www.csua.berkeley.edu/computing/hardware/soda-mark-i.html
As discussions progressed, Hans managed to convince Apollo to donate 20 machines to create a new computing facility open to all students to replace the old Undergraduate Computing Facility.
Open Computing Facility, to manage the new cluster, but convinced Apollo to throw in an extra machine as well for the CSUA. The proposal for the seperate CSUA Apollo workstation called for the machine to serve 3 main purposes: * to be the "CSUA community machine" - storehouse of CSUA records, and a sort of online computer community center * to allow the CSUA to offer help and one-on-one "tutorial" sessions in their office * to serve as the prime development machine for CSUA member projects, including system development, the GNU project, and self-designed hardware to be interfaced to the machine (examples given were robotic arms, music synthesizers, and a small mobile robot) The first of these purposes has become the primary focus of all of the incarnations of Soda since this time. edu on June 20, 1989 in honor of the soon-to-be-built'' Computer Science Building. Despite the quirky OS (a Multics derivative written in Pascal with BSD 43 and SysVR3 compatibility layers on top), Soda Mark I served the CSUA well until it's mysterious demise in Spring 1992 when someone reattaching the tape drive forgot to connect the grounding cable properly and left it hanging loose, where it soon found it's way to the motherboard, causing a really nasty short circuit.
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