Aucbvax.1521
fa.human-nets
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!DERWAY@MIT-ML
Thu Jun 4 20:47:34 1981
HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #112
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Friday, 5 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 112
Today's Topics:
Admistrivia - This List & Goodbye,
FYI - Personal Work Stations Mailing List,
Query Replies - Xerox Star,
Communicating via Network - Human Nets topics
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Date: 6 June 81, 22:34 EDT
From: The Moderator <DERWAY AT MIT-AI>
Subject: This list, and so long.
Sorry for the lengthy administrivia, but I need to explain a
bit further some of my comments in the previous issue. First of all,
though I did not realize it, Roger Duffey was doing considerably more
topic control than I have been doing. He would suggest to people that
a message would be more appropriate on another list, or whatever he
felt was the right thing to do. I had been under the impression that
the only time I should refuse a message is when it was blatantly
unacceptable, like an advertisement, personal insult, etc. Thus, I
"invented" the FYI section, for items submitted which were not of
direct relevence to any ongoing discussion, but which seemed to be of
a fairly broad interest. The problem is that discussions often take
off from these starting points, and the discussions would be more
appropriate in another forum. For example, with the Left Handed Sugar
discussion, SF-Lovers would have been more appropriate, since the
overlap between that list and this is quite high, and those on
Human-Nets, but not on SF-Lovers are just those that would not be
interested in the Left Handed Sugar discussion. Similiarly, the
various BBoards may be more appropriate destinations for items of
general interest, but not related to telematics, or one of the major
sub-areas that have grown in this list. I realized too late that I was
opening the door for a meta-discussion, i.e. a discussion on what we
should be discussing. I hope it will not interfere with the ongoing
discussions too long.
This will be the last digest that I will moderate. I leave
tomorrow for Los Angeles to work at JPL for the summer. I have truly
enjoyed the interaction with all of you, and appreciate all the
support, as well as the criticisms, which were always helpful. I hope
that I have done an acceptable job with moderating, though I know it
was far from ideal. This is definitely an on the job training program,
because there simply are no set rules by which one might operate.
There will probably be a several day hiatus in the digests, with the
new moderator starting early next week. I wish you all a good summer,
and look forward to being among you again next fall, (as a
contributor/ reader!). Thankyou,
Don
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 1981 (Tuesday) 1906-EDT
From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus)
Subject: Announcing Apollo@MIT-AI mailing list.
A new list to discuss personal workstations is being formed. The
discussion will be centered around the Apollo computer, but not
restricted. The hope is to discuss what a personal workstation should
be, and review the existing systems available.
Currently being discussed are:
Xerox Star
Perq
Apollo
Alto
If you are interested send mail to APOLLO-REQUEST@MIT-AI. Pass along
to anyone also interested.
Henry Dreifus
------------------------------
Date: 05/26/81 10:10:43
From: REM@MIT-MC
Subject:interesting trivia about the XEROX star
Indeed, it makes a difference. If gateways are provided in the
standard package of the star, so random people getting them can form
larger networks, or even if hardware and software for gateways is
provided as a standard pay-extra option, that's good. But if gateways
exist only internally at XEROX, and commercial users must start from
scratch and design some program to act as an interface, can't even
request the XEROX modems and software because they aren't available
for release, then each star local-net will be isolated from each other
and from the world of true networking (arpanet, tymnet, telenet, et
al) for a long time.
------------------------------
Date: 05/27/81 14:51:29
From: DLW@MIT-MC
Subject: Xerox STAR
Someone just reported that he was told by Xerox salespeople that you
can't just buy a single Star; you have to buy a $25K file server and
an equally expensive hardcopy device in order to actually do anything.
However, it says here in the Seybold Report (v. 10 # 16 27 Apr 81)
"Star can operate as a self-contained, stand-along workstation. For
an additional cost, you could plug in a Diablo 630 daisy wheel printer
and have a super-powerful word processor". Although the Report goes
on to explain that in reality, the intended mode of usage of the Star
is as a node on a network of many Stars plus some shared resources, it
does sound like you can buy just one and still do good things with it.
Does anyone know more about what the real story is?
I am also very interested in just what the Star provides in the way of
interactive, incremental text justification. The Seybold Report
article is very informative but still leaves a whole lot of
interesting questions in my mind. Does anyone know if the text
justification tools in the Star perform automatic chapter-numbering
and section-numbering, generation of tables of contents, indexes, and
cross-references, and are these things done incrementally or not?
Also, when you edit graphics (draw diagrams), do you actually edit
them in place in the midst of your text, and do they display that way
as you edit them and edit the text?
------------------------------
Date: 05/29/81 00:49:39
From: PHOTOG@MIT-MC
Subject: a clarification of xerox star 'trivia' comments
in response to a comeback from an mit user
I should have defined my terms better, my use of the word 'toy' in
describing the gateway link in use at Xerox PARC to access ARPA via a
dal-server was a complementary statement. a 'toy' is (to me) a
computer machine, program, device, peripheral, operating system, etc.
that everyone and their brother/sister would love to have. But,
political, economical, and/or marketing considerations may prevent or
delay the release of the desirable item. How long have people been
drooling over smalltalk waitng for Xerox to either license it or dnate
it to the public domain? How long have we waited for UNIX to hit the
micro market? (A feat technologically feasible many moons ago....)
