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News from ICTP 99 - Features - Microprocessing
This year marks the 20th anniversary of ICTP's microprocessor training activities. Much has changed over the years, yet the ultimate goals have stayed remarkably the same.
Microprocessing at ICTP:
Twenty Years Young
When Ang Chu Suan, a lecturer
at this year's ICTP Workshop on Distributed Laboratory Instrumentation
Systems, stepped up to the podium for his presentation, he glanced
down at his computer, pressed four or five keys and then watched
with others as the overhead screen displayed the current room
temperature in his office in Malaysia, some 10,000 kilometers
away. A toasty 34°C, thank you.
"It's easy," Ang says. "My laptop computer here
in Trieste is connected via the internet to my desktop computer
in Malaysia. My computer in Malaysia, in turn, is equipped with
an embedded microprocessor system that receives data from the
thermometer. The data is relayed to my computer in Malaysia, which
sends the information back to Trieste. All I do is turn on the
switch and call up the information through a web-browser."
This year marks the 20th anniversary of ICTP's microprocessor
training courses. Ang's modest, flip-of-the-fingers, demonstration
conveys the dramatic changes that have unfolded in the field over
the past two decades. Catharinus Verkerk, a retired staff scientist
from CERN (the European Laboratory for Particle Physics), who
was given the task of organising and directing the first college
in 1981 and has remained in that capacity ever since (in what
he clearly considers a labour of love), recalls the early years.
"In 1981," says Verkerk, "computers were just beginning
to take hold. ICTP didn't even have one. In the meantime, microprocessors
had been around for just six or seven years and no one was quite
sure where they would lead. In fact, the idea for the training
course began with an off-the-cuff remark by Abdus Salam to Luciano
Bertocchi, who was then head of training courses and scientific
personnel at ICTP. (In 1983, Bertocchi would be appointed ICTP's
deputy director).
"These new microprocessors," Salam said, "seem
like interesting gadgets. Maybe ICTP should do something with
them." Bertocchi quickly relayed Salam's sentiments to Paolo
Zanella, director of CERN's Data Handling Division.
Salam's remark--and Zanella's enthusiastic response--led to the
organisation of the first College on Microprocessors: Technology
and Applications in Physics, held in early September 1981.
Getting ready for this initial activity proved an unforgettable
experience that Verkerk vividly recalls as if it had happened
just yesterday. "My colleagues at CERN, including Wolfgang
Von Rüden, Sandro Marchioro and Ian Barnet, spent endless
hours over a three-month period both to build the necessary hardware
and software and to prepare the training material. Once these
tasks were completed, we packed a van to carry the boards, terminals,
cables, connectors and tools from Geneva, Switzerland, where the
headquarters of CERN is located, to Trieste--a 15-hour journey."
"Upon our arrival, we had to unload and assemble everything.
The training course in the first year was held in the basement
of the Galileo Guesthouse, which was almost but not quite finished.
Participants were housed in off-campus rooms and apartments scattered
in and around Trieste."
Despite the logistical difficulties, the first college proved
a success. Some 400 researchers from the developing world submitted
applications. About 120 candidates were accepted, with 20 showing
up the first day of the college without having officially notified
the organisers. The laboratory was filled beyond capacity. In
fact, laboratory sessions took place in three two-hour shifts,
beginning at 2 in the afternoon and lasting until 8 in the evening.
"We immediately knew that we had launched an activity that
would continue in the future," says Verkerk. "There
was just too much interest and excitement for this to be a one-time
event. So plans for the next college began even before the conclusion
of the first college."
Indeed the expansion of microprocessor activities at ICTP unfolded
rapidly during the early 1980s.
- In 1983, the second college was held in Trieste.
- In 1984, the microprocessor college was organised for the first
time outside Trieste in Colombo, Sri Lanka, establishing an administrative
framework that has resulted in colleges being held both in Trieste
and in developing countries. Over the past 15 years, colleges
have taken place in Bogota, Colombia (1985); Hefei, China (1986);
San Luis, Argentina (1988); Cape Coast, Ghana (1995); Hanoi, Viet
Nam (1998); and Dakar, Senegal (1999).
- In 1985, ICTP opened a microprocessing laboratory, under the
direction of Alberto Colavita, an Argentinean physicist who had
participated in the second college. The laboratory is designed
in part to provide technical assistance to college participants
and in part to pursue independent research projects. Under Colavita's
direction, ICTP's Microprocessor Laboratory has developed partnerships
with the United Nations University (UNU), CERN and the Italian
National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN).
- In 1985, the United Nations University (UNU) also agreed to
provide funding principally for colleges held in developing countries.
The partnership with UNU would continue for some 15 years.
Catharinus Verkerk and Abhaya Induruwa
"ICTP's microprocessing activities," explains Abhaya
Induruwa, a computer engineering professor at the University of
Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, who has co-directed the colleges with Verkerk
since 1994, "have experienced three major shifts in focus
over the past 20 years."
"First, from 1981 to 1994, participants worked with 'one-of-a-kind'
microprocessor development systems that were essentially built
to conform to our unique work environment. Building these systems
was both fun and a learning experience but their utility was restricted
to the Trieste campus."
"Second, the introduction of the free-of-charge Linux operating
system at our 1994 college marked a giant step forward in our
ultimate goal: to provide a practical means for the transfer of
knowledge and skills through a common cost-free computer operating
system that could be accessed on computers not just in Trieste
but in countries throughout the developing world. In brief, course
participants could now take their acquired knowledge and skills
home--and, more importantly, apply what they learned to solving
local and regional problems."
"Third," Induruwa notes, "this year we have changed
'course' again by fully recognising the enormous growth--and even
more importantly, the enormous potential--of the internet. Our
newly revised training workshop, presented for the first time
this year, is essentially designed to teach participants how to
control instruments distributed over the internet by using web-based
technology."
Regardless of the changes in format that have taken place over
the years, the courses have remained tightly focussed on the same
goal: to help those involved in data acquisition, experimentation
and equipment-control to take advantage of microprocessors to
improve the efficiency and accuracy of what they do.
"While the majority of participants are researchers in universities,"
notes Induruwa, "our colleges have also attracted staff and
technicians working in medical institutions and industrial firms.
In addition, the participant list has become increasingly multidisciplinary.
This year's list, for example, includes physicists, mathematicians,
biologists and agriculturalists from 37 different countries."
"Our lecturers," Verkerk adds, "have also become
more diverse. When we began, the entire group consisted of scientist
from Europe. The 2001 workshop, in contrast, involves 11 lecturers
from 11 countries, including Chile, Malaysia, Nigeria, and Ukraine.
Each year, ICTP's microprocessor training activities chooses 60
individuals from the developing world (usually from an applicant
pool that exceeds 250). That means some 1200 scientists in total,
virtually all from the developing world, have participated in
these activities over the past 20 years.
Keeping pace with the rapid development of microprocessor technology
has been a major challenge for scientists and technicians from
around the globe--a challenge most acutely experienced in the
developing world. As part of its larger mandate, ICTP has tried
to meet this challenge by providing the most up-to-date microprocessor
training activities and computer facilities that it possibly can.
The effort has not only helped boost the use of microprocessors
in countries throughout the South but also has played a major
role in changing the face of ICTP. Participants today have access
to the Centre's newest addition: the Informatics Laboratory in
the lower level of the Adriatico Guesthouse, home to some 50 state-of-the-art
workstations. These workstations can be easily attached to embedded
microprocessor systems that can provide, among other things, real-time
recordings of room temperatures in an office in Malaysia.
Abdus Salam's intuition was right: these gadgets do have the potential
to do some interesting things.