The Assimilator is a software package that allows us to maintain a lab full of "clean & functional" Machintoshes. The Assimilator was written by Peter N. Lewis of Stairways Shareware. I have been the Assimilator Administrator for CLC4 since September of '97. Before that, the Assimilator was maintained by our Network Administrator, Paul Fleming. We are currently Administrating the Assimilator using a Linux based PC server. For more information on this server and our Assimilator Setup, check out Paul's Assimilator page.

In the Spring of '98, I was added to the SIU Information Technology LAN Team. My main priority is maintenance of all of IT's Macintosh machines. I accomplish this task by way of the Assimilator. So, I am responsible for all four rooms in CLC 4 and all of the Mac's in CLC 1. We are Assimilating the following models of Macintoshes: 7100, 7200, 6500, 8500, Quadra 950, and G3. We are currently running MacOS 8.1 and Assimilating with Assimilator 2.01. Below are some links to information on our use of the Assimilator that may be of interest.

Assimilator Tricks is a list of all of the little tricks that we have picked up in our endeavors with the Assimilator.

In room 15 we are using one image for a set of 6500/225's and one image for a set of 8500/120's. The 8500's each have different software configurations, so I have changed the Finder Label Meanings for the Assimilator, so that the correct machines get the correct software. I have used the same technique to handle a set of 7100/80's in room 9, a set of G3's in room 9b, and a set of 7100/80's in CLC 1.