Accidental Research
The project originated from a grant application written by Michael Dertouzos at MIT's lab for computer science. In it, he stated that if DEC and IBM would provide $50M of funding, then MIT faculty would make the effort to integrate the thousands of PCs, workstations, and minicomputers associated with the grant into its educational program. Surprisingly, Dertouzos did not consult with the MIT faculty before writing this grant application. When IBM and DEC agreed to the terms, many of the faculty (not only in the Laboratory for Computer Science, but elsewhere in the institute) were surprised to learn that they were part of this project. For his role in procuring such a gigantic grant, Dertouzos eventually was made head of Course 6, the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at MIT.
Read more about this topic: Project Athena
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