The Communications Computer Hardware of the MERIT Computer Network

Three Michigan universities are currently working on a project to evolve a network that will link their educational and research computing centers. This project requires the concurrent development of several interrelated technical activities, the most important of which are the network´s specialized hardware, software for the network´s communications computers, and support software for each of the host computers. The specific topic of this paper is the network´s unique hardware configuration, its general design, and the rationale behind its particular specifications. Also included are descriptions of special interfaces developed for the system´s synchronous data sets, and the IBM system 360 and Control Data 6000 series computers.