AlllOb T7fl3Sfl

National Bureau

of Standards

Computer Science

and Technology

NBS Special Publication 500-97

Federal ADP Equipment:

A Compilation

of Statistics — 1981
NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

The National Bureau of Standards' was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1901. The Bureau's overall goal is to strengthen and advance the Nation's science and technology

and facilitate their effective application for public benefit. To this end, the Bureau conducts

research and provides: (1) a basis for the Nation's physical measurement system, (2) scientific and technological services for industry and government, (3) a technical basis for equity in trade, and (4) technical services to promote public safety. The Bureau's technical work is per- formed by the National Measurement Laboratory, the National Engineering Laboratory, and

the Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology.

THE NATIONAL MEASUREMENT LABORATORY provides the national system of

physical and chemical and materials measurement; coordinates the system with measurement

systems of other nations and furnishes essential services leading to accurate and uniform

physical and chemical measurement throughout the Nation's scientific community, industry,

and commerce; conducts materials research leading to improved methods of measurement,

standards, and data on the properties of materials needed by industry, commerce, educational

institutions, and Government; provides advisory and research services to other Government

agencies; develops, produces, and distributes Standard Reference Materials; and provides

calibration services. The Laboratory consists of the following centers:

Absolute Physical Quantities^ — Radiation Research — Chemical Physics —

Analytical Chemistry — Materials Science

THE NATIONAL ENGINEERING LABORATORY provides technology and technical ser- vices to the public and private sectors to address national needs and to solve national problems; conducts research in engineering and applied science in support of these efforts; builds and maintains competence in the necessary disciplines required to carry out this research and technical service; develops engineering data and measurement capabilities;

provides engineering measurement traceability services; develops test methods and proposes

engineering standards and code changes; develops and proposes new engineering practices;

and develops and improves mechanisms to transfer results of its research to the ultimate user. The Laboratory consists of the following centers:

Applied Mathematics — Electronics and Electrical Engineering^ — Manufacturing

Engineering — Building Technology — Fire Research — Chemical Engineering^

THE INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY conducts

research and provides scientific and technical services to aid Federal agencies in the selection, acquisition, application, and use of computer technology to improve effectiveness and

economy in Government operations in accordance with Public Law 89-306 (40 U.S.C. 759), relevant Executive Orders, and other directives; carries out this mission by managing the Federal Information Processing Standards Program, developing Federal ADP standards

guidelines, and managing Federal participation in ADP voluntary standardization activities; provides scientific and technological advisory services and assistance to Federal agencies; and

provides the technical foundation for computer-related policies of the Federal Government.

The Institute consists of the following centers:

Programming Science and Technology — Computer Systems Engineering.

'Headquarters and Laboratories at Gailfiersburg, MD, unless otherwise noted; mailing address Washington, DC 20234. 'Some divisions witfiin the center are located at Boulder, CO 80303.
Computer Science Vg^v&^

and Technology

NBS Special Publication 500-97

Federal ADP Equipment:

A Compilation

of Statistics — 1981

Martha Mulford Gray

Information Processes Group

Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, DC 20234

3

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Malcolm Baldrlge, Secretary

National Bureau of Standards

Ernest Ambler, Director

Issued November 1982
Reports on Computer Science and Technology

The National Bureau of Standards has a special responsibility within the

Federal Government for computer science and technology activities. The

programs of the NBS Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology are designed to provide ADP standards, guidelines, and technical advisory services

to improve the effectiveness of computer utilization in the Federal sector, and to perform appropriate research and development efforts as foundation for such

activities and programs. This publication series will report these NBS efforts to the Federal computer community as well as to interested specialists in the

academic and private sectors. Those wishing to receive notices of publications

in this series should complete and return the form attheend of this publication.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-600638

National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 500-97

Natl. Bur. Stand. (U.S.). Spec. Publ. 500-97, 104 pages (Nov. 1982)

CODEN: XNBSAV

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON: 1982

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402

Price $5.50

(Add 25 percent for other than U.S. mailing)
ABSTRACT

This report presents data on the status of computer technology in

the Federal Government. The report contains a combination of

existing statistics from Federal Government and computer industry

sources and original analyses and statistics based on these

sources. Data is included on CPUs, disk units, magnetic tape

units, I/O controllers, terminals, printers, plotters, and other

related ADP equipment. Analyses are included on the acquisition

dates of CPUs, equipment installed by agencies, the purchaseprice ranges of equipment, and the type and size class of general

purpose computers in the Federal Government compared with the

United States. The report is based on Federal Government data

from 1971 through December 31 , 1981 and industry data from 1972

through 1980.

Key words: disk units; Federal Government computers; Federal

minicomputers; Federal statistics; general purpose computers;

magnetic tape units; terminals.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author acknowledges the professional expertise and the

extensive assistance provided by ICST staff members Mr. E. Edward

Bortner III and Miss Diane E. Barnes in the analysis,

formulation, and preparation of the data, graphs, and charts in

this report. The author also wishes to thank Mrs. Jackie Jones

and Mrs. Mary Ellen Crane for their assistance in the manuscript

preparation

.

Special thanks are extended to the staff of the Management

Information Systems Division, General Services Administration, in

particular Mr. Alvin Krakow, for providing the raw data necessary

for this report. Mr. Krakow's assistance and cooperation were

invaluable to the data collection requirements.

iv
Foreword

The Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology (ICST)

provides information and develops methodologies to obtain

information needed for the planning and evaluation of the

Institute's products, i.e., standards, guidelines, and technical

advisory services to improve the use of ADP in the Federal

Government. To that end, ICST collects information related to

product utilization, develops new methods for cost benefit

analyses, develops technology forecasts, and provides statistical

analyses of the Federal ADP inventory.

While most of these products are intended for internal purposes,

products which are also of general interest are made more widely

available through publication. Two recent general-interest

products are:

Gray, Martha M. , An Assessment and Forecast

ADP in the Federal Government , National

Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C.,

NBS Special Publication 500-79, August

1981, 151 p. Available from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C.

20402. Stock number SN 003-003-02368-0.

$5.50.

Arthur D. Little, Inc. and General Systems

Group Inc., (under subcontract to Aurora

Associates, Inc.) The Effects of Future

Information Processing Technology on the

Federal Government ADP Situation , NBSGCR81-342, September 1981, 98 p. Available

from the National Technical Information

Service, Springfield, VA 22161. Stock

number PB 82-138181. $12.00.

Comments, suggestions, and inquiries are welcome and should be

addressed to

:

Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology

Attn: Information Processes Group

National Bureau of Standards

Bldg. 225, Rm. B246

Washington, D.C. 20234

V

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

List of Figures and Tables v

Section 1. Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Data Sources 1

1.3 Structure of Report 2

1.4 Definitions 2

Section 2. Analysis of the Federal Inventory 7

2.1 Overview of the Inventory 7

2.1.1 Systems by Type and Agency 7

2.1.2 Machines by Agency 11

2.2 Analysis by GSA Machine Codes 11

2.2.1 Average Price of Devices 21

2.2.2 Average Configuration 24

2.3 Federal CPUs 27

2.3.1 Age of Federal Computers 27

2.3.2 Installed CPUs by Agency 35

2.3.3 Installed CPUs by Price Range 41

2.3.4 Installed CPUs by Manufacturer 45

2.4 Federal Disk Units 49

2.4.1 Disk Units Installed by Acquisition

Date 49

2.4.2 Disk Units Installed by Price

Range 51

2.4.3 Disk Units Installed by Agency 51

2.5 Federal Magnetic Tape Units 56

2.5.1 Tape Units Installed by

Acquisition Date 56

2.5.2 Tape Units Installed by Agency 58

2.5.3 Tape Unit Installed by Price Range 58

Section 3. Federal Government Statistics Compared with

U.S. Statistics 65

3.1 Introduction 65

3.2 Federal Government Computers 65

3.3 United States Computers 70

3.4 General Purpose Computers - Federal vs. U.S. 72

3.4.1 Size Class 2 Computers 76

3.4.2 Size Class 3 Computers 78

3.4.3 Size Class 4 Computers 81

3.4.4 Size Class 5 Computers 83

3.4.5 Size Class 6 Computers 85

3.4.6 Size Class 7 Computers 87

3.5 Minicomputers - Federal vs. U.S. 89

3.6 Conclusions 91

Appendix Selections from the GSA ADP MIS Glossary 95

vii
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figures Page

1. Number of Machines by Agency 14

2. Dollar Value of Machines by Agency 15

3. Summary of the Federal Inventory by Dollar

Value 20

4. Number of CPUs Valued over $250K (by

Acquisition Year) 29

5. Number of CPUs (by Acquisition Year) 33

6. Number of CPUs Valued over $500K (by

Acquisition Year) 35

7. Number of CPUs by Agency 38

8. Dollar Value of CPUs by Agency 39

9. Agency Share of Installed CPUs 40

10. Number of CPUs by Price Range 42

11. Dollar Value of CPUs by Price Range 43

12. Average Purchase Price by Year of Acquisition 44

13. Federal CPUs by Manufacturer Percent by Number 46

14. Federal CPUs by Manufacturer Percent by Dollar 47

15. Number of Disk Drives (by Acquisition Year) 50

16. Number of Disks by Price Range 52

17. Dollar Value of Disks by Price Range 53

18. Number of Disks by Agency 54

19. Dollar Value of Disks by Agency 55

20. Number of Tape Drives (by Acquisition Year) 57

21 . Number of Tapes by Agency 59

22. Dollar Value of Tapes by Agency 60

23. Number of Tapes by Price Range 61

24. Dollar Value of Tapes by Price Range 62

25 . Computers in the Federal Government by Category 68

26. Computers in the Federal Government by Category 69

27. U.S. General Purpose Computers by Size 73

28. Federal General Purpose Computers by Size 74

29 . General Purpose Computers 75

30. Size Class 2 Computers 77

31 . Size Class 3 Computers 79

32. Size Class 4 Computers 82

33 . Size Class 5 Computers 84

34. Size Class 6 Computers 86

35. Size Class 7 Computers 88

36. Minicomputers 90

Tables

,1. Installed Computer System 8

2. ADP Machines by Agency 12

3. ADPE Component Class Codes 16

4. ADP Equipment by Number of Units, Purchase

Price, and Percent of Total Inventory

Purchase Price 17

5. 1980 and 1981 ADP Equipment by Number of Units

and Average Purchase Price 22

viii
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Tables

6. 1980 and 1981 ADP EauiDment bv Averaee Number

per CPU 25

7, CPUs bv Acencv and Year of Acauisition 31

8. Number of CPUs by Percent of Recent Agency CPU

Acquisitions 32

9. Number and Dollar Value of CPUs by Agency 36

10. CPUs by Manufacturer (listed alphabetically) 48

11

.

Computers in the Federal Government by Category

and Size 66

12

.

Federal Comouter Growth Ratp bv Numbf»r 70

13

.

Coinnii'teTJ? in "thp Tin i tpd SI'a'tps hv Ca+pcrorv a.nd

Size 71

14 VJX \JTI 1/11 IVCk 1/^7 VZwllCfX CtX XT LiX ^V^O^ ^V^lli^LL l/^X O 76

15

.

Growth Rate of Size Class 2 Computers 76

16. Growth Rate of Size Class 3 Computers 80

17. Growth Rate of Size Class 4 Computers 81

18. Growth Rate of Size Class 5 ComputerjS 83

19. Growth Rate of Size Class 6 Computers 85

20. Growth Rate of Size Class 7 Computers 87

21. Growth Rate of Minicomputers 91

ix

Section 1. Introduction

1.1 Background

The Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology (ICST) serves

as a focal point for computer technology activities in the

Federal Government. The Institute's programs are designed to

provide standards, guidelines, and technical advisory services to

improve the effectiveness of computers and computer applications

in the Federal Government. Appropriate research provides the

foundation for these activities.

In the process of conducting its program, the Institute regularly

collects data from a variety of sources on the status of computer

technology, the extent of computer use in the government and

private sectors, and the projected trends in the technology and

applications areas. This data is analyzed from a number of

points of view in order to support ICST efforts in the

development of standards and guidelines and in providing

technical advisory services.

In order to make the data and resulting analyses easily

accessible to others, ICST prepared "Computers in the Federal

Government: A Compilation of Statistics," (NBS SP 500-7)

published in June 1977 and "Computers in the Federal Government:

A Compilation of Statistics - 1978" (NBS SP 500-46), issued in

April 1979. Since that time, further data has been collected to

support the ICST program. The GSA MIS inventory data base for

October I98O and December 31, I98I was obtained and prepared for

use on the ICST experimental computing facility. For the first

time, this allowed on-line access to the data for manipulation

and analyses. Because of the response to the earlier

publications, ICST decided to make available the statistical

analyses made possible by this new capability. This version of

the compilation of data on computers in the Federal Government

will, it is believed, be of general interest within and outside

the Federal Government computer community.

1.2 Data Sources

The main source of information on computers installed in the

Federal Government is the General Services Administration.

Routinely, GSA makes some information available in its

publications, "Inventory of Automatic Data Processing Equipment

in The United States Government for Fiscal Year 19xx" and

"Summary of Federal ADP Activities in The United States

Government as of the end of Fiscal Year 19xx."

In order to make possible a more detailed comparison between the

Federal computer inventory and computers in the U.S. as a whole,

data was obtained from GSA for Federal computers on a calendar

(rather than fiscal) year basis. Since these figures are not

part of GSA's published statistics, and have therefore not

received the same amount of scrutiny as the fiscal year figures.

1
they are to be considered as estimates of the year-end installed

computers in the Federal Government.

The source of statistics on computers in the United States, used

in this report, is International Data Corporation (IDC). In the

Annual Review and Forecast issue of the "EDP Industry Report"

IDC publishes a census of computer models in the U.S. and the

total number of computers for past, present, and future years.

