[en] A stable, closely-controlled, high-intensity, single-bunch beam will be required for the SLAC Linear Collider. The characteristics of short-pulse, low-intensity beams in the SLAC linac have been studied. A new, high-intensity thermionic gun, subharmonic buncher and S-band buncher/accelerator section were installed recently at SLAC. With these components, up to 10¹¹ electrons in a single S-band bunch are available for injection into the linac. the first 100-m accelerator sector has been modified to allow control of short-pulse beams by a model-driven computer program. Additional instrumentation, including a computerized energy analyzer and emittance monitor have been added at the end of the 100-m sector. The beam intensity, energy spectrum, emittance, charge distribution and the effect of wake fields in the first accelerator sector have been measured. The new source and beam control system are described and the most recent results of the beam parameter measurements are discussed