Operating Experience with the Fermilab 500-GeV Accelerator

The Fermilab accelerator has been operating for more than four years. It has been improved so that it is now capable of operating at an energy of 500 GeV and an intensity in excess of 2.0 ?? 1013 protons per pulse. The accelerator is manned on a 24 hour a day basis by an operating team of five persons. This is possible in part, because almost all of the hardware systems have status monitoring and control through an advanced computer control system. It will be the purpose of this paper to discuss the operation of a large accelerator with emphasis on person to machine interface, operator training techniques used at Fermilab, and the keeping of records and reliability information.