Other U.S. figures in this report were obtained from IDC by

special request or taken from IDC special reports.

1 . 3 Structure of the Report

Section 2 of this report contains a detailed analysis of the

components of the Federal ADP inventory including CPUs, disk

units, magnetic tape units, terminals, I/O controllers, etc.

This section relied on an automated data file based entirely on

the GSA files which include data for year-end 198O and 198I as

well as some historical data from 1971 through I98I.

Section 3 contains a comparative analysis by type and size class

of the computers in the Federal Government and in the United

States as a whole. This section draws on three information

sources: GSA data files, IDC data, and a model by model analysis

performed by ICST. Section 3 includes data from 1972 through

1980.

Due to the fact that the section 3 information, which includes

the model-by-model census, draws on three sources, the reported

numbers of CPUs differ somewhat from those reported in section 2.

Because the section 3 material was compiled manually, the results

could not easily be transferred to the automated data file used

for section 2. Thus, the discrepancies were allowed to remain in

this edition of the report. The nature of the differences are

detailed in section 3.1.

1.4 Definitions *

In this report, the terms "CPU" and "computer" are used

synonymously. The term "computer system" includes both the CPU

and any peripheral equipment attached to it. Note that GSA

defines "CPU" as "a unit of a computer system that includes the

circuits for controlling the interpretation and execution of

instructions". (1)

*Certain commercial products are identified in this section in

order to cite relevant examples. In no case does such

identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the

Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology or the National

Bureau of Standards.

2
The second section of this report utilizes the GSA ADPE Component

Class Codes and refers to equipment as specified by these codes.

GSA does not provide definitions for all of the terms used but

some definitions are provided in the GSA MIS Glossary

(Appendix)

.

The third section of this report classifies computers by three

categories and six size classes. The definitions of these

categories and size classes are those of The International Data

Corporation. They were utilized in this third section to allow

comparisons of trends in U.S. and Federal computers.

International Data Corporation divides computer systems into four

categories, general purpose computers, minicomputers, small

business computers, and desktop computers. The definitions of

these categories are as follows

:

General Purpose Computers

"General purpose computers - as characterized by IBM's System 3,

System 38, 370, 4300, 303X, and 308l, and competitors - are

designed for use in a wide variety of applications. They are

character or byte oriented and programmed in higher level

languages." The general purpose computers are divided into six

size classes, size classes two through seven. "Instead of being

defined by shifting average purchase or rental values, size

classes are based on IBM products and other manufacturers' models

that compete with them, e.g., a computer in size class 7 would

compete with an IBM 3033. "(2)

As was mentioned above, the general purpose computers are divided

into six size classes, size class two through seven. (Size class

one computers were moved to the small business computers category

in 1977, and size class one was eliminated.) Because the size

classes are based on one manufacturer's product line and not

elaborate definitions of price or memory size, no attempt will be

made to define the size classes other than to say that size

class two is the smallest of the general purpose computers and

usually considered entry level machines while size class seven is

the largest of the machines. Readers interested in specific

models may refer to "General Purpose Computer Census" given in

the EDP Industry Report . (3) The size class is listed for each

model in the census.

Minicomputers

"IDC categorizes certain computers as minicomputers based

primarily on the perceived marketplace for these products. By

definition, minis are general purpose in design, but are sold as

tools as well as solutions; are available from makers in

configurations ranging from board only to complete systems; are

available to OEMs and are usually discounted in volume buys; are

part of a family with low end products generally in the $1,000 - $25,000 price range; and have at least 4K RAM. Minicomputers

range in size class from Microminis (M) which compete with high

3
end microcomputers to traditional Minis (T) to Superminis (S),

which frequently compete with small General Purpose Computers in

interactive commercial applications ." (4)

Small Business Computers

"The categorization of certain computers as 'small business

computers' is based on marketplace definitions as perceived by

IDC. SBCs are those small general purpose computers marketed to

smaller businesses, first-time users, and increasingly to small

units of large organizations. They include offerings from the

major mainframers (such as IBM's System/32 and 34); products such

as DEC'S Datasystem 1300 from the minimakers but aimed at

commercial first-time users; equipment from firms (such as

Qantel) that manufacture only SBCs; and products from companies

that market systems assembled from others' minicomputers (i.e.,

systems houses). "(5)

Desktop Computers

"The Desktop Computer Census counts those computers which

typically are small enough to be used on a desktop, and are found

in a variety of end-user environments including business, home,

hobby, personal, educational and scientific. By IDC definition

the Desktop Computer is microprocessor based, includes its own

power supply and enclosure, has the capability for attaching

output peripherals-video screen and/or printer - and can also

attach storage devices such as floppy diskettes, tape cassettes,

or in some cases fixed disks. The computer is programmable in

BASIC or equivalent level language, and costs from less than

^1,000 up to $15,000 in a basic configuration. Microcomputer

boards and bits are not counted here. "(6)

Special Computers

After reviewing the Federal inventory using the categories

established by IDC, we determined that there were certain

computers which did not fit into any of these categories. For

this reason, and to make this research consistent with available

historical data, we have utilized a "special" category. This

category contains: communications processors, data entry

machines, process control computers, special government designed

computers, graphics systems, and machines designed wholly for

military use.

4
References

1 . Automatic Data Processing Equipment Inventory In the United

States Government as of_ the end of Fiscal Year T^8l , General

Services Administration, Washington, D. C, February 1982,

629 p.

2. EDP Industry Report , Vol. 17, No. 3, 4, June 26, 1981, p. 14.

3. "General Purpose Computer Census" In EDP Industry Report , Vol. 17, No. 3, 4, June 26, 1981, pp. Ik-TET

4. EDP Industry Report , Vol. 17, No. 3, 4, June 26, 1981, p. 6.

5. EDP Industry Report , Vol. 17, No. 2, June 3, 1981, p. 6

6. Ibid, p. 10.

5

Section 2. Analysis of the Federal Inventory

The detailed analysis presented in this section was made

possible, for the first time, by the automation of the GSA MIS

inventory at the ICST experimental computer facility. The

automation was accomplished on the Digital Equipment Corporation

VAX 11/780, using Datatrieve software supplemented by subroutines

developed by Edward Bortner of ICST's Information Processes

Group. The availability of the inventory data base for on-line

searches permitted the analysis of all of the equipment in the

inventory including CPUs, magnetic tape units, disk units, I/O

devices, printers, plotters, and terminals.

The reader should be aware that the responsibility for the

assignment of equipment, e.g. whether or not a disk unit is given

the code as a disk unit, rests with the individuals filling out

the GSA reporting forms. No effort was made to verify the

validity of the over-300,000 items in the inventory. The

statistical analysis was made on the data as provided by the

agencies to GSA.

2.1 Overview of the Inventory

The December 31, I98I GSA MIS inventory reports ADP equipment

(over 300,000 machines) from 4,434 installations controlled by 61

defense and civilian agencies within the Executive branch. The

equipment is physically located both overseas and in the United

States, either in Federally- run installations or at Federal

contractors' facilities. It may be either owned outright or

leased by the Federal government. Overall, 71 percent of the

inventory is owned by the government (71 percent when analyzed

either by the number of machines or the total purchase price)

.

The ADP equipment listed in this inventory is only listed for

non-classified installations. No classified equipment is

included. Both stand-alone equipment and equipment which is part

of an ADP system are included. There are 13,068 ADP systems

listed. CPUs from 275 manufacturers, costing from less than

$5,000 to over $9 million dollars, are included. In addition to

CPUs, the inventory contains equipment such as keypunches,

modems, multiplexors, terminals, tape drives, disk drives, and

I/O controllers. The inventory contains equipment with

acquisition dates from the 1950s through I98I.

The rest of section 2.1 includes a description of the 13,068

systems, analyzing them by type of system and by agency, and an

analysis of agencies' total machines.

2.1.1 Systems by Type and Agency

Table 1 is a by-agency list of installed computer systems. GSA

defines computer system as: "A configuration of ADP equipment

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9
which includes one or more CPU's. A system can include CPU's by

more than one manufacturer." GSA also classifies the computer

systems into 9 types as follows :(1)

Type A - One CPU and no remote equipment.

Type B - One CPU and remote equipment.

Type C - One CPU as the main processor and one or more other

CPU's (and their associated machines) as full-time

peripherals or input/output (I/O) processors.

Type D - One CPU as the main processor and one or more other

CPU's (and their associated machines) as part-time

peripherals and as part-time independent computer

systems

.

Type E - Cable-connected CPU's as independent processors with

shared memory and peripherals.

Type F - Cable-connected CPU's as independent processors and

other remote CPU's (with their associated machines)

as full-time peripherals or I/O processors.

Type G - Cable-connected CPU's as independent processors,

with remote CPU's (and their associated machines)

as part-time peripherals and as part-time

independent systems.

Type H - Two or more computer systems with one system as the

main system and with the other one or more separate

systems as I/O processors, all under the direction

of a single operational manager.

Type I - Two or more computer systems physically separate

but functioning as an entity under a single

operational manager, with unified input, job flows,

dispatch, and control.

As table 1 shows, the largest number of systems are Type A

systems, with over 10,000 installed. Type A systems represent

almost 78 percent of all of the computer systems. The next

largest number are Type B systems. These represent about 12

percent of total computer systems. These two types, the systems

which have single CPUs, represent almost 90 percent of the total

computer systems. Generally, the number of the systems decreases

as the complexity of the configuration increases.

The agencies with the largest number of systems are Energy, Air

Force, Navy and Army. Energy has 26 percent of the total number

of systems. Air Force 15 percent. Navy 13 percent, and Army 12

percent. Together they have 6? percent of the total computer

systems. NASA has the largest number of larger, more complex

systems. Types G, H and I.

10
One other note is worth mentioning on the configurations of the

multiple CPU systems. Types C through I. If the 11,7^9 single

CPU system types are subtracted from the total number of 17,723

CPUs reported in the inventory, it is evident that 5,974 CPUs are

included in the multiple-CPU systems —or an average of 4.5 CPUs

per multiple-CPU system. One common multiple-CPU system

configuration is a large, general purpose or scientific computer

with one or more minicomputers attached. Another common

configuration is a system comprised of several minicomputers.

2.1.2 Machines by Agency

There are over 300,000 machines in the Federal Government for a

total purchase price of almost $6 billion. Table 2 is a

listing of the total number of all machines (including CPUs,

disk units, tape units, terminals, keypunches, etc.) in each

agency and the total purchase price of each agency's machines.

In other words, this listing shows the total number of pieces of

ADP equipment in each agency and the total value of that ADP

equipment. The specific kinds of equipment are discussed in the

rest of section 2. Figures 1 and 2 are bar-graphs showing the

agencies with the largest number of machines and the largest

total purchase prices. Agencies which have over 5,000 machines

are shown in figure 1 and over $100 million for total purchase

price of equipment in figure 2.

The Air Force has both the largest number of machines and the

largest total purchase price, with 22 percent of the total number

of machines and 21 percent of the total purchase price. Energy

follows with 17 percent of the number of machines and 15 percent

of the total dollar value. Army is next with 13 percent both by

number and purchase price. The Navy and NASA follow although

their ranked order is reversed depending on the measure used.

Navy has nine percent of the number of machines and 10 percent of

the total purchase price. NASA has eight percent of the number

of machines and 11 percent of the total purchase price. These

five agencies represent 69 percent of the total number of

installed ADP equipment and 70 percent of the total purchase

price.

2.2 Analysis by GSA Machine Codes

For purposes of analysis in this section, the equipment reported

in the GSA MIS inventory of Federal computers was sorted and

summarized according to the GSA codes, as shown in Table 3.

This sort and summary enabled the analysis of I98O and I98I data.

A summary of the I98O and 198I computer inventories, sorted by

GSA codes is given in table 4. This table is divided into three

sections: the first section refers to total units in the

inventory; the second section refers to purchase pr^ice; the third

section displays the percentage of total purchase price spent on

the components of each GSA code category. Each section shows

delta changes between the two years.

11
TABLE 2

ADP Machines by Agency

AGENCY

PURCHASE

PRICE

ACTION

Administrative Office of the US Courts

Agency for International Dev.

Civil Aeronautics Board

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Community Services Admin.

Defense Communications Agency

Defense Contract Audit Agency

Defense Intelligence Agency

Defense Investigative Service

Defense Logistics Agency

Defense Mapping Agency

Defense Nuclear Agency

Department of Agriculture

Department of Commerce

Department of Education

Department of Energy

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Housing and Urban Dev.

Department of Justice

Department of Labor

Department of State

Department of Transportation

Department of the Air Force

Department of the Army

Department of the Interior

Department of the Navy . Department of the Treasury

Environment Protection Agency

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Export-Import Bank of the US

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Federal Home Loan Bank Board

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service

Federal Reserve System

Federal Trade Commission

General Accounting Office

General Services Admin.

Government Printing Office

International Communication Agency

Interstate Commerce Commission

Library of Congress

National Aeronautics and Space Admin.

National Labor Relations Board

111 $1,330.,447

69 $2,220

$3,789;

,679

175 ,349

145 $1,508.,404

26 $734.,904

59 $866 ,593

1,621 $44,794',892

21 $367

297 $68,167 »157

92 $1,502 ,031

6,488 $108,848 ,936

1,295 $29,343 ,765

368 $5,631 ,788

7,752 $80,031 ,032

5,791 $126,724 ,957

8 $195 ,473

53,924 $837,686 ,135

15,066 $271,756 ,280

266 $13,472 ,495

2,893 $25,910 ,778

930 $21,139 ,662

1,624 $31,698 ,953

5,361 $233,074 ,496

70,394 $1 ,188,532 .750

41,177 $710,740 ,627

8,522 $119,131 ,241

29,005 $581,400 ,973

19,906 $171,048 ,139

1 ,799 $20,231 ,466

1 $290 ,670

25 $744',412

54 $964;,995

60 $3,124.,730

551 $9,159.,448

51 $2,189.,286

11 $87.,080

76 $9,527:,771

51 $313:,820

1 $33:,585

2,147 $43,931:,054

395 $8,577:,648

28 $809:,164

104 $1,012;,230

2 $ 0

24,970 $606,890,,974

16 $343:,283

12
TABLE 2—Continued

ADP Machines by Agency

AGENCY

PURCHASE

PRICE

National Science Foundation

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of Administration

Office of Personnel Management

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Office of the US Trade Representative

Panama Canal Commission

Railroad Retirement Board

Securities and Exchange Commission

Selective Service System

Small Business Admin.

