*** plato iv group notes *** general interest notes 1975 notes beginning march 24, 1975 file onotes25 printed at 3:27 am on june 11, 1976 ---------- note 0 plato off 03/24 11.10 golden s CDC computer tests are scheduled every day this week from 3:00 am to 7:30 am. PLATO will be off then. This means that prime-time on Tuesday and Thirsday will be delayed to 7:30 am. ---------- response 1 03/30 01.15 galcher uimatha Thirsday? ---------- note 8 mtcc-chang 03/24 14.04 m smith orl ATTENTION EVERYBODY!!!!!!!! Due to the tremendous amount of comments pertaining to the assigning of sign-ons, the "mtcc" people will all have their sign-ons changed beginning this Saturday. I'm suprised that word of this change has not reached the general notes directory" To see what the new sign-ons will be, go through lesson mtc37 in student mode for a list of the new sign-ons. SCHMUCK! (marty smith-mgs/mtcc [soon to be -mg smith/mtcc]) ---------- response 1 03/24 14.28 b sherwood s Hurray! ---------- response 2 03/24 15.00 jim g reading Will, I guess Easter Season is a good time for a _miracle_!!!! The name change is not quite as impressive as rising from the dead, but God will bless you for it. ---------- response 3 03/24 15.25 ltl mtcc That's right folks..... So to avoid any confusion from the thousands of friends and callers I have on the system, starting next Monday I will