Student Information Processing Board

MIT student group for computing and information technology

The Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) is a student group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that helps students access computing resources and use them effectively.

## History

[edit]

SIPB was founded in 1969 by Bob Frankston, Gary Gut, David Burmaster, and Ed Fox.[1][2][3] At the time, computers in universities were still expensive resources reserved for funded research projects. Through an arrangement with the MIT administration, SIPB administered student accounts on university-owned computers. This allowed students access to MIT's timeshared computers when computers otherwise cost millions of dollars and were as big as an entire room.[3]

In 1983, MIT launched Project Athena, an initiative to create a distributed computing system for educational use.[4] SIPB was instrumental in the creation of Project Athena[2] and helped to provide MIT students with access to computing resources for independent projects.[4] Project Athena led to several important Unix technologies such as X11, instant messaging, and network filesystems.

SIPB set up a Web server at `www.mit.edu` in 1993, when the number of public web servers was roughly 100 and long before university Web sites became common. When MIT finally did set up an official website, it was at `web.mit.edu`.

## Projects

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SIPB has been instrumental for funding technical software projects that benefit the MIT community. These have included:[5]

* scripts.mit.edu, a dynamic web hosting service
* MIT Minecraft, a virtual MIT campus in Minecraft[6]
* CourseRoad, a course planning aid for MIT students
* Debathena, a set of software packages for Athena clients
* XVM, a virtual machine service
* BarnOwl, an instant messaging client

## References

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1. ^ Denning, Peter J.; Metcalfe, Robert M. (2012-12-06). Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 293\. ISBN 9781461206859.
2. ^ a b Van Vleck, Thomas (ed.). "Multics Glossary -S-". www.multicians.org. Retrieved 2016-03-06.
3. ^ a b "SIPB History". sipb.mit.edu. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
4. ^ a b Garfinkel, Simson L. (November–December 1988). "A Second Wind for Athena" (PDF). Technology Review. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
5. ^ "Projects and Services". sipb.mit.edu. Retrieved 2020-05-04.
6. ^ "Building and reconnecting MIT in Minecraft". MIT News. Retrieved 24 May 2020.

## External links

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* SIPB homepage

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