Smithsonian Institution

Tennessee Valley Authority

US International Trade Commission

Veterans Admin.

1,323 $29,153,406

246 $1,129,574

150 $3,385,793

559 $15,964,378

91 $520,185

34 $201,417

197 $1,796,441

181 $3,718,513

168 $1,183,416

132 $2,067,407

107 $5,127,376

7 $26,946

2,072 $39,710,262

31 $71,797

9,839 $97,128,955

318,865 $5,590,700,785

13
NUMBER OF MRCHINES BY RSENCY

Department of

Transportation

Department of

Commerce

Defense Logistics

Agency

Department of

Agriculture

Department of

the Interior

Veterans

Administration

Department of

Health and Human Services

Department of

Treasury

National Aeronautics

and

Space Administration

Department of the Nav>

Department of the Army

Department of Energy

Department of the Air Force

> I M I I I I

I I I Oo

8

i i

I I I I » I » » I

!

Nl

8 8 8 8

NUMBER OF tIRCHINES

Figure 1

14
DOLLRR VniUE OF MfiCHINES BY RGENCY

ZD

n

o

Defense Logistics

Agency

Department of

the Interior

Department of

Commerce

Department of

the Treasury

Department of

Transportation

Department of

Health and Human Services

Department of the Navy

National Aeronautics

and

Space Administration

Department of the Army

Department of Energy

Department of the Air Force

oooooooooo*-^ oaoooooooooo o o o

DOLLAR VALUE OF MACHINES ($M)

Figure 2

15
TABLE 3

ADPE Component Class Codes

CLASS

CENTRAL PROCESSORS, STORAGE AND RELATED CONTROLS COt)ES

Central Processor 01

Magnetic Tape Unit 02

Magnetic Core Unit 03

Magnetic Drum Unit 04

Magnetic Disk Unit 05

Other Storage Units 06

Multipurpose Control 07

EDPE SYSTEM INPUT/OUTPUT AND RELATED CONTROLS

Card Reader and/or Punch 20

Paper Tape Reader and/or Punch 21

Optical Character Recognition Unit 22

Magnetic Data Recording Unit 23

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition Unit 24

Data Converter (Analog to Digital, Digital to Analog) 25

Media Converter (Card to Tape, Tape to Card, etc.) 26

Plotter 27

Printer 28

Image Handling Unit 29

Display Unit 30

Operator Console and Inquiry Station 31

Control for Multiple I/O Channels; Multiplexor and

Channel Selector 32

Other System Input/Output and Related Controls 33

COMMUNICATION TERMINALS AND RELATED UNITS

Card Terminal 50

Magnetic Tape Terminal 51

Paper Tape Terminal 52

Printer Terminal 53

Input Console 54

Multiplexor, Control, Distributor, Buffer, Adapter 55

Other Terminals and Related Units 56

EDPE NOT CATEGORIZED ABOVE 60

PCAM, OTHER DIGITAL DATA PREPARATION/RECODING EQUIPMENT AND

EDPE COMPONENTS NOT PERIPHERAL TO AN EDPE SYSTEM

Card Punch

Card Verifier

Tape Punch/Verifier

Sorter

Collator

Reproducer and Gang Punch

Interpreter

Accounting Machine

Media Converter (card to Tape, Tape to Card, etc.)

Other PCAM and Data Preparation/Recording Equipment and

EDPE Components not Peripheral to an EDPE System

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

16
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18
The 1981 data is presented graphically in figure 3. CPUs

constituted nearly 37 percent of the total dollar value of the

inventory and represented the largest segment of the inventory by

dollar value in I98I. Prom I98O to I98I there was an increase of

over 2,500 CPUs for a 17 percent increase in the number of units

while the purchase price of the CPUs only increased six percent.

Thus the CPUs added to the inventory were less expensive than the

previous year's.

Memory units represented the next largest segment of the

inventory both in I98O and I98I. For the first time, in I98I,

the number of disks units was larger than the number of tape

units. The number of disk units increased by four percent while

the number of tapes units decreased by four percent. Disk units

now represent over 10 percent of the inventory by dollar value

while magnetic tape units equal less than eight percent. Memory

units overall decreased as a percent of the total inventory from

1980 to 1981 and now represent less than 29 percent of the total

inventory. The total number of memory units and the total

purchase prices of all memory units also decreased because of the

decreases in magnetic tape units, core units and drum units.

These will probably continue to decrease while the number of disk

units should continue to increase. Added together, the memory

units and CPUs represent over 65 percent of the inventory's total

dollar value.

I/O channels and other controllers formed the next highest

category in I98I, with over 11 percent of total purchase price,

followed by terminals with over 10 percent. The number and

dollar value of the control units increased slightly from I98O to

1981. The total number of terminals has increased by 25 percent

but the dollar value has decreased, with the percent of purchase

price of the total inventory for terminals dropping slightly.

However, even with this increase in the reported number of

terminals, it appears to the author that the terminal category is

seriously understated.

An analysis of a few of the large installations indicates that a

great number of the terminals are not reported in the inventory.

The architecture of many of the large computers in these

installations is such that optimum utilization is in an on-line

environment. However, very few terminals were reported in these

installations. Most of the ones which were reported were in the

computer room itself with few or none reported in remote sites.

Therefore, it is extremely likely that the reported number of

remote terminals greatly under- represents the actual number of

remote terminals in use in the Federal Government.

All of the other categories of equipment are a small segment of

the inventory by percent of dollar value. Some of the changes in

these categories which occurred from 198O to I98I, however, are

worth comment. A number of machines which relate to card

processing, card punches, card verifiers, reproducers, collators,

card readers, and interpreters decreased both in number of units
SUhMRRY OF THE FEDERRL INVENTORY

CPUs

(36.75%)

Memory Units

(28.80%)

Control Units

(11.53%)

Terminals

(10.29%)

Readers.

(1.73%)

Printers & Plotters

(3.96%)

AccountingMachines

(.10%)

EDPE

(3.98%)

^Keypunch

(1.81%)

Converters

(.73%)

•OCR & MICR

(.32%)

Figure 3

20
and in total purchase price. This is to be expected as the CPUs

in the Government increasingly operate in an interactive rather

than batch mode. These machines should continue to decrease in

the future. Papertape readers/punches have also decreased and

should continue to decrease in the future as newer technologies

replace papertape usage.

Overall, the total inventory has increased both in number of

machines and total dollar value. At year-end 198I the inventory

had over 300,000 machines and a total dollar value (total

purchase prices) of almost $5.6 billion. As more smaller

computers enter the inventory, the total number of machines

should continue to increase. But because the hardware costs of

ADP equipment have declined in the past and are expected to

continue to decline, the total dollar value should not increase

at the same rate as the number of units.

2.2.1 Average Price of Devices

Also calculated is the average price of each unit in the

inventory for I98O and 198I (table 5). Of all the units, CPUs

had the highest average price in both 198O and 198I. In 198O the

average price for a CPU was $127,000. The average price dropped

nine percent in 198I to $116,000. Thus the CPUs which were added

to the inventory in I98I were less expensive than in previous

years

.

The total average purchase price of memory units reported in the

inventory dropped four percent between 198O and 198I. Core

units, the memory units with the highest average price, showed

the most significant decrease—down about nine percent from

$72,000 in 1980 to $66,000 in I98I. The next highest average

price was associated with drum units which dropped three percent

to an average of $49,000 in I98I. Miscellaneous storage units,

the third highest-average-price item, were the only memory units

showing a price increase in I98I —up three percent over 198O to

about $38,000 per unit. Disk units were down 1 percent to

$24,000 and magnetic tapes were down four percent to $18,000.

The average price of the control unit category increased slightly

(about one percent) in I98I. This was the only significant

category showing an increase over I98O.*

The "Control for I/O Channels" category has the highest average

price at almost $33,000 while "Multi-purpose Controls" follows at

$28,000. "Miscellaneous systems I/O controls" have decreased in

average price while "multiplexors", the cheapest of the control

units at $8,000, increased slightly.

*The average price of EDPE, comprising only four percent of the

reported inventory, was up about two percent—the only other

category with an average price increase.

21
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The total average price of terminals decreased nine percent In

1981. - The major reason for this exceptionally large decrease

appears to be caused by a correction of error In the I98O

reported Inventory of Input consoles. In 1980, some Input

consoles were listed as having purchase prices of over $1

million. Those listings were not Included In the I98I Inventory.

However, even If the Input console category Is removed from the

calculations, the average price of terminals still shows a

decline—albeit a slight one percent. The most expensive of the

terminals were Image handlers, which showed an average price rise

of five percent over I98O to $29,000 from $27,000. Terminals

with the lowest average purchase price In 198I were papertape

terminals at $3,300 and Input consoles at $2,600.

Overall, about two- thirds of the 39 categories listed showed a

decrease In average price, reflecting the continuing decrease In

computer hardware costs.

2.2.2 Average Configuration

If all of the Inventory Is considered on a number-of-units basis

and all of the peripheral devices divided by the number of CPUs,

then an average configuration can be developed for these CPUs.

Please note that this configuration analysis Is based on a

number- of-units basis alone with no weighting factors added based

on the type of CPU. These calculations were completed for I98O

and 1981 and are presented In table 6.

According to the figures for I98I, each CPU would have between

three and four memory units attached. Including at least one tape

unit, one disk unit and probably a core unit. The CPU would

probably have between two and three control units including one

in the "Miscellaneous System I/O Control" category and one in the

"Multiplexor Control, Etc." category.

There is a high probability that there would be a printer

attached and between six and seven terminals of one type or

another. There is a good probability that there would be at

least one card punch (key punch) somewhere at the facility and

one other type of device not included in the other categories but

attached to the CPU. On the average there were almost 17 devices

per CPU listed in the inventory.

The average number of devices per CPU decreased from over 19

devices per CPU in I98O to less than 17 devices per CPU in I98I.

With the exception of terminals, all of the groupings, i.e.,

memory units, control units, readers/punches, printers and

plotters, OCR-MICR, converters, keypunch devices, EDPE-PCAM, and

accounting machines decreased relative to the number of CPUs.

This does not imply that the absolute number of peripheral

devices actually decreased. For example, the number of disk

units increased from 23,279 units in I98O to 24,139 in 198I for

an increase of 86O disk units. However, since the number of CPUs

increased from 15,154 to 17,723, an increase of 2,569 units, the

24
TABLE 6

1980 and 1981 ADP Equipment by Average Number Per CPU

Machine

CPUs

Mag Tape Units

Disk Units

Core Units

Drum Units

Misc. Storage

Subtotal: Memory Units

Multi-purpose control

Control for I/O channels

Misc. System I/O controls

Multiplexor , control , etc

.

Subtotal: Control Units

Card reader/punch

Papertape reader/punch

Subtotal: Readers/Punches

Plotter

Printer

Subtotal: Print-Plotter

Image Handling unit

Display unit

Operator console

Card terminal

Mag tape terminal

Papertape terminal

Printer terminal

Input console

Misc . terminals & relat. units

Subtotal: Terminals

OCR units

Mag data recording unit

#per CPU fflChange

1980 1981 per CPU

1.61 1.32 -1856

1.54 1.36 -1156

.51 .41 -2056

.06 .04 -33%

.11 .10 - 956

3.82 3.25 -1556

.33 .29 -1256

.41 .34 -1756

.97 . 82 -1556

.82 .74 -1956

2.53 2.19 -1356

.52 .43 -17%

.25 . 20 -2056

.77 .63 -1856

.14 .13 - 7%

.79 .73 - 856

.92 .86 - 656

.05 .04 -2056

.92 .92 056 .69 .62 -1056

.15 .15 056 .08 .07 -1356

.04 .03 -2556

1.15 1.27 1056

.99 1. 26 2756

2.07 2.21 756

6.13 6.57 756

. 02 .02 056 .23 .15 -35^

25
TABLE 6—Continued

1980 and 1981 ADP Equipment by Average Number Per CPU

Machine

Mag ink char, recog. unit

Subtotal: OCR-MICR

Data converter

Media converter (code 26)

Media converter (code 78)

Subtotal: Converters

Card punch

Card verifier

Tape punch/verifier

Sorter

Collator

Reproducer/gang punch

Interpreter

Subtotal: Keypunch Devices

EDPE

Misc. PCAM or EDPE

Subtotal: EDPE-PCAM

Accounting machines

TOTAL

#per CPU 56Change

1980 1981 per CPU

.00 .00 0%

.25 .17 -32%

.13 .10 -23%

.01 .10 0%

.01 .07 0*

.22 .18 -18^

1.60 1.32 -I8jt

.13 .10 -23%

.02 .01 -50%

.15 .12 -20%

.05 .04 -20%

.05 .04 -20%

.11 .09 -18S

2.11 1.72 -1835

.60 .48 -20%

1.02 .93 - S%

1.62 1.14 -30%

.03 .02 -33%

18.41 16.99 - 8$

26
number of disk units per CPU actually decreased from 198O to

1981. In 1980 there were 1.54 disk units per CPU and in 198I

1.36 disk units.

