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Photo: Red Room

physical object
Identifier
2016.3.55
Description
This is a photo of the red room taken within the room on ground level. The room was built in 1967 and lasted until the late 90’s, when it was renovated for other purposes. The purpose of the renovation was to create new classrooms and an amphitheater in the Math and Computer building. When the Red Room was first opened, the Red Room contained the IBM 360 Model 75 console, disk drives, tape drives and other computer components which filled the room. The Red Room occupied the first two floors of the Math and Computer building, and was surrounded by red walls, red tiles, and plexiglass on the second floor on all four sides. The Red Room was commonly referred to as the “Computer Cathedral” and the maintainers of the room, correspondingly, were called “Computer Priests”. Since computers were so new and uncommon in the 1960s and 1970s, the Math Faculty came up with the idea for Computer Science Days, which served as an opportunity for students to learn but also as a tactic for the university to promote itself. During Computer Science Days, students from several schools across Ontario were given the opportunity to learn basic computer programming by visiting the University of Waterloo. Its purpose was to stir some interest within the younger students so that they might later want to enroll within the University and one of the primary landmarks during Computer Science Days was the Red Room. The Red Room played a significant role in shaping the identity of the University of Waterloo as we know it today, by impressing visitors to the new university and demonstrating the university’s special interest in new computer technology. To this day, the University of Waterloo remains one of the top universities for computer science, globally and domestically. The legacy of the University of Waterloo cannot be stated without involving the legacy of the Red Room. It is fitting that the most powerful computer on campus, the Graham Supercluser which is part of Sharcnet, sits in the room next to where the Red Room was located and even contains some of the red tiles from the same room.
Related people
Angela Tran (is documentarian of)
Jim Marshall (was donor of)