1 Introduction

The generic academic person uses the computer for the following three purposes:

Computing

Under this heading we can consider all numerical and symbolic computation, engineering design and preparation of application software for specialised purposes (expert systems). Such use has traditionally been the focal point for computer centres set up at various Reasearch Institutes and Institutes of higher learning.

Word Processing

This encompasses the use of the computer to present the one's research in print whether in the form of articles or books (desk top publishing). The invasion of personal computers during the 1980's led to a shift of work from the publisher's desk to the reasearch worker's desk. This allows the research worker greater control over the final appearance of a presentation.

Communication

With the arrival of high speed data channels during the late 1980's and early 1990's communication with other computer systems and via them with other research workers elsewhere in the country and the world became possible. Thus electronic mail and other communication services have become vital tools of research and are also used for dissemination of results.

Naturally, the computing equipment (hardware and software) used for the different purposes should have some compatibilities so that it should be convenient to, for example, incorporate some data created while computing into a graph that can be incorporated into text and this combined presentation should be in a form that can be sent via the computer communication channels to colleagues elsewhere for critical review.

The kind of computer equipment under use can be divided under the following headings: (i) Hardware and Operating system (ii) Compilers (iii) Graphics (iv) Databases (v) Editing (vi) Type setting (vii) Mail (viii) Network usage (ix) Specialised systems. We will discuss the options open for academic insitutions to substantially reduce the cost of computing equipment without losing (and in fact occasionally gaining) in terms of performance, under the above framework.