These figures seem to imply that the CPUs either were added to

the inventory in I98I with less peripheral equipment (other than

terminals) than in the past or that the CPUs were added without

the peripherals being listed separately. More data from other

years is needed to see if this indicates a trend. Certainly, the

number of units per CPU should continue to decrease for the card

oriented kinds of equipment since the use of cards is decreasing

on the newer CPUs. However the future of the categories for

memory units, control units, printers and plotters, and OCR-MICR

relative to the number of CPUs is more difficult to predict. The

author would expect that at least the number of memory units

would increase as the number of CPUs increases.

2.3 Federal CPUs

For the most part, the ensuing analysis of Federal CPUs is based

on the GSA December 31, I98I data base—the latest available

information. As noted in section 2.1, that data base lists

17,723 installed CPUs with a total purchase price of over $2

billion. However, parts of the analysis (appearing in section

2.3«1) involve comparisons between the Federal inventory and CPUs

in the United States as a whole. Because I98I data for the

United States is not yet available, those parts of the analysis

are based on the I98O GSA MIS inventory, which listed 15,154 CPUs

with a total purchase price of somewhat less than $2 billion.

Using the older report permitted comparisons between comparable

data. Where the I98O data is used, it is so marked in the text.

In this section of the report we looked at the number and dollar

value of the CPUs in each agency, the acquisition date of the

CPUs, the purchase price of the CPUs, and the CPUs installed by

manufacturer. Since the age of the Federal computers seems to be

of major interest, this subject will be addressed first.

2. 3.1 Age of Federal Computers

In recent years the age of the computers in the Federal inventory

and the current state of Federal computer technology have been

matters of increasing concern. To determine the actual status of

the technology of Federal computers one would have to analyze

each CPU and system, determine when it was first marketed, what

its architectural design is, what upgrades it might have had,

what level of operating system is currently running, and many

other features. This data would be extremely difficult and time

consuming to obtain. Thus, many other approaches have been used

in the past to look at the problems.

The General Accounting Office, in the report Continued Use of

Costly, Outmoded Computers in Federal Agencies Can be Avoided(2T

tried "to determine IT tHe Federal computer inventory is

outmoded, and if so, how this situation arose, what types of

27
costs and problems obsolescence has imposed, what should be done

to resolve these problems, and how to prevent this situation from

recurring." GAO's area of interest was medium- and large-scale

computers with a central processing unit purchase price of more

than $250,000 or a leasing price of over $10,000 per month. The

conclusions were; "The Federal inventory of medium- and largescale computers is outmoded. Of the 1,366 such processors

included in the April 1979 inventory, over half were

technologically of the 1971 era or earlier. Almost a third of

them were technologically 15 years old or older. Only 2 percent

use the technology of 1975 or later. "(3)

When we analyzed the December I98I GSA MIS inventory file, we

identified 1,382 computers (CPUs) having a purchase price greater

than $250,000. A frequency distribution of the computers'

acquisition dates is presented in figure 4. Based on the

acquisition dates, 33 percent were 10 years or older, 32 percent

five years or newer. However, it is by no means certain that any

given CPU was acquired in the year that it was fist placed on the

market. In a report prepared for ICST by Arthur D. Little and

General Systems Group (4) the authors estimate that the average

CPUs in this price range were acquired by the Federal government

at least two years after the machines were announced by their

manufacturers. Based on that assumption, only 20 percent of the

Federal computers priced at $250,000 or more represent technology

made available in 1976 or later. The authors of the Arthur D.

Little and General Systems Group report analyzed specifically the

IBM product line to compare the Federal IBM inventory with the

IBM computers in the United States as a whole. At the end of

fiscal year 1979 they counted, using GSA figures, "437

installations of IBM System/360 computers and 89 installations of

IBM System/370 computers; the ratio of 360s to 370s is 4.9 to 1.

According to IDC, at the end of calendar 1979 the populations of

these machines in the entire United States were 3,732

installations of System/360 computers and 11,170 installations of

System/370 computers; the U.S. -wide ratio of 360s to 370s is

0.33 to 1. This kind of relationship is important because it

indicates that users in the Federal Government have been left

behind."

Using this approach, we counted 457 IBM System/360 computers in

the inventory for October 198O and 117 IBM System/370 computers;

the ratio of 360s to 370s is 3.9 to 1. (The October I98O file

had to be used because the year-end 198I data was not available

from IDC for comparison with the December I98I GSA file.)

According to IDC, at the end of calendar year I98O there were

2,824 IBM System/360s and 10,349 IBM System/370s; the U.S. -wide

ratio of 360s to 370s is .27 to 1. (For these calculations and

those of Arthur D. Little and General Systems Group, the IBM 303x

family installations are included with the IBM System/370s .

)

Thus the ratio is improving both for the Federal Government and

for the United States. Obviously, the Federal Government

still has proportionally a great many more of the older, 36O

family.

28
Number of CPUs Valued Over $250,000

Installed as of Decemhe»r IQftl

ACQ No. Cumulative

YEAR Percentile

NONE* 44 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1950 0

1951 0

1952 0

1953 0

1954 0

1955 0

1956 0

1957 0

1958 0

1959 5 XX

1960 1

1961 4 XX

1962 A ^ 26 xxxxxxxxxx

1963 14 xxxxx

1964 13 xxxxx

1965 13 xxxxx

1 A #r 1966 34 xxxxxxxxxxxxx

1967 41 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1 A ^ A 1968 65 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1 A A 1969 54 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1970 63 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1971 80 27% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1972 94 3 3 % xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1973 118 4 0 % xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1974 A ^ 96 48% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1975 107 P P A w%v %r V.V ww wwwww wwwwwwwwvj^ «^ wwww%y W W%9 %v %y 55% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1976 76 ^ A A X9 %W XW %9 X9 X9 %9 XT X9 X9 X9 X9 X9 X9 X9 XF X9 X9 XT X9 X9 XW XWX9X9XWX9 6 3 % xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1977 64 ^ ^\ a X9 X9 X9 XW XW X9 XW XW XP X9 XP XP XW X9 XW X9 XW XW XT XW X9 X9 X9 XW 69% XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

1978 105 7 3 % xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1979 95 81% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1980 117 88% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1981 53 96% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1982 0 100%

1362

* These have no specified acquisition date. Prior to

June 30, 1971, data on acquisition date was not

required, but was entered into the data base on a

voluntary basis.

Figure 4

29
Since this number of medium- to large-scale computers represents

such a small percent (eight percent) of the Federal computers by

number (even though they represent over $1 billion in purchase

price or 66 percent of the total purchase price values of the

CPUs in the inventory), we decided to look at the whole

Inventory. Over 50 percent of the inventory is composed of

minicomputers and represents a different picture than the IBM

family of 360s and 370s. In addition to looking at the whole

inventory we wanted to look at the age of the computers by agency

to make comparisons among agencies.

Table 7 shows all of the CPUs listed by year of acquisition for

all agencies. To create a comparison figure, we totalled the

number of computers acquired from 1977 through 198I (five years)

for each agency and determined what percent of that agency's

inventory this represented. This allowed us to compare one

agency with another. It should be noted that the I98I figure for

most agencies is very low compared with the number of computers

for other recent years. This occurs because there is a delay

from the time the paperwork is cut for a computer and the time it

is purchased, installed, tested, and reported in the inventory.

The delay is generally at least one year. Since the low figures

are consistent for all agencies, the figures can still be used

for comparisons. Thus, the 5 year percent figure shows what

percent of an agency's computers were purchased in the last five

years. This percent is given in the right hand column of table

7. Table 8 lists the agencies in descending order of this

percent (the highest percent of current computers first) and

presents these figures again. It is evident from these two tables

that certain agencies have a much higher number of older

computers than others. In the civilian agencies the Department of

Justice, the Department of Transportation, Department of

Commerce, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Treasury

Department indicate the smallest percent of current computers.

ACTION, the Tennessee Valley Authority, State Department, and the

Department of Interior have the highest percent of current

computers. (ACTION obviously is a special case.)

In the Department of Defense, the Navy Department shows the

smallest percent of current computers while other Defense and

Defense Logistics show the highest percent. Overall, the

Defense Department has older computers than do the civilian

agencies

.

A frequency distribution of the total number of Federal computers

by year of acquisition is presented in figure 5- This shows that

16 percent of the inventory represents computers that have

acquisition dates prior to 1972, and 43 percent have acquisition

dates from 1977 to 198I.

To take an additional look at the inventory, we isolated the

large computers, those costing over $500,000 and ran the

frequency distribution program on the acquisition dates. The

frequency distribution of these 66I computers is presented in

figure 6. It shows that of these large computers, 27 percent

30
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31
TABLE 8

Number of CPUs by Percent of Recent Agency CPU Acquisitions

AGENCY TOTAL RECENT PERCENT

81 (1977-1981) 81

ACTION 20 20 100%

TVA 647 533

n M ^ S2%

Other Def. 107 85 19%

State 68 50 IH

Interior 291 202 69%

Other Civ 100 63 61%

Def. Log. 164 95 5856

Agriculture 225 126 56^

HHS 523 294 5656

VA 589 323 5556

NASA 2404 1287 5456

Energy 4406 2002 4556

Labor 38 17 4556

Def. Comm. 42 18 4356

Def. Map. 137 58 i\2%

44 18 kit

OPM 29 12 4156

Air Force 2662 1000 3856

Army 1758 665 3856

NSP 107 35 3356

EPA 176 48 2756

Navy 2093 428 2056

Treasury 236 43 13%

Commerce 444 66 1556

Trans

.

378 33 9%

Justice 35 1 356 TOTAL 17723 7502 42^

32
Number of CPUs

Installed as of December 1981

ACQ No. Cumulative

YEAR Percentile

NONE* 542 yAAAAAAAAAAa yvvvvvvvyv

1950 0

1951 0

1952 0

1953 0

1954 0

1955 0

1956 0

1957 0

1958 0

1959 5

1960 8

1961 36 Y

1962 74 XX

1963 75 XX

1964 123 XXX

1965 152 XXX

1966 254 xxxxx

1967 211

- xxxx

1968 348 xxxxxxx

1969 440 xxxxxxxxx

1970 620 xxxxxxxxxxxxx

1971 738 16% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1972 981 20% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1973 1087 26% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1974 1246 32% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1975 1647 39% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1976 1616 48% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1977 1457 58% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1978 2213 66% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1979 1542 78% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1980 1459 87% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1981 849 95% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1982 0 100%

rrrn

* These have no specified acquisition date. Prior to

June 30, 1971, data on acquisition date was not

required, but was entered into the data base on a voluntary basis.

Figure 5
Number of CPUs Valued Over $500,000

Installed as of December 1981

ACQ No. Cumulative

YEAR Percentile

NONE* 13 xxxxxxxx

1950 0

1951 0

1952 0

1953 0

1954 0

1955 0

1956 0

1957 0

1958 0

1959 3 XX

1960 1 X

1961 2 X

1962 9 XXXXXX

1963 1 X

1964 2 X

1965 3 XX

1966 16 XXXXXXXXXX

1967 21 XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

1968 34 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

1969 25 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1970 23 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1971 32 23% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1972 42 28% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1973 69 34% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1974 57 45% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1975 54 53% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1976 44 62% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1977 24 68% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1978 61 72% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1979 51 81% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1980 59 89% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1981 15 98% XXXXXXXXXX

1982 0 100%

661

These have no specified acquisition date. Prior to

June 30, 1971, data on acquisition date was not

required, but was entered into the data base on a

voluntary basis.

Figure 6

34
have acquisition dates of 10 years or older while 32 percent have

acquisition dates of five years or newer. Thus these large

computers appear to be less current than the rest of the

computers in the inventory.

In general, our current statistics indicate that the situation of

obsolescence is not as bad as portrayed in the General Accounting

Office report, but there is still a large number of older

computers in the Federal inventory. Our analysis suggests that

certain agencies, particularly the Navy Department, Department of

Justice, Department of Commerce, and the Department of

Transportation, should analyze their computer inventories to see

if upgrading their state of computer technology is in order.

2.3.2 Installed CPUs by Agency

Table 9 shows the number and dollar value (total purchase price)

of all of the CPUs in the inventory listed by agency. Figures 7

and 8 are bar graphs which illustrate the 10 agencies having the

largest number of CPUs and the largest total purchase price. The

Department of Energy has the largest number of CPUs with 4,406

installed or almost 25 percent of the total number of CPUs in the

inventory. Energy is followed by the Air Force with 2,662 CPUs

(15 percent of the inventory), NASA with 2,404 CPUs (14 percent

of the inventory). Navy with 2,003 CPUs (12 percent) and Army

with 1,758 CPUs (10 percent). These top five agencies represent

over 75 percent of the total number of CPUs installed. If the

top 10 agencies are added together they total almost 90 percent

of the total number of CPUs installed.

When these CPUs are analyzed by total purchase price or dollar

value. Energy has the largest total purchase price with

$408,355,758 (20 percent of the inventory's total purchase

price), followed by the Air Force with $388,816,013 (19 percent),

NASA with $274,680,818 (13 percent). Navy with $209,738,942 (10

percent) and Army with $205,736,728 (10 percent). These top five

agencies total over 72 percent of the total dollar value of the

inventory. The top 10 agencies combined equal almost 88 percent

of the total inventory by dollar value.

