The computer in education

There are to date some 180 computers installed or on order for university and technical college use — excluding the small digital machines, the analogues, and the hybrids. Some are first‐generation machines, ten or 11 years old, valve‐operated, expensive to maintain, and mainly of historical interest. More are newer, second or third generation digital machines made possible by the development in the early '60s of the transistor and micro‐miniaturization. They vary both in power and cost, according to the installation and its purpose. At between £30 000 and £2 million, they are not cheap.