TO familiarise students and staff with the numerous applications available on their new high-performance Campus Backbone Network, the Computer Services Centre of the Chinese University organised a fair last week. Exhibition booths were set up and seminars held to demonstrate the various applications available. Topics included the campus-wide information systems, electronic mail system, access to the global computer network Internet, electronic reference, window applications, library catalogues, multi-media application tools, local area network, office automation, security issues on network, campus network architecture and future prospects. A number of universities around the world have launched campus computer networks to facilitate fast information transfer and resources sharing. To meet demand for inter-computer communication, the CU started to build its Campus Backbone Network in phases last July. A HK$10 million all-departmental local area network (LANs) is expected to be completed before the 1993/94 academic term commences. The project involves linking up computer systems in different buildings, network equipment installation and network management. Low-speed links between the various LANs within the Chinese University are being replaced by the high performance, high-speed network. The campus is divided into eight zones. There is a Zone Distribution Frame in each area to serve all buildings, while each building has a Building Distribution Frame to link up all departments within the building. The Computer Services Centre located at Pi Ch'iu Building acts as the Campus Distribution Frame for the whole campus. With the new network in place, students and teachers can now not only have quicker access to a huge number of local and international databases, but also be able to receive, communicate and distribute information much more effectively. This development is befitting the Computer Services Centre's slogan of ''Out to the World, Onto your Desk''.