Figure 9 shows the percentage of total CPUs that each agency has

and compares these percentages with 1970 GSA figures. Since the

older figures had the Department of Defense CPUs added together

and presented as one number, the I98O Defense Department figures

have also been totaled. The major change over these 10 years was

that the Department of Defense had over 60 percent of the

computers in the Government in 1970 and had less than 45 percent

in 1980. This means that the civilian agencies have gained

almost 20 percent of the inventory over this time period. The

Department of Energy has shown the largest increase as a percent

of the total inventory going from less than 15 percent in 1970 to

almost 25 percent of the total CPUs in 198O. Overall, figure 9

illustrates that seven agencies and the summation of the other

civilian agencies show an increase in percentage while three

civilian agencies. Treasury, NASA, GSA, as well as DoD show a

35
TABLE 9

Number and Dollar Value of CPUs by Agency

PURCHASE

AGENCY NUMBER PRICE

Department of Energy 4,406 $408,355, 758

Department of Agriculture 225 $21,092,,451

Administrative Office of the US Courts 2 $606 ,958

Office of Admin. 6 $1,724 ,112

Civil Aeronautics Board 1 $762 ,768

Commodity Futures Trading Commission 2 $121 ,040

Department of Commerce 444 $63,932.»962

Office of Personnel Management 29 $6,684 , 164

Department of the Army 1,758 $205,736.,728

Defense Mapping Agency 137 $17,835.

$490.

»413

Office of the Secretary of Defense 79 ,965

Department of the Air Force 2,662 $388,816 ,013

Defense Nuclear Agency 19 $2,025 ,223

Defense Communications Agency 42 $12,066 ,635

Defense Intelligence Agency 7 $5,908 ,068

Department of the Navy 2,093 $209,738.,942

Defense Contract Audit Agency 1 $ 0

Defense Logistics Agency 164 $23,701.,989

Defense Investigative Service 1 $245 ,000

Department of Education 3 $123 ,368

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 1 $290 ,670

Export-Import Bank of the US 1 $347.,015

Environment Protection Agency 176 $7,857 ,008

Federal Emergency Management Agency 14 $1,573 .759

Federal Communications Commission 4 $801.,312

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 1 $2,025

$717.

,000

Federal Home Loan Bank Board 3 ,856

Federal Reserve System 2 $6,887 ,122

General Accounting Office 1 $33.

t— C\ r~ »585

Government Printing Office 6 $4,964 ,072

General Services Administration 44 $20,046 ,724

Department of Health and Human Service 523 $88,449 ,221

Department of Housing and Urban Dev. 8 $5,665.,371

Interstate Commerce Commission 1 $67.,142

Department of the Interior 291 $48,586 ,198

Department of Justice 35 $8,809 ,049

Department of Labor 38 $6,431.,443

Library of Congress 2 $ 0

National Aeronautics and Space Admin. 2,404 $274,680, 818

National Labor Relations Board 1 $115,,920

Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9 $357, 046

National Science Foundation 107 $18,487, 269

Community Services Admin. 1 $469,.633

Panama Canal Commission 5 $513,,539

Railroad Retirement Board 3 $864, 905

Small Business Admin. 5 $1,900,,824

Securities and Exchange Commission 1 $654,,000

Selective Service System 5 $203.,438

36
TABLE 9—Continued

Number and Dollar Value of CPUs by Agency

PURCHASE

AGENCY NUMBER PRICE

Department of State 68 $6,894,924

Agency of International Dev. 3 $1,771,841

ACTION 20 $731,720

Department of Transportation 378 $58,083,516

Department of the Treasury 236 $39,086,698

Office of the US Trade Representative 3 $74,802

Tennessee Valley Authority 647 $24,414,793

International Communication Agency 1 $331,000

US International Trade Commission 5 $16, 340

Veterans Administration 589 $51,524,980

TOTAL 17,723 $2,054,699,110

37
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AGENCY SHARE OF INSTALLED CPUS

o

1

GSA

VA

AGRI

INT

COMM

- TREAS

HHS

Other

DOT

NASA

DOE

10

^

1970

I 1 1980

'DOD

20 30 40

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50 60

Figure 9

40
decrease. Please note that this does not imply that the number

of computers in each agency declined over 10 years. The number

of CPUs within those agencies showed an absolute increase, but

their CPUs as a percentage of the total inventory declined.

2.3.3 Installed CPUs by Price Range

As another approach to analyzing the sizes of the computers in

the Federal inventory, we totaled the number and dollar value of

the CPUs for various purchase price ranges. Note that this

analysis was for CPUs alone and not computer systems (CPUs plus

peripherals). The results of this analysis are given in figures

10 and 11. As figure 10 shows, the largest number of CPUs are

CPUs with a purchase price of between $10,000 and $20,000 ($10-

20K range). The next two highest ranges are $20-40K and $5-10K.

These three ranges, or from $5,000 to $40,000 represent almost 53

percent of the number of CPUs in the inventory.

We mentioned in section 2.1 that the average purchase price of

CPUs dropped from 198O to I98I. One reason for this was the

increase in the number of CPUs in the $0-5K range. In I98O there

were 1,149 CPUS in the $0-5K range. In I98I the number of CPUs

in this category increased 51 percent to 1,736. This range

showed the largest growth rate of all of the ranges. In addition

to this increase in the cheapest of the CPUs, the number of CPUs

in the $300-500K range and the over $500K range decreased from

1980 to 1981 also causing the overall average price to decrease.

By dollar value, the largest range is the purchase price greater

than $500K (figure 11). This purchase price range represents

over $1 billion and over 54 percent of the total dollar value of

the CPUS in the inventory. The next largest ranges are the $100-

200K range with a total purchase price of over $264,000 and the

$300-500K range with a total purchase price of over $178,000.

If the ranges are grouped together, 63 percent of the number of

CPUs are in the purchase price ranges of less than $40,000. By

dollar value or total purchase price, the CPUs with a purchase

price range of over $300,000 represent 63 percent of the total

purchase price of the CPUs in the inventory. Thus by number the

less expensive computers represent the largest portion of the

inventory's CPUs while by total purchase price the most expensive

CPUs represent the largest portion.

As was given in section 2.1, there are a total of 17,723 CPUs for

a total purchase price of $2,054,699,110. This means that the

average purchase price for all of the CPUs was $115,934. We

analyzed the total figures by purchase price range but felt that

one other analysis might also be interesting, i.e., the average

price of CPUs by year of acquisition in the current inventory.

The results of this analysis are given in figure 12. It should

be stressed here that the CPUs are only those listed in the 198I

inventory. Thus the average purchase price for I965 is based on

41
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44
the purchase prices of the 152 CPUs which were included in the

1981 inventory, not based on all of the CPUs with an acquisition

date of 1965 which were ever in the inventory. (In the 1972

inventory there were 379 CPUs with an acquisition date of 1965.)

The results of this analysis show that the average purchase price

of CPUs in the I98I inventory having an acquisition date of 1970

or newer seem to be lower than those CPUs with acquisition dates

in the 1960s. The exception to this seems to be the CPUs with an

acquisition date of I98O. In the I98I file there were 1,459 CPUs

listed with an acquisition date of 198O and a total purchase

price of $200,565,654. Thus the average purchase price for the

1980 CPUs was $137,467.89. There were 849 CPUs with an

acquisition date of 198I for a total purchase price of

$74,414,255 or an average purchase price of $87,649.30. Thus the

average purchase price of the I98O CPUs is significantly higher

than the I98I figure and the other figures from the 1970s —a fact

which we are unable to explain.

Even though this I98O figure is high, the author still feels that

in general the average purchase prices of CPUs will continue to

decline as more minicomputers and microcomputers are entered into

the inventory. These CPUs have a much lower purchase price than

the older general purpose computers.

2.3.4 Installed CPUs by Manufacturer

There are 275 manufacturers listed for CPUs on the GSA MIS

inventory. Figures 13 and 14 and table 10 show the manufacturers

with the largest number of CPUs and the largest total dollar

value (purchase price) of installed CPUs in the Federal

government. The manufacturer with the largest number of

installed CPUs is Digital Equipment Corporation with 26 percent

of the total number of CPUs. Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Univac, Data

General Corporation, Modular Computer Systems, and Honeywell all

follow with between four and 10 percent of the total number of

CPUs. Control Data Corp., Wang, Interdata, and Burroughs have

between two and three percent each. Together, CPUs from these 11

manufacturers comprise 78 percent of the Federal inventory. The

remaining 22 percent is supplied by 264 different manufacturers.

By dollar value, or percent of the total purchase price, IBM is

the largest supplier with 24 percent of the total purchase price.

Control Data Corporation follows with 17 percent and Digital

Equipment Corporation with over 10 percent. Univac has 9.4

percent and Honeywell has nine percent. Modular Computer Systems,

Cray, Burroughs, Hewlett-Packard, Data General, and Texas

Instruments each have between one and five percent of the total

dollar value. These 11 manufacturers supply CPUs comprising 84

percent of the total purchase price of the inventory. The

remaining 16 percent is supplied by the other 264 manufacturers.

Table 10 shows the actual numbers and total purchase prices for

all manufacturers having more than 100 CPUs installed or more

than $10 million in total purchase price of the CPUs installed.

45
FlDERRL CPUS BY MRNUFnCTURER

PERCENT BY NUMBER
PEDERnL CPUS BY MnNUFflCTURER

PERCENT BY DOLLAR

Figure 14

47
TABLE 10

CPUs by Manufacturer*

(listed alphabetically)

Manufacturer Number Purchase Price

of CPUs

Amdahl 11 $ 25,105,508

Burroughs Corp. 336 44,175,074

Control Data Corp. 436 343,911,069

Cray Research, Inc. 10 71,502,251

Data General Corp. 1,181 33,168,909

Datapoint Corp. 142 1,483,074

Digital Equipment Corp. 4,640 215,183,849

Four Phase Systems, Inc. 195 7,954,468

General Electric 96 14,627,108

Harris Communications 146 6,419,748

Hewlett-Packard Co. 1,559 40,905,375

Honeywell 809 186,340,508

Hughes Aircraft Co. 12 12,897,347

Interdata 353 20,368,798

International Business Machines 1,405 483,866,938

Itel Corp. 24 13,940,458

Modular Computer Systems, Inc. 1,084 98,434,751

Motorola, Inc. 125 442,941

National Cash Reg. Co. 144 3,821,914

Scientific Data Systems, Inc. 83 12,902,285

Sperry Univac 1,253 193,556,397

Systems Eng. Labs., Inc. 268 22,973,195

Tektronix 159 2,865,947

Texas Instruments 198 26,275,623

Varian Data Machines 314 11,961,312

Wang 398 8,215,393

Xerox Data Systems 137 20,528,138

Total 15,518 1,923,828,378

•Manufacturers with more than 100 CPUs installed or over

million in total purchase price of CPUs installed.

48
These 27 manufacturers represent almost 88 percent of the total

number of installed CPUs and over 93 percent of the total

purchase price of all of the CPUs. Thus the remaining 248

manufacturers totalled only equal about 12 percent of the number

of CPUs and less than seven percent of the total purchase price

of all of the CPUs.

2.4 Federal Disk Units

As was shown earlier, there were 24,139 disk drives reported in

the Federal Government as of December 1981, with a combined

purchase price of $587,089,808. These disk drives equal over 10

percent of the inventory's total purchase prices. The average

purchase price of the disk drives was $24,321, and there were an

average of 1.36 disk drives per CPU in the inventory. The number

of disks had increased four percent from 198O to 198I and for the

first time in the inventory, actually outnumbered the magnetic

tape units. The average purchase price of a disk unit had

declined over $300 from $24,639 in I98O, indicating that less

expensive disks were entering the inventory. To identify other

attributes of the disk units, we analyzed them by acquisition

date, purchase price, and agency for both the I98O and the 198I

files.

2.4.1 Disk Units Installed by Acquisition Date

A frequency distribution showing the number of disk units by year

of acquisition is given in figure 15 . The disk units in the

Federal inventory have mainly been purchased in the last 10 years

with 50 percent in the last five years (having acquisition dates

of 1977 to 1981). As is the case with the analysis of CPUs by

date, the I98I reported figure is lower than it should be. Since

units in the Federal inventory are not reported until they have

been physically installed, the actual number of disk drives

having an acquisition date of 1981, will be much higher in the

reported figures from the FY82 inventory.

As mentioned earlier, there were more disks installed in the 198I

inventory than there were magnetic tape units. The frequency

distributions, figures 15 and 20, of the disks and tape units

show that there were more disks listed for each year from 1974 to

1981 than there were tapes indicating a long-term trend that, by

1981, resulted in the number of disks in the total inventory

exceeding the number of magnetic tape drives. Also, the

acquisition dates of most disk units are more recent than the

acquisition dates of most tape units; however, both memory units

are still being purchased. In the United States as a whole, disk

technology seems to be replacing magnetic tape technology more

quickly than it is in the Federal Government.

One other note should be added about the frequency distribution

on disks, figure 15. There are four disks which appeared in the

1981 file for the first time but have an acquisition date of

1950. These four are probably the result of erroneous data input

49
Number of Disk Drives

Installed as of December 1981

Acy No

.

Cumulative

YEAR Percentile

NONE* 1 A A 200 XXX

1 o c n 4

A

u

1 Q 1^ O A

U

1 o c o ISO J A

U

AU

1 Q C C A

U

A

U

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loco 1959 0

t f\ ^ f\ 1960 3

1961 0

1962 2

1963 6

1964 10

19bD 12

1X700 Qtm ** L X

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1 Q A X

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1 Q^Q £.i 1 XXX

S.J 1 Q7n1 yj 5 c: A xxxxx

±7 / X / u 0 5% xxxxxxxxxx

19 / /. 0 A C 9U0 8% xxxxxxxxxxxxx

1 0 T 0 1973 left* 1594 11% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1974 A 1 C A 2150 18% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1975 2494 27% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1976 2949 37% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1977 3006 49% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1978 3224 62% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1979 2571 75% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1980 2434 86% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1981 995 96% xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1982 0 100%

* These have no specified acquisition date. Prior to

June 30, 1971, data on acquisition date was not

required, but was entered into the data base on a

voluntary basis.

Figure 15

50
but we could not identify them by model number or any other dates

in the file in order to ascertain the correct acquisition date.

Thus they have been left as they appear on the file.

