Nevertheless, expansion of computer facilities is anxiously awaited by computer science professors who point to problems with the current system such as memory restriction, overloading problems, and underavailability of terminals.

"The number of computers available is not adequate, and those that are, are quite old." Hsu says, adding, "things are being improved, but students are still frustrated" by the current problems.

The computer sciences are not the only area likely to benefit from the technology boom.

Language instruction, such as language labs where students would receive instruction from computers, are in the planning stages, and use of computers in Expository Writing will be expanded. This year, students in one experimental section of the course employed Apple II computers and a specially designed computer program to strengthen their writing skills.

Plato

In the Classics department, computers are moving Aristotle into the space age by programs such as creating databanks to allow quick availability of ancient language vocabulary and sources.

Similar opportunities are opening up in the social sciences such as economics, history, government, psychology and sociology. Scholars in these fields say they are still analyzing facts in the same way, but note that the quality, accuracy and extent of data has improved considerably with the use of computers.

For example, Jerome Kagan, Professor of Developmental Psychology, and J. Steven Reznik, a research assistant in the department, are currently running an experiment in the psychology department monitoring infants' heartbeats, which would be impossible without the use of the PDP 11/44 located in William James.

In fact, the Psychology and Social Relations department is the biggest computer user of Harvard's social science departments and its computer lab is capable of handling 15-20 operators at the same time.

In another area, Lee Rainwater, professor of sociology, has begun to include computer exercizes for students in his course on social spending. A major effect, he says, is that the computer allows patterns to emerge very early, which saves tremendous amounts of time.

In the History and Government departments, computers, such as the PDP 11/44 located in Littauer, are used primarily for word processing, but professors such as H. Douglas Price and Douglas A. Hibbs are using computers to analyze subjects such as voting patterns and government spending semesters of another language in just one semester.

"I speak entirely in Spanish and demonstrate everything--I put all my life in that class," explained Senior Lecturer Hugo H. Montero, who created Spanish Bab 18 years ago, and has taught it ever since.

"Hugo stands up there like an orchestra conductor and says a sentence. Each person around the room then has to change it a little bit--it's very fast, and there's no sitting and waiting," says Mark E. Fishbein '84, who took the class in the spring and afterward received a score of 770 out of a perfect 800 on the Harvard placement exam.

"Intensive courses in the Italian section have always been very good, and now we are offering intense elementary Italian both semesters," Burzio adds.

The intensive, interactive approach to language instruction may have begun at Dartmouth College. Although Dartmouth does not offer specific courses labelled "intense," according to John A. Rassias, a professor of French at the college, professors there "have a method in which there is full participation every minute of the hour."