Computer Performance Evaluation (1965)

Allan L. Scherr’s MIT thesis “An Analysis of Time-Shared Computer Systems” created the field of performance evaluation.
CTSS allowed 300 users to interactively access computer. Scherr’s goal: to characterize system usage.

Scherr’s Thesis Work.

• created his own measurements of system performance.
• collected user data from MIT’s CTSS system.
• compared this with simulation studies to predict these usage measures.
• sent draft of thesis off to his committee.

Committee Member Comment:
“that there weren’t enough mathematical formulas.”
Scherr’s Response:
He added an idea, CTMCs, from his recent O.R. course to pro- duce a “very quick and dirty” mathematical analysis.