2.4.2 Disk Units Installed by Price Range

We sorted the disk units into ranges of purchase prices to try to

analyze the costs and probable sizes of the disk drives. This

data is presented in figures 16 and 17. The largest number of

disk units is in the $20K-$40K range followed by the $10-$20K

range, the $0-5K range and the $5-10K range. Thus the number of

disks ranging from $0-40K equals 21,177 units or almost 87

percent of total of the number disks installed. All of the disks

with a purchase price greater than $40,000 only equal 12 percent

by number of units. By dollar value, the disks costing less than

$40,000 equal 51 percent of the total purchase price of all

disks

.

There were a number of major differences in the 198O file and the

1981 file when disks were analyzed by purchase price range. In

1980 the largest category of number of disks by price range was

the $10-20K range with 6,387 disks listed. In I98I this category

had 5,833 listed or a decrease of almost 9 percent. The next

largest category in 198O was the $20-40K range, with 5,099 disks

listed. In 198I this category became the largest with 6,031

disks listed or an 18 percent increase. The two categories of

disks with a purchase price less than $10,000 increased slightly

(between five and seven percent) but by far the largest increase

was in the $20-40K range. The more expensive disks, those having

a purchase price greater than $60,000, generally decreased

slightly

.

There does appear to be one major problem with this information

on disks sorted by purchase price range. The range that is over

$500K shows 16 disks with an average price of over $4 million

each. When we analyzed these 16 disks it was apparent that none

of the models should have cost over $3 million. Our best guess

is that these entries actually represent several disk drives and

controllers and are listed as one disk system. While we did not

verify the data with each installation involved, we did not see

what appeared to be any blatant typographical errors. We feel

that these large dollar values probably statistically balance the

entries which have a recorded dollar value of $1 or $2. This is

the way that some disk systems were entered with one disk unit

having a large dollar value and other disk units at the same

location having a nominal dollar value. The overall figures,

total numbers, dollars, and average price seem to be reasonable.

2.4.3 Disks Units Installed by Agency

We analyzed the number of disk units and the dollar value of disk

units installed in each agency. The data from this analysis is

presented in figures 18 and 19 . (For those who are interested in

comparing agencies which are disk oriented with those which are

tape oriented, the same data vis a vis tapes is presented in

51
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section 2.5.2, figures 21 and 22.) Five agencies have both the

largest number of disks and the largest total purchase price,

i.e.. Energy, Air Force, Army, Navy, and NASA. These five

agencies show a significantly larger number and dollar value of

disk units than the next five agencies. The rank order of the

agencies varies slightly, with Energy having the largest number

of disks and the Air Force having the largest dollar values but

the same five agencies remain at the top of both lists. These

same five agencies are also the agencies which have the largest

number of CPUs and the highest total purchase price for CPUs.

When this same analysis was completed on the I98O file there were

not many significant differences. However, the Navy decreased in

the number of disks listed from I98O to 198I. In I98O the Navy

listed 3,020 disks with a total purchase price of $111.1 million.

In 1981 the Navy only listed 2,319 disks with a total purchase

price of $90.0 million. Thus both the number and dollar value of

the Navy's disks decreased. Three other agencies shown on these

graphs also decreased in number and dollar value of disks, i.e.

Defense Logistics, Interior, and Commerce.

2.5 Federal Magnetic Tape Units

As noted earlier, there were a total of 23,388 tape units in the

Federal Government as of December I98I, with a total purchase

price of $421,051,420. The average price of a tape unit was

$18,003. The dollar value of these tape units equalled about

eight percent of the dollar value of the total ADP inventory.

When the number of tape units was divided by the number of CPUs,

the result indicated that there were on average 1.32 tape units

per CPU. Note that the number of magnetic tape units decreased

from 1980 to 1981. 1981 was the first year that the number of

disk units was greater than the number of tape units. To

identify other attributes of the tape units, we analyzed the

units by year of acquisition, by agency, and by purchase price

range.

2.5.1 Tape Units Installed by Acquisition Date

A frequency distribution showing the number of tape units by year

of acquisition is given in figure 20. The majority, 79 percent,

of tape units in the Federal Government have an acquisition date

later than 1971; however, only 32 percent of these units have

been purchased in the last five years (having acquisition dates

between 1977 and I98I) . Thus, these units appear to be older than

the Government's disk units. The peak years for tape unit

acquisitions seemed to be 1973, 1974, and 1976 while the peak

years for disk unit acquisitions seemed to be 1976, 1977, and

1978. Note however, that there still are a significant number of

tape units being added to the inventory. In 1978, for example,

3,116 disk units were acquired versus 1,811 tape units. Thus,

while there is a decrease in the number of tape units being added

to the inventory, there still is a significant number of tape

units with current acquisition dates.

56
Number of Tape Drives

Installed as of December 1981

ACQ No. Cumulative

YEAR Percentile

NONE* 1084 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1950 0

1951 0

1952 0

1953 0

1954 0

1955 0

1956 0

1957 0

1958 0

1959 0

1960 44 X

1961 123 XXX

1962 183 xxxx

1963 336 xxxxxxx

1964 267 xxxxx

1965 317 xxxxxx

1966 372 xxxxxxxx

1967 374 xxxxxxxx

1968 609 xxxxxxxxxxxx

1969 593 xxxxxxxxxxxx

1970 742 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1971 932 22% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1972 1646 26% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1973 2211 33% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1974 2088 42% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1975 1999 51% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1976 2116 60% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1977 1424 69% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1978 1752 75% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1979 1880 82% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1980 1495 90% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1981 801 97% xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1982 0 100%

23388

These have no specified acquisition date. Prior to

June 30, 1971, data on acquisition date was not

required, but was entered into the data base on a voluntary basis.

Figure 20

57
2.5.2 Tape Units Installed by Agency

Bar graphs of the number and dollar value of tape units by agency

are presented in figures 21 and 22. The five agencies showing

both the largest number and dollar value of tape units installed

are the Air Force, Army, Navy, Energy, and NASA. These are the

same five agencies that also show the largest number of CPUs and

the largest number of disks. The ranking of the agencies changes

slightly when you analyze the units by number and by dollar value

but the top five agencies are still the same. The next grouping

of agencies varies slightly also with Commerce appearing in the

top 10 if the analysis is by number and the Veterans

Administration appearing if the analysis is by dollar value.

Transportation is the only agency on the top 10 agencies for

number of tapes that did not appear in the top 10 agencies for

disks. Transportation and the Veterans Administration appear in

the top 10 for dollar value of tapes but did not appear in the

top 10 by dollar value of disks.

When we analyzed the 1980 data file both the overall number of

tape units, and the total purchase price were higher than in

1981. Of the agencies listed in figures 21 and 22, two increased

both the number of tape units and the total purchase price, i.e.,

the Air Force and Energy. Treasury increased the number of tape

units listed but the total purchase price decreased. All of the

other agencies showed a decrease in both the number of magnetic

tape units installed and the total purchase price of the magnetic

tape units installed.

2. 5« 3 Tape Unit Installed by Price Range

As mentioned above, the average purchase price of a magnetic tape

unit was $18, 003 • To analyze the prices of all of the tape

units, we totalled the number and dollar value of these units by

purchase price range. The results are given in figures 23 and

24. The largest number of tape units are in the price range of

$20-40K with the $10-20K range having the next highest number.

The number of tape units costing less than $40,000 equals 97

percent of the total number of tape units. By dollar value these

tape units costing less then $40,000 equal 83 percent of the

total dollar value.

When this analysis for I98I was compared with the data from I98O,

the only price range which showed any increase from 198O to 198I

was the $5-10K price range which rose from 3,770 units in I98O to

3,897 units in I98I. All of the other price ranges showed a

decrease

.

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References

Automatic Data Processing Equipment Inventory In the United

States Government as of the end of Fiscal Year 198I , General

Services Administration, Washington, D. C, February 1982,

p. 4.

Continued Use of Costly, Outmoded Computers In Federal

Agencies Can Be Avoided , The Comptroller GeneraT7 General

Accounting Office, Report to the Congress of the United

States, APMD-81-9, December 15, 1980, 61 pp.

Ibid, p. 5.

63

Section 3. Federal

Compared with

Government Statistics

U.S. Statistics

3 . 1 Introduction

Both in order to facilitate comparisons of Federal and U.S.

computers and to prepare a detailed analysis of the Federal

general purpose computers and minicomputers, a model-by-model

census of Federal computers was developed. The census was

developed by comparing IDC's model-by-model census of computers

in the U.S. with printouts obtained from GSA. These printouts

are from year-end 1972 through I98O. In some instances, models

listed in the GSA inventory do not appear in the IDC census. In

those cases, ICST assigned the models to the categories that were

deemed apropriate. In other instances, models listed in the GSA

inventory were not, strictly speaking, computers but, for example

were add-on memory units, programmable calculators, intelligent

terminals, and so on. ICST deleted those models for purposes of

this analysis. Thus, in this section of the report, we consider

only 14,761 computers rather than the 15,154 CPUs reported in the

GSA MIS inventory for 1980.(1) Since the purpose of section 3 is

to analyze trends in the general purpose computer and

minicomputer segments of the Federal Government, the discrepancy

between the numbers used here and those used in section 2 did not

pose a problem. Because both the Federal census and the U.S.

census were based on year-end figures, no extrapolation of data

was necessary for yearly comparisons.

3 . 2 Federal Government Computers

Table 11 shows the results of the census development. The

headings for microprocessors, small business computers, and word

processors have been added not to indicate that these are the

total number of these machines in the government, but to show

that of the CPUs listed in the inventory, 419 fell into these

categories and could not really be called anything else. Logic

dictates that there are certainly more than 131 microprocessors

in the Federal Government. The majority, however, have not been

entered into the ADP inventory as CPUs. As the number of

microprocessors increase in the government, more will probably be

listed, but with the current reporting procedures for the

inventory, the reported number will probably never equal the

actual number in existence—nor will the reported number of word

processors match their actual total.

As section 2 showed, the number of CPUs in the $0-5K range has

grown from 1,149 in 198O to 1,736 in 198I reflecting a 51 percent

increase. This would seem to indicate that when a model-by-model

census analysis is completed on the I98I data, the number of

small computers, microprocessors, and word processors will

increase. Nonetheless, the author feels that these numbers will

never wholly reflect the actual increases in the numbers of small

machines. Microprocessors can be built from storeroom parts and

not purchased through the normal ADP procurement channels. Thus

65
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the individual filling out the GSA MIS Inventory reporting forms

may never know that the micros even exist.

When the dollar value of the inventory is analyzed for purposes

of cost/benefit studies, impact assessments, etc., the impact of

these small CPUs is small. In I98O the reported number of CPUs

in the $0-10K range was over 21 percent of the total number of

CPUs in the inventory. By dollar value, however, the total

purchase price of these CPUs was less than one percent of the

total dollar value of the CPUs. Thus, for certain kinds of

analyses, the important segments of the inventory are still the

general purpose computer and the minicomputer segments since

these have the largest dollar value. As mentioned in section 2,

those CPUs which had a purchase price of over $500,000

represented over 55 percent of the dollar value of the total

inventory. These expensive computers usually are found in size

classes 5, 6 and 7 of the general purpose computers.

Thus, the analysis in this section will focus on the general

purpose computer and minicomputer segments of the Federal

inventory. The intent is to identify historical trends and to

compare them with comparable trends in the United States as a

whole

.

Figures 25 and 26 graphically show the number of Federal

computers (for the purposes of these graphs the microprocessors,

small business computers, and word processors are included in the

"special" category.) As is apparent, the increase in the number

of Federal computers for the most part reflects the increase in

the number of minicomputers. The number of minicomputers has

increased from 27 percent of the total number of computers in

1972 to 63 percent of the total number in 198O. The number of

minicomputers in I98O did not increase as much as in the past

(see section 3.5) but it. still provided much of the growth in the

Federal computer inventory.

The number of general purpose computers has shown a continuous

decline over the nine years covered in this analysis. Overall,

the number of general purpose computers in the Federal

Government has shown a 17 percent decline since 1972. However,

since 1978 the decline has been less than five percent. The

number of general purpose computers is expected to remain fairly

stable in the next five years, showing only a slight decline. As

the number of smaller computers increase in the Government, the

percentage of general purpose computers compared with the total

number of computers will continue to decline. In 1972 the

general purpose computers represented 56 percent of the total

number of Federal computers, by 198O the general purpose

computers represented only 22 percent of the total — a downward

trend likely to continue.

The growth rate of the total number of Federal computers is shown

in table 12. Over the last nine years the growth rate has

averaged a little over 10 percent. The growth rate from 1979 to

1980 seems atypically low and is probably not indicative of a

67
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69
developing trend. The number of smaller computers should

certainly increase more than six percent. If the 10+ percent

growth rate is applied to the I98O figure and for the next 10

years, by 1990 the Federal Government will have almost 40,000

computers

.

TABLE 12

Federal Computer Growth Rate by Number

Year-end Total No. of CPUs Growth Rate {%)

1972 6,788

1973 7,328 7.96

1974 8,068 10.10

1975 8,828 9.42

1976 9,663 9.46

1977 11,132 15.20

1978 12,146 9.11

1979 13,906 14.49

1980 14,761 6.15

Average Growth Rate = 10.2456

3.3 United States Computers

The number of computers installed in the United States presented

in table 13 is the data which will be utilized in the rest of

this section. All of the numbers are from the International Data

Corporation. Most of these are from the "Annual Review and

Forecast" issues of the EDP Industry Report . The numbers of computers in the United States, counting desktop

computers, has dramatically increased from 1972 to 198O and has

now reached the one million mark. If you calculate the number of

people per computer in 1972 and I98O based on Bureau of the

Census figures, there were almost 2,029 people/computer in 1972

and 178 people/computer in I98O. Thus, the increase in the

acceptance of the technology has been significant. These numbers

do not imply that there is a computer in every household but they

do show that there has certainly been a proliferation of

computers

.

