The Royal Institution of Technology in Stockholm will get the first European installation of the Athena network system, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with joint sponsorship from DEC and IBM. The Swedish Athena project will be named Bifrost (after the bridge between the gods’ world of Asgard and Midgard the world of men in Nordic mythology). The installation, sponsored by DEC, will at first cover the Electronics section of the Institute. It will run on the 60 VAXstations and DECstations installed at the section. All 2,000 students, faculty and researchers are expected to become users. Some adaptation, such as national language character sets for Sweden and the rest of Europe, will be needed before the installation can become fully operational. If the installation is successful, the Royal Institution will install the Athena software at all locations, and will attempt to become the Euopean competence centre for the Athena system. The installation, which according to the Athena project charter must be free, should be finished by November this year.
