The "shuttleboy" program, which helped students find the three next shuttle arrival times at their favorite stops, is currently on hiatus and may face a permanent shutdown in the future, its creator said yesterday.

Shuttleboy's creator, David J. Malan '99, wrote the program for his friends last fall, but the service soon gained campus-wide popularity. Available by typing "shuttleboy" or "sb" at the fas prompt in telnet, it lists the next three times different shuttle routes will pick up at points around campus.

All in all, the program was used 20,387 times last year by Harvard students, according to Malan.

Carl A. Tempesta, a spokesperson for Harvard Shuttle Services, described shuttleboy as "an excellent asset to the undergraduate population."

The program is currently off-line so that the shuttle schedule can be updated for the new school year, but there is a serious risk that it may go off-line again--for good this time, according to Malan.

Though the Shuttleboy program was accessible across campus, it resides only in Malan's personal account on the college's FAS servers. So, under the current arrangement, when Malan's affiliation with Harvard ends, shuttleboy will disappear.

Malan graduated last year, but has retained his FAS affiliation by taking a position teaching computer science at the Harvard Extension School.

And so Malan will keep his FAS computer account for now. But Malan says he is likely to leave the extension school within a year or two.

Then, Malan says, shuttleboy will be taken off-line unless Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) decides to assume responsibility for the program.