Finally, the comment about stars was a bit of humor. I am assamed that
you think I am not aware that the star / ethernet is a local area
network (rather than a star or master/slave network)
also, to answer a query, the actual interface to the ethernet is
usually accomplished by a dedicated controller. A new company,
founded by the Zeus and Father of ethernet, Mr. Metcalf, is making a
black box interface for ethernet. The name of the company is 3com,
and they are out to give all ethernet's PCM vendors the tools they
need. Of curse, they (curse may be a freudian slip) are planning
their own servers, etc.
the really big ethernet issue is, when and/or if, will xerox publish
or comit to higher levels of interface standards that allow brand a
prnters to make sense out of brand b spool files. I.E. ethernet
currently defnes low-level electrical and packet frame interfaces but
none of the higher levels such as those of the 'Open Systems
Architecture' model for inter-connecting different computers .
--spiv--
------------------------------
Date: 03 Jun 1981 1122-PDT
From: Jorge Phillips <JP SU-AI AT>
Subject: administrivia
Although I am personally not interested in chemistry discussions over
the net I disagree with the moderator's recent displeasure with
message content. Even if we have shifted away from discussing human
networks, we are getting a first hand EXPERIENCE of what they are
through this mailing list. No amount of ``a priori'' theorizing of
their nature has as much explanatory power as personal experience. By
observing what happens when connectivity is provided to a large mass
of people in which they can FREELY voice their ideas, doubts, and
opinions, a lot of insight is obtained into very important issues of
mass intercommunication. The fact that such disimilar topics as
antimatter, left-handed sugar, the telephone network, etc. have been
discussed in our own instance of a human network says a lot about its
nature and the interests and nature of its members and should not be
considered as detracting from the quality of the discussion.
Rather than censoring messages, I propose that this mailing list
support free speech and encourage lots of different topics. When a
topic gets out of hand (like for example left-handed sugar and related
chemistry) the people involved in its discussion should form a new
subnetwork (which of course in our primitive version of a human
network takes the form of a new mailing list). All further discussion
on the topic will go through the newly created communication path.
The decision of when a topic is getting out of hand should be a
consensual decision among the members of the particular network, to be
enforced by the moderator. The people interested in the topic can
then decide the best way to discuss their own interests, and manage
their discussion. I would like to see HUMAN-NETS adopt this policy.
A human network is a springboard for human interaction and thus for
human action. Lets view it as such and keep repression and censorship
at a minimum.
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 1981 at 1636-PDT
Subject: Topics for Discussion
From: zaumen.tscb at Sri-Unix
With regard to the Moderator's editorial comment about
irrelevant discussion topics, I would like to suggest that if a topic
appears in a large number of messages, one automatically assumes that
that topic is of interest. Ideally, human-nets should have an index
or table of contents so that readers can look only at what interests
them. Since most of us (including me) do not have the software to
support such a structure, perhaps we should break human-nets up into a
series of related mailing lists with a common table of contents
replicated in each list (so one can decide which of the sublists to
read). Alternatively, one of the sublists could be a table of
contents. Presumably, each human-nets reader would receive all the
sublists at once. Perhaps the subject field in the sublist would
contain the specific subject area. Thus, one could easily delete the
sublist containing all the comments on left-handed sugar or whatever
as desired. Sublists could be added or dropped as interests changed
without altering the human-nets mailing list.
Any thoughts on the best way to implement this (or which of
the many conceivable variations is best)?
Bill
------------------------------
Date: 4 Jun 1981 0750-PDT
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #111
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <GEOFF AT SRI-CSL>
I'd like to register my feeling on the matter that i found the Left
Handed sugar discussion very interesting and the fact that if it
wasn't mentioned in HUMAN-NETs i would have missed it. hence, i thank
you for letting it go over HUMAN-NETS, and hope things like it in the
future will be permitted as well.
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 1981 19:46:17-PDT
From: ARPAVAX.ghb at Berkeley
Subject: I agree with Don.
Don's comment about some of the messages that have been
showing up in human-nets echoes my feelings. Some of the messages
seen recently seem to have the tone of showing off the author's
knowledge of some topic. Many topics have been beaten to death, and
yet one still sees letters on the subject. I understand the desire to
get our two cents in (that's what I am doing right now), but we all
have to keep the purpose of these mailing lists in mind.
Just thought I would give Don some moral support.
-george Bray
PS. Someone somewhere on the net has been trying to send me something
for about the last week. What-ever it is, the protocol has confused
our old network server, and all I have recieved for the last week is
776 (so far; they come every 20 minutes) Sender Aborted Connection
messages. If someone reading this has tried to send me mail and I
haven't replied, it's only the Ing70 getting confused.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
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