For the purpose of this report we are interested more in the

trends of the general purpose computer and the minicomputer

segments than in the total numbers. Because the numbers

presented in table 13 are not mutually exclusive we have not

presented these number graphically. Since the number of desktop

computers is greater than the number of general purpose computers

and minicomputers added together, it would seem that these two

segments of the total U.S. inventory are quite small. However,

according to the EPF Industry Report , the general purpose

computers represented $5^.2 "billion value in use" (2) and the

minicomputers $11.5 "billion value in use"(3). The desktop

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computers only represented $2.6 "billion value in use" (4) and the

small business computers $6.4 "billion value in use"(5). Thus

the general purpose computers and minicomputers represent the

largest segments of the total computer population when dollar

values are analyzed. Thus these segments are still important for

comparisons with the Federal Government.

3.4 General Purpose Computers - Federal vs . U.S.

Figures 27 and 28 show all of the general purpose computers by

size class for the United States and the Federal Government. In

both figures it is apparent that there are two distinct groups of

general purpose computers. Size classes 2, 3 and 4, the smaller

general purpose computers, have generally been declining in both

the United States and the Federal Government while size classes

5, 6 and 7, the larger size classes generally show an increase.

The author believes that these trends will continue. As

minicomputers and small business computers replace the small

general purpose computers, the smaller size classes will continue

to decline. The need for larger general purpose computers does

not seem to be affected by the growth of the smaller computers.

The individual size classes are discussed separately in following

sections

.

If the size classes are divided into three groups and the numbers

from the United States and Federal Government compared (see

figure 29) it becomes apparent that the major differences between

the two installed bases is the decrease in the Federal Government

of size classes 2 and 3 and the larger share of sizes classes 6

and 7. These differences will also probably continue in the

future

.

Overall, the total number of general purpose computers has been

relatively constant for both the United States and the Federal

Government. The growth rates are given in table 14. While the

Federal Government shows a negative average growth rate of two

percent, the United States shows a positive growth rate of only

1.5 percent. Over the last five years both the U.S. and Federal

figures show an average growth rate of a negative two percent.

Thus, the trends of the Federal general purpose computers seem

consistent with those of the U.S. general purpose computers.

72
s^Gindwoo JO >^3Qum
sdGindwoo JO d39wnN

74

TABLE 14

G rowth Ratp of* Ge^npral i. ^.4. ^ ^WO^ Vy V^lll LL V/ ^ i. O

Federal United States

Year No. of CPUs Growth (^) No. of ComDutf»r5? Growth {'L\

1972 3.825 50 200

1973 3,845 -1 58,300 16

1974 3,654 -5 61 450 5

1975 3,498 -4 62,097 1

1976 3,285 -6 59,505 -4

1977 3,308 1 58,078 -2

1978 3,342 1 57,960 -2

1979 3,209 ~4 53,243 -8

1980 3,189 -1 56,515 +6

Averag;e growth rate = -2% Average = +1.5/6

There is one other statistic which is quite interesting when

comparing the Federal general purpose computers with the U.S.

general purpose computers. In 1972 the number of Federal general

purpose computers equalled 7.6 percent of the number of U.S.

general purpose computers. Since 1973 that percent has remained

almost constant at around six percent. This seems to verify

that the trends in the Federal Government are consistent with

those in the United States.

3.4.1 Size Class 2_ Computers

Figure 30 shows the number of size class 2 computers in the

Federal Government and the United States and illustrates that

the number of computers in this size class is declining in both

the United States and the Federal Government. Table 15 shows the

actual growth rates for this size class.

TABLE 15

Growth Rate of Size Class 2 Computers

Federal United States

Year # of CPUs Growth {%) # of Computers Growth

1972 1,135 23,594

1973 1,027 -10 27,110 15

1974 889 -13 28,636 6

1975 886 < 1 28,704 0

1976 755 -15 24,726 -14

1977 720 - 5 20,717 -16

1978 691 - 4 18,835 - 9

1979 628 - 9 14,810 -21

1980 601 - 4 12,924 -13

Average growth rate = -7.5f« Average growth rate =

76

Size class 2 computers are the smallest of the general purpose

category of computers. Historically, these have been considered

entry level machines and usually represented the smallest member

of a general purpose family or series of computers. IDC has

felt that there were two main reasons for the fluctuations and

decline in this category. Size class 2 computers had a large

leased base and were therefore more susceptible to changes.

Also, since these were considered entry level machines, IDC

theorized that once the small systems were implemented,

businesses realized that they could use computers for additional

tasks and upgraded to larger systems. Other businesses are now

aware of the uses of computers and buy larger systems to begin

with. In addition to these reasons the author believes that this

size class, and also size classes 3 and 4 have been impacted by

the growth of small business computers, minicomputers, and

desktop computers. Applications which seemed appropriate for

these small, general purpose computers can now be handled by a

different type of computer.

It is interesting to note that the average negative growth rate

of both the U.S. and the Federal size class 2 computers is fairly

similar, -6.5 percent and -7.5 percent respectively. The number

of Federal size class 2 computers seemed to decline earlier than

the U.S. computers but the number of U.S. computers in this size

class has dramatically fallen in recent years and the overall

trends for both the Federal Government size class 2 computers and

the U.S. size class 2 computers are similar. In 1972, the number

of Federal size class 2 computers represented almost 30 percent

of the number of all of the Federal general purpose computers but

by 1980 they represented less than 19 percent. In the United

States they equalled 47 percent of the total U.S. general purpose

category in 1972 and only 23 percent in 198O. Also, in 1972 the

Federal size class 2 computers equalled almost five percent of

the total U.S. size class 2 computers and the same percent in

1980. Thus, the trends for both the U.S. and Federal size class

2 computers are consistent.

3.4.2 Size Class 3. Computers

The graph showing the number of U.S. and Federal size class 3

computers is given in figure 31. This graph shows that the U.S.

size class 3 computers have increased in number while the Federal

Government's have decreased. The actual numbers and the growth

rates are given in table 16.

78

TABLE 16

Growth Rate of Size Class 3 Computers

Year

Federal

# of CPUs Growth {%)

United States

£ of Computers Growth {%)

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

973

957

872

811

720

711

705

679

670

-2

-9

-7

-11

-1

-1

-4

-1

11,345

13,234

12,720

13,214

14,905

16,501

16,904

16,652

20,099

17

-4

4

13

11

2

-1

21

Average growth rate -4.556 Average growth rate = +7,9%

It is apparent that there are some differences in the trends of

the U.S. and Federal size class 3 computers. The figures show

size class 3 computers increasing in the United States with an

average growth rate of almost eight percent while they are

declining in the Federal Government with an average negative

growth rate of 4.5 percent. In 1972 the Federal size class 3

computers equalled almost nine percent of the total U.S. size

class 3 computers and only equalled three percent of the total in

1980.

If the size class 3 computers are compared with the general

purpose segment, the declines and increases become even more

apparent. In 1972, the Federal size class 3 computers

represented 25 percent of the total number of Federal general

purpose computers. By 198O they only equalled 21 percent. In

the United States the 1972 size class 3 computers represented 23

percent of the total number of U.S. general purpose computers

while the 198O numbers represented 36 percent. Thus, that

portion of general purpose computers represented by size class 3

computers is increasing in the United States but decreasing in

the Federal Government. In 198O size class 3 computers were the

largest size class of general purpose computers in the United

States and the second largest in the Federal Government. At this

time we still have no sound explanations for the difference in

the directions of the trends. The declining trend in the Federal

Government is consistent for all nine years. The author does not

expect this trend to continue. The figures for the United States

are more sporadic, declining some years and increasing others.

The author expects that the U.S. figures will follow the trends

for size class 2 and 4 and not show the growth rate they did in

1980.

80
3.4.3 Size Class _4 Computers

The graph showing the number of size class 4 computers is

presented in figure 32. Usually considered to be medium sized,

general purpose computers, they quite often fall in the middle

models of a family or series of computers. The graph shows that

overall the number of Federal size class 4 computers has slightly

declined while the number of U.S. size class 4 computers has

fluctuated, increasing or decreasing from year to year. The

actual growth rates are given below in table 17.

TABLE 17

Growth Rate of Size Class 4 Computers

Federal United States

Year # of CPUs Growth {%) # of Computers Growth {%)

1972 888 9,488

1973 927 4 11,077 17

1974 909 -2 12,474 13

1975 811 -11 12,334 -1

1976 804 -1 11,639 -6

1977 790 -2 11,532 -1

1978 799 1 11,370 -1

1979 763 -5 10,284 -10

1980 748 -2 10,830 5

Average {growth rate = -2.:Mo Average growth rate = 2%

In the Federal Government, size class 4 computers represented 23

percent of the general purpose computers in 1972 and still

represented 23 percent in I98O. In the United States, the size

class 4 computers represented 19 percent of the U.S. general

purpose computers in 1972 and 19 percent in 198O. Thus, the

position of the size class 4 computers has remained the same when

compared with the respective general purpose computers. However,

in 1972 the Federal size class 4 computers represented nine

percent of the U.S. size class 4 computers but in 198O the

Federal segment only represented seven percent, reflecting the

fact that the number of Federal size class 4 computers are

declining and the U.S. size class 4 computers are showing a

slight increase.

Even though the average growth rate of the Federal size class 4

computers is negative (-2.3%) while the U.S. average growth rate

is positive (+2.0%) the difference between the two is not that

significant. Compared with the other size classes these growth

rates are both relatively flat. The author expects that there

will be little change in growth rates of size class 4 computers

either in the U.S. or the Federal Government. If there is any

change, it would probably be that the U.S. figures will also

start to show a slight decline.

81

3.4.4 Size Class 5 Computers

The graph for size class 5 computers, showing the U.S. and the

Federal Government computers Is given In figure 33. Size class 5

computers are also usually considered medium sized, general

purpose computers. They also are often the models In the middle

of a family or series of computer models. In general, this size

class has a much smaller number of computers, about half of the

numbers listed for size class 4. The graph shows that the number

of U.S. size class 5 computers appears to be Increasing while the

Federal number appears almost unchanged. The actual growth rates

are listed below in table 18.

TABLE 18

Growth Rate of Size Class 5 Computers

Federal

Year # of CPUs Growth {%)

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

328

363

342

348

337

364

364

358

362

11

-6

2

-3

8

0

-2

1

United States

of Computers Growth {%)

3,213

3,790

4,179

4,022

4,037

4,688

5,186

4,891

5,100

18

10

+4

0

16

11

-6

4

Average growth rate = 1.4^ Average growth rate = 6.11

The average growth rate of both the Federal size class 5

computers and the U.S. size class 5 computers is positive but the

U.S. figure is much larger than the Federal. This is illustrated

by the fact that in 1972 the number of Federal size class 5

computers represented 10 percent of the total U.S. size class 5

computers while in 198O it only represented seven percent. It

should be noted that unlike the previously mentioned size

classes (2-4), size class 5 shows positive growth in the Federal

Government

.

When each figure is compared with the other size classes, the

increase is also apparent. In 1972 size class 5 computers

represented less than nine percent of the total Federal

Government general purpose computers and was over 11 percent in

1980. At the same time, the U.S. size class 5 computers

represented over six percent of the U.S. general purpose

computers and now represent over nine percent. Thus, in both the

Federal Government and the United States, the proportion of the

general purpose computers belonging to size class 5 has

increased. The author believes that these trends should both

continue. That is, that the number of Federal size class 5

83
sndo JO yaawoN

84
computers and the number of U.S. size class 5 computers will

continue to increase with the U.S. showing a larger increase than

the Federal Government.

3.4.5 Size Class 6 Computers

Generally, size classes 6 and 7 are considered to be large scale,

general purpose computers. By number, these size classes are

relatively small, but by dollar value (because of the costs of

these computer models) these size classes are quite large. A

graph showing the U.S. and Federal size class 6 computers is

given in figure 34 while the actual numbers and the growth rates

are given in table 19.

TABLE 19

Growth Rate of Size Class 6 Computers

Federal United States

Year # of CPUs Growth {%) # of Computers Growth {%)

1972 308 2,209

1973 353 15 2,623 19

1974 393 11 2,704 3

1975 398 1 2,957 9

1976 403 1 3,191 8

1977 440 9 3,450 8

1978 455 3 4,033 17

1979 461 1 4,641 15

1980 481 4 5,113 10

Average growth rate = 5.6?5 Average growth rate = 11.1>6

The number of size class 6 computers has increased in both the

United States and the Federal Government. Also, this size class

shows the largest growth rate noted so far (comparing size

classes 2 through 5) for both the U.S. and the Federal

Government computers. The growth of the Federal size class 6

computers is still smaller than that of the United States but

both are significant and both have shown a steady increase for

all of the nine years.

Because the growth rate in the United States is greater than that

in the Federal Government, the percent of Federal size class 6

computers compared with the U.S. size class 6 computers, has

declined, from 14 percent in 1972 to less than 10 percent in

1980. However, when each size class 6 is compared with their

respective general purpose segment they have increased. The

Federal size class 6 computers represented eight percent of the

Federal general purpose computers in 1972 and 15 percent in 198O.

In the United States, size class 6 computers represented four

percent of the U.S. general purpose computers in 1972 and nine

percent in I98O. Thus, this size class shows growing importance

85

in the general purpose segment in both the United States and the

Federal Government. This trend should continue.

3.4.6 Size Class ]_ Computers*

Size chass 7 contains the largest, and generally most expensive

models of the general purpose computers. Examples of this size

class Include: the Amdahl 470V/8; Burroughs 7700; Control Data

Corporation Cyber 205 and Star 100; Cray lA and IS; Honeywell H68/DPS; IBM 370/195 and 3081D; National Advanced Systems AS/9000;

NCR 8670; and Sperry Univac 1100/84. The systems in this size

class generally have an average purchase price between $2 million

and $12 million. According to IDC, in I98O size class 7

computers represented four percent of the number of general

purpose computers and almost 29 percent of the total dollar value

of the general purpose computers. IDC determined that the

average system value of these size class 7 computers was almost

$7 million. Thus, even though this size class is the smallest in

number of computers it represents a large dollar value, and is

therefore of considerable interest.

