Phase 3: Open Lab - Mac OS X Only

In the open lab environment, Mac OS X has been introduced to lab patrons using three machine configurations. Each configuration is designed to add onto the improvements of the previous one. They will be gradually deployed alongside existing Mac OS 9.x machines until the transition is complete.

The first group of machines has been configured to operate Mac OS X only. These machines exactly match the "baseline" configuration.

Timeframe - Deployment of the first open lab configuration began in the Spring of 2002 in the EMCB Computer Lab.

This lab was chosen because it's overall usage is low when compared to other labs and because the user demographic is skewed towards more technical areas of study such as Computer Science and Engineering. As a result, the users of this lab will be able to take better advantage of the overall benefits that Mac OS X brings with the UNIX core and access to sophisticated programming tools such as Interface Builder or Java.

With the success and user acceptance of this initial deployment, additional Mac OS X only machines have been deployed in all other Student Computing supported labs. There are currently six machines in the EMCB Lab, two in the Union Lab, and five in the Peterson Lab.

The two largest deployments of this configuration are in the Marriott Library Multimedia Center (24 workstations) and in the Sage Point Residence Hall Teaching Lab (30 workstations).

While these workstations have been set up as part of the overall deployment plan, the Sage Point workstations were set up specifically to meet the needs of the U of U Fine Arts Department - 3D Computer Dynamics & Motion Class.

For information on how the various parts of this phase of the deployment has progressed, please click here.