98 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
98 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
.\" Copyright (c) 1980 The Regents of the University of California.
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.\" All rights reserved.
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.\"
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.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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.\" are met:
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.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
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.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
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.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
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.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
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.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
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.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
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.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
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.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
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.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
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.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
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.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
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.\" without specific prior written permission.
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.\"
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.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
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.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
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.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
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.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
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.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
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.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
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.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
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.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
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.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
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.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
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.\"
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.\" @(#)1 6.2 (Berkeley) 4/17/91
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.\"
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.sp |.5i
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.ls 1
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.ch "Introduction"
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.wh 0 hh
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Notesfiles support computer managed discussion
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forums. Discussions can have many different purposes and scopes: the
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notesfile system has been designed to be flexible enough to handle differing
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requirements.
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Each notesfile discusses a single
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topic.
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The depth of discussion within a notesfile is ideally held constant.
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While some users may require a general discussion of personal workstations,
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a different group may desire detailed discussions about the I/O bus
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structure of the WICAT 68000 (a particular workstation). These discussions
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might well be separated into two different notesfiles.
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Each notesfile contains a list of logically
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independent notes (called base notes).
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A note is a block of text with a comment or question intended to be seen by members
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of the notesfile community. The note display shows the text,
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its creation time, its title, the notesfile's title,
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the author's name (some notesfiles allow anonymous notes), the number of ``responses'',
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and optionally a ``director message''.
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Each base note can have a number of ``responses'': replies, retorts, further
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comments, criticism, or related questions concerning the base note.
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Thus, a notesfile contains an ordered list of ordered lists. This arrangement
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has historically been more convenient than other proposals (e.g., trees
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were studied on the PLATO (trademark of Control Data Corporation) system).
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The concept of a notesfile was originally implemented at
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the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
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on the PLATO system.
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The UNIX (trademark of Bell Laboratoris)
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notesfile system
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includes these ideas with
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adaptations
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and enhancements
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made possible by the UNIX environment.
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The UNIX notesfile system was
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designed and
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implemented by Ray Essick at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
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It provides users with the abilities to
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read notes and responses, write notes and responses, forward note text to
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other users (via mail) or other notesfiles, save note text in their own files,
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and sequence through a set of notesfiles seeing just new text.
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Each notesfile has a set of ``directors'' who manage the notesfile:
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they delete old notes, compress the file when needed, grant and restrict
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access to the notesfile, and set different notesfile parameters (e.g.,
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title, ``director message'', policy note, whether notes' authors can be
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anonymous).
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Some notesfiles contain correspondence from other computers.
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Like the UNIX ``USENET'', notes and responses are exchanged (often over phone lines)
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with remote machines.
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The notesfile system provides automatic exchange and updating of notes in an
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arbitrarily connected network.
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This document details the use of notesfiles from invocation through
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intersystem notes exchanges. The last chapter summarizes the entire set of
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commands for easy reference.
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An appendix contains detailed checklists for the
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installation of a notesfile system.
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