A graph showing the number of size class 7 computers in the

United States and the Federal Government is presented in figure

35. The actual numbers and the growth rates are given below in

table 20.

TABLE 20

Growth Rate of Size Class 7 Computers

Federal United ,States

Year # of CPUs Growth {%) # of Computers Growth i%)

1972 141 351

1973 176 25 466 33

1974 221 26 737 58

1975 223 1 896 22

1976 253 14 1,077 20

1977 277 10 1,278 19

1978 301 9 1,607 26

1979 320 6 1,965 22

1980 327 2 2,449 25

Average growth rate = 11.655 Average growth rate = 28.1%

^Certain commercial products are identified in this section in

order to cite relevant examples. In no case does such

identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the

Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology or the National

Bureau of Standards.

87

There are a number of things which are quite interesting about

this size class. First, as is apparent from both the graph and

the actual numbers, the Federal Government has a higher

percentage of the U.S. base in this size class than in any other.

In 1972, the Federal size class 7 computers represented over 40

percent of the U.S. size class 7 computers, while in 198O they

had over 13 percent. Even though this percentage has declined,

it is still higher then for any other size class. This

percentage decline reflects the facts that the growth rate of

size class 7 computers has been higher in the United States (28

percent average growth rate) than in the Federal Government

(almost 12 percent average growth rate)

.

Even though the Federal growth rate is lower than that in the

United States, the growth rate in both universes for size class 7

is higher than for any other size class. This has, of course,

influenced the makeup of the general purpose computer base in

both the United States and the Federal Government. In 1972,

Federal size class 7 computers represented less than four percent

of the Federal general purpose computers. By 198O they

represented over 10 percent. In the United States, size class 7

computers represented less than one percent of the U.S. general

purpose computers in 1972 and over four percent in I98O.

As the smaller size classes continue to decline in number or to

show a very small growth rate the number of size class 7

computers will continue to increase constituting an even larger

percent of the U.S. and Federal general purpose computer

inventories

.

3.5 Minicomputers - Federal vs . U.S.

Figure 36 shows a graph of the minicomputers in the United States

and the Federal Government. As is obvious, there has been a

dramatic increase in the growth of the U.S. minicomputers from

1972 to 1980. This figure also shows that the number of

minicomputers in the Federal Government has also increased,

although the increase does not appear as dramatic because of the

scale of the graph. The actual growth rates for the U.S. and

Federal Government minicomputers are given in table 21.

89
90
TABLE 21

Growth Rate of Minicomputers

Federal United States

Year # of CPUs Growth i%) # of Computers Growth {%)

1972 1,804 41,370

1973 2,256 25 65,400 58

1974 3,045 35 89 ,700 37

1975 3,842 26 126,300 41

4,775 24 T ^ O IT A A iD2 , pOO 29

1977 6,079 27 215,300 32

1978 6,985 15 275,800 28

1979 8,574 23 345,200 25

1980 9,237 8 419,700 22

Average growth rate = 23f* Average growth rate =

As is evidenced by the growth rate figures, the U.S.

minicomputers have grown by an average of 34 percent per year

since 1972. There are 10 times the number of minicomputers in

1980 than there were in 1972. The growth rate of Federal

Government computers is also significant at an average of 23

percent per year. This growth rate is larger than the growth

rate of any of the size classes of general purpose computers in

the Federal Government. Because of the differences in the growth

rates, the number of Federal minicomputers represented over four

percent of the U.S. installed minicomputer base in 1972 and a

little over two percent in I98O.

Continued growth in the number of minicomputers is expected for

both the United States and the Federal Government, although the

growth rate in the United States has slowed in the last two

years. The author believes that even though microprocessors have

taken over some of the applications which were utilizing small

minicomputers, superminis have taken over the domain of some of

the small general purpose computers. The net result seems to be

the continued growth of minicomputers in both the United States

and the Federal Government.

3.6 Conclusions

The analysis of all of the size classes of general purpose

computers and the minicomputers shows that some trends in the

Federal Government are similar to those in the United States

while others are quite different. The large growth rate for

minicomputers and the increase ih size class 6 and 7 general

purpose computers are similar. The growth rates for these

Federal computers are smaller than the U.S. growth rates but the

trends are the same. The most striking difference was the

difference in the growth rates of size class 3 computers. The

result of this difference is demonstrated in figure 29. By 198O

the Federal Government's general purpose computers were almost

91
evenly divided among size classes 2 and 3, classes 4 and 5, and

classes 6 and 7. The smaller general purpose computers, size

classes 2 and 3, still had a larger number than the other two

groupings but the difference was relatively small. In the United

States, there were twice the number of smaller general purpose

computers than there were medium sized computers and four times

the number of large general purpose computers. So the United

States general purpose computers are still dominated by the small

size classes. This is not true in the Federal Government.

92
References

1. Automatic Data Processing Equipment Inventory in the United

States Government as of the end of the Fiscal Year 19B1 , General Services Administration, Washington, D. C, February

1982, 629 pp.

2. EPF Industry Report , Vol. 17, No. 3 and 4, June 26, 198I,

p. IT,

3. Ibid, p. 13.

4. EPF Industry Report , Vol. 17, No. 2, June 3, 1981, p. 5.

5. Ibid, p. 4.

93

APPENDIX

Selections from the GSA

ADP MIS Glossary*

ACQUISITION: A term which describes the actual purchase of a

machine or system from a source outside the Federal Government,

or describes the initial lease of a machine or system by an

agency of the Federal Government from an external source.

Machines or systems purchased subsequent to lease retain the

original acquisition date. Machines or systems previously

leased, released to an organization external to the Federal

Government for a period which results in loss of equity, and then

returned to an agency of the Federal Government will be

considered acquisitions upon return.

ADPE CLASS CODES: (See Class Codes (ADPE)

ADPE: (See Automatic Data Processing Equipment)

AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING EQUIPMENT (ADPE): This Includes

general purpose electronic data processing equipment (EDPE) and

punch card accounting machines (PCAM or EAM) irrespective of use,

application or source of funding and includes ADPE built to

Government specifications.

CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT (CPU): A unit of a computer that

includes the circuits controlling and interpretation and

execution of instructions. Synonymous with main frame.

CLASS CODES (ADPE): A code which specifically describes the

physical characteristiic of ADPE, not its function within a

system.

COMPUTER, DIGITAL: A computer which processes information

represented by combinations of discrete or discontinuous data as

compared with an analog computer for continuous data. More

specifically, it is a device for performing sequences of

arithmetic and logical operations, not only on data but its own

program. Still more specifically it is a stored program digital

computer capable of performing sequences of internally stored

instructions, as opposed to calculators, such as card programmed

calculators, on which the sequence is impressed manually.

COMPUTER, GENERAL PURPOSE: A computer designed to solve a large

variety of problems e.g., a stored program computer which may be

adapted to any of a very large class of applications.

*ADP Management Information System - Federal Management Circular

74-21 (February 23, 1974) - ADP MIS Reporting Procedures , General

Services Administration, Washington, D.C., May 1, 1975, p. 7J1—7J-13.

95
CPU: (See Central Processing Unit)

DIGITAL COMPUTER: (See Computer, Digital)

DIGITAL ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM: (See System, Digital

Electronic Data Processing)

EDPE: (See Electronic Data Processing Equipment)

ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING EQUIPMENT (EDPE): A component or

group of interconnected components consisting of input,

arithmetic, storage, output and control devices which use

electronic circuitry, operate on discrete data, and perform

computations and logical operations automatically by means of

internally stored or externally controlled programmed

instructions. All peripheral or off-line data processing

equipment in support of EDPE, except PCAM, is included in the

electronic data processing equipment category.

GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTER: (See Computer, General Purpose)

MACHINE: An individual unit, including features installed

thereon, of an automatic data processing system, sub-system or

supporting equipment and identified by a type and/or model

number, such as a central processing unit, card reader, tape

unit, card punch, card verifier, etc.

MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (MIS): The ADP Management

Information System (ADP MIS) designed to provide for the

management of automatic data processing (ADP) activities in the

Federal Government.

MIS: (See Management Information System)

MULTIPROCESSING: A mode of operation, normally involving more

than one CPU, which permits simultaneous execution of two or more

programs or sequences of instructions by a digital computer.

PCAM: (See Punched Card Accounting Machine)

PUNCHED CARD ACCOUNTING MACHINE (PCAM): Machines and equipment

primarily electro-mechanical in operation using punched cards as

input-output media to record, verify, sort, list, tabulate,

select, collate, merge, interpret, and total data.

SPECIAL GOVERNMENT DESIGN: A machine is identified as SGD

(Special Government Design) in lieu of a manufacturer's

designation when:

(1) it was extensively modified so that it lost its idenity

as a specific manufacturer's type;

(2) it was built in-house;

(3) it was manufactured to special Government design

specifications

.

96
SYSTEM, DIGITAL ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING: A digital machine or

group of interconnected digital machines consisting of Input,

arithmetic, storage, output, and control units which use

electronic circuitry, oprate on discrete data, and perform

computations and logical operations automatically by means of

internally stored or externally controlled program instructions.

(Synonymous with digital EDPS or digital computer system)

.

97
NBS»n4A (REV. 2-BO) U.S. DEPT. OF COMM.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA

SHEET (See instructions)

1. PUBLICATION OR

REPORT NO.

NBS SP 500-97

2. Performing Organ. Report No. 3. Publication Date November 1982

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE

Federal ADP Equipment: A Compilation of Statistics - 1981

5. AUTHOR(S)

Martha Mulford Gray

6. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION (If joint or other thon NBS. see instruct/ons)

NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20234

7. Contract/Grant No.

8. Type of Report & Period Covered

Final

9. SPONSORING ORGANIZATION NAME AND COMPLETE ADDRESS (Street. City. State, ZIP)

Same as item 6,

10. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-600638

I I Document describes a computer program; SF-185, FlPS Software Summary, is attached.

11. ABSTRACT (A 200-word or less factual summary of most significant information. If document includes a significant

bibliograptiy or literature survey, mention it here)

This report presents data on the status of computer technology in the Federal

Government. The report contains a combination of existing statistics from

Federal Government and computer industry sources and original analyses and

statistics based on these sources. Data is included on CPUs, disk units,

magnetic tape units, I/O controllers, terminals, printers, plotters and other

related ADP equipment. Analyses are included on the acquisition dates of

CPUs, equipment installed by agencies, the purchase-price ranges of equipment,

and the type and size class of general purpose computers in the Federal Government

compared with the United States. The report is based on Federal Government

data from 1971 through December 31, 1981 and industry data from 1972 through 1980.

12. KEY WORDS (S/x to twelve entries; alphabetical order; capitalize only proper names; and separate key words by semicolons)

disk units; Federal Government computers; Federal minicomputers; Federal statistics;

general purpose computers; magnetic tape units; terminals.

13. AVAILABILITY

I yl Unlimited

I I For Official Distribution. Do Not Release to NTIS

Order From Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

20402.

[^'^Order From National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, VA. 22161

14. NO. OF

PRINTED PAGES

104

15. Price

$5.50

USCOMM-DC 6043-P80 BU.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1982-380-997/2 316
ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW PUBLICATIONS ON

COMPUTER SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Superintendent of Documents,

Government Printing Office,

Washington, DC 20402

Dear Sir:

Please add my name to the announcement list of new publications to be issued in the

series: National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 500-.

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reprints, and supplements available from ACS, 1 155 Sixteenth St., NW, Washington, DC 20056.

Building Science Series—Disseminates technical information developed at the Bureau on building materials, components,

systems, and whole structures. The scries presents research results,

test methods, and performance criteria related to the structural and

environmental functions and the durability and safety characteristics of building elements and systems.

Technical Notes—Studies or reports which are complete in themselves but restrictive in their treatment of a subject. Analogous to monographs but not so comprehensive in scope or definitive in treatment of the subject area. Often serve as a vehicle for final reports of work performed at NBS under the sponsorship of other government agencies.

Voluntary Product Standards—Developed under procedures

published by the Department of Commerce in Part 10, Title 15, of

the Code of Federal Regulations. The standards establish nationally recognized requirements for products, and provide all concerned interests with a basis for common understanding of the

characteristics of the products. NBS administers this program as a supplement to the activities of the private sector standardizing

organizations. Consumer Information Series—Practical information, based on NBS research and experience, covering areas of interest to the con- sumer. Easily understandable language and illustrations provide

useful background knowledge for shopping in today's tech- nological marketplace. Order the above NBS publications from: Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402. Order the following NBS publications—FIPS and NBSIR's—from

the National Technical Information Services. Springfield, VA 22161

.

Federal Information Processing Standards Publications (FIPS

PUB)—Publications in this series collectively constitute the Federal Information Processing Standards Register. The Register

serves as the official source of information in the Federal Govern- ment regarding standards issued by NBS pursuant to the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 as amended.

Public Law 89-306 (79 Slat. 1127), and as implemented by Executive Order 1 1 7 1 7 (38 FR 12315, dated May 1 1 , 1 973) and Part 6 of Title 15 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations).

NBS Interagency Reports (NBSIR)—A special series of interim or

final reports on work performed by NBS for outside sponsors

(both government and non-government). In general, initial dis- tribution is handled by the sponsor; public distribution is by the National Technical Information Services, Springfield, VA 22161,

in paper copy or microfiche form.
U.S. Department of Commerce

National Bureau of Standards

Washington, D.C. 20234

Official Business

Penalty for Private Use $300

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