, the CDC 3100, and the IBM 7094. Evidently, the PDP machines are the most popular (24 units), followed by SDS types (8 units), and IBM types (5 units).
D. SOME TOTAL COSTS
Of the 46 system reports, 35 were sufficiently complete to be useful in a detailed analysis. A histogram showing the distribution of these in total cost is given in Figure 13. One immediately sees that few systems cost less than $100,000; in fact only four were reported in this range. However, it must be pointed out that information was solicited regarding only those systems which had cost approximately $50,000 or more. The most common range is $100,000 to $200,000, with 12 examples. The total cost of the system at the Yale Van de Graaff laboratory was not known when the histogram was prepared, but the hardware is reported to cost about $750,000 to duplicate and about $655,000 to copy, so if allowance is made for the cost of developing the software and for other manpower uses the cost would rise substantially. (This system is not one of the 35. The conditions under which the Yale-IBM development are being carried out are so special that manpower costs cannot be assigned on the basis used in other cases. [Chapter 2, Section E.])