The workstations are currently supported by a Compaq Proliant 1600R fileserver with 172GB disk space and two dual processor 512MB computer servers. Laser printing is freely available to students. Other facilities include text and graphics scanning and co-writing. Some of the software used for teaching is licensed for students to use on their own home PCs. All workstations in the laboratories have access to the internet through the Department s Gigabit Ethernet network infrastructure.
All students have personal internet email accounts.
The use of email and the World Wide Web is central to life in the Department. A range of PCs are used to interface directly with equipment including robots, train sets and electronic simulators. The latest Field Programmable Gate Array technology is used for experiments in vision. The Software engineering laboratory is an open laboratory housing a number of PCs and Unix workstations. It provides students with access to a wide range of software development tools.