- 29 -Chapter 5.
PROBLEMS

In this chapter, we discuss a number of problems that occurred
during the course of the project. The major effect of these problems
has been to reduce the number of searches to well below the original
target (see sections 5.4 and 5.5).
IsL*

Th e York Box and the size problem

It has already been indicated that the adaptation of Cirt toRelease 2.1 of the York Box software was problematic. This hadoriginally been seen as a relatively straightforward exercise, and so it
probably would have been, but for the process-size limitations.
The LSI 11 design of hardware has a built-in limitation on the sizeof program that can be run, namely 64 Kb of main memory. (This is not a
Unix limitation: processes of any size can be run under Unix on 68000based hardware. The limitation reflects the age of the LSI 11 design.)
In practice, for a C program, this means 56 Kb of instruction and dataspace; the remainder is reserved for operating system use. (Again,machines higher up in the LSI range allow instruction and data spaces tobe separated, allowing 56 Kb for each; our LSI 11/23 does not come into
this category.)
The original version of Cirt (as at the end of the previousproject) did not appear to be approaching the limit; there seemed to beenough scope for modifications. However, as indicated above, theinstallation of Release 2.1 of York Box brought Cirt right up to thelimit; indeed it was a struggle to keep within it. (This has beenrecognised as a problem with York Box.)
As indicated, this led us to the somewhat drastic solution of atwo-process version. The change was successful, and allowed us all thescope we needed, but probably delayed the data-gathering phase of theproject by not less than two months.

- 30 -2_. 2_.

System crash
Our LSI 11/23 was originally bought in 1981 and has been showing

signs of age for some time.

At the start of the present project,adequate backup was not available, and steps were being taken to installa tape system which would allow such backups.
Unfortunately, a major system crash occurred in March 1986, before
these preparations were complete.

A problem developed with the root

disc system; the disc had to be reformatted and the inadequate backups
available required a considerable amount of work.

The entire incident

also delayed the data-gathering phase, again by about two months.

There

have since been a number of less serious problems.
In retrospect, given the range of hardware and software problems
encountered, it would have been better if the whole system (Cirt andYork Box) had been moved to the Department's LSI 11/73 system. This
will almost certainly be done before any new project is undertaken.
K3_.

Staffing
The project programmer left in June 1986 with no foreseeable

replacement.

Despite three months notice and every effort to engage

another programmer, a permanent replacement was not found until
September.

A considerable amount of accumulated knowledge and expertise

was lost, and the change undoubtedly contributed to our difficulties.
JL_.4_. Capturing searches
As indicated, the original method of collecting data involved
contacting University of London institutions. Of the eleven Libraries
contacted, six showed some willingness to participate and three actually
did so. The results from this method proved slow and quite
unsatisfactory. In retrospect, it is clear that we could havesubstantially increased the number of searches by Instituting the freesearches at City earlier in the project, and thereby being lessdependent on the contributing institutions.
L'l.*

Proposal for extension

Given the delays that had occurred and the initial difficulties ingetting the data collection going, a proposal to extend the project byfour months was made to the BL in April 1987. Unfortunately this
proposal coincided with the BLR&D Departments's financial problems whicharose because of the pay award to University academic staff. It was

- 31 -

therefore not possible for the BL to extend the project.
An extension would have considerably increased the number ofsearches evaluated, and could therefore have been expected to increase
our confidence in the results reported in Chapter 4.