The computer lab in Graham Hall has been experiencing problems recently in its system due to the addition of networking at the latter part of the summer. However, efforts are being made to ensure the NIU computers will be ready for the NIU computer open house to be held this Friday.

Brad Coxhead, scientific programmer in Graham Hall, said, “The major problem is finding out what the problems are and then trying to compensate for them.

“All of the new problems are finding the problem, troubleshooting the problem, and then teaching my staff how to fix it. All of the problems are unique.”

The problem experienced this week was in the account file and logging on with the identification, or trying to get the computer to connect to the main system. He said there were bugs in the new system.

Coxhead said, “The PC ID work stations connect all in Graham Hall to one big software in a large machine.

This allows for faster allocation of files, better security, and the use of one diskette to access the tutorial makes it easier for students to access.”

Presently, networking is being considered for the personal computers in the residence halls. Coxhead said, “A small one (computer lab) exists in Stevenson, and a really nice one is in Douglas Hall.”

The NIU English department uses the personal computer work stations in Graham Hall, room 136. Classes also use the computer labs in Douglas. There are 36 IBM personal computers in Graham Hall, about 12 Zenith XTS and 25 AT&Ts.

Coxhead said, “I have two graduate assistants on my staff, two students and one full-time employee to monitor any problem that comes up after this.”

The computer labs will be part of a computer open house on Sept. 9 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Stevens Annex Computing Lab.

Phil Rider, of the Computer Information Center and User Service, said that although the open house is available to undergraduates, it might be of more interest to faculty, staff and graduate students.

At the open house, demonstrations of various word processing systems such as Wordstar, Wordperfect and Pagemaker will take place.

Other demonstrations include moving files between the microcomputers and the mainframe.

Computers will be set up to show Database and spreadsheets.

In addition to these demonstrations, there will be an example of supercomputing, which involves a much larger computer with greater memory capacity and more storage space.