From the Beginning. . . . 1966 LBJ is president of the United States, Walt Roberts the director of NCAR. A Hershey bar costs a nickel and a full lunch in the NCAR cafeteria costs 80 cents. Our top-of-the-line computer is a Control Data 6600. UCAR's membership increases to 23 universities. NCAR staff move into the Mesa Lab. Calendar Notes begins publication on 23 June as a typewritten weekly and becomes Staff Notes in November. 1970 The Brady Bunch is on television, The Wild Bunch in the theaters. The University of Toronto becomes the first international member university of UCAR. The Climax Observatory prepares to close; the High Altitude Observatory stakes out a Mexican eclipse. The first direct bus service to Stapleton International Airport operates several times a day for $2.20 one way. Staff Notes is still typewritten. 1976 It's the 16th year of UCAR and the 200th year of the United States. A west wing is added to the Mesa Lab to house the brand-new, $8-million CRAY-1A. The National Academy of Sciences calls for curtailing chlorofluorocarbons; atmospheric chemistry research gears up at NCAR. The National Hail Research Experiment is in full swing. Comet West wows predawn observers for several days in March. The NCAR Library's first interactive literature search facility comes on line. Staff Notes, now produced on an NBI word processor, introduces a two- column format. 1989 Time magazine comes to NCAR; NCAR hits new levels of national prominence as greenhouse warming and the ozone hole seize the public's attention. The Scientific Computing Division installs its second CRAY X- MP. A few months after Rick Anthes becomes UCAR president, Bob Serafin is appointed NCAR director. Wind-shear detection techniques coproduced by the Research Applications Program help avoid a major plane crash at Stapleton. UCAR adds the Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and Training (COMET) to its growing roster of programs. Now produced via Macintosh, Staff Notes undergoes its first redesign in over a decade. 1994 Bill Clinton is in the White House. UCAR staff--more than 1000--are in two major sites and several smaller ones. Climate models are coupling and computers are clustering. Profilers, radiometers, Doppler radar, and Global Positioning Satellites scan the skies. The Northern Hemisphere endures a scorching summer. The Internet sizzles. And for Staff Notes, The best is yet to come! This issue closes one era and begins a new one for Staff Notes. The weekly newsletter you've known and loved (or at least tolerated) will dissolve into three new forms: -- This Week at UCAR: weekly on-line information sent to all staff each Thursday -- UCARline: e-mail service bringing jobs, calendar, visitors, and other items of interest each week to external subscribers -- Staff Notes Monthly: features, profiles, and photos beginning in mid- November Check the past two issues of Staff Notes for full details on the changeover. Thanks for your readership. We'll see you next time on the information superhighway. --BH What Do I Do Now? If you're a staff member with e-mail: Nothing. You'll get This Week at UCAR and Staff Notes Monthly automatically. If you're a staff member without e-mail: You'll get Staff Notes Monthly automatically. Should you not receive a photocopy of This Week at UCAR on 13 October, call Milli Butterworth, ext. 8601. If you're an external reader of our print version: You should have received and returned a form stating which publications you'd like to receive. If not, contact us at (303) 497-8601. If you're an external reader of our electronic version: You will automatically be subscribed to UCARline next week. Anyone can sign on by sending the message subscribe ucarline to majordomo@ucar.edu. If you'd like to access our publications on the Internet: For Gopher, look in the "NCAR/UCAR News and Information" folder at gopher.ucar.edu. For Mosaic/World Wide Web, go to http://ucarwww.ucar.edu:8080/ucargen/UCARnewstext.html and click on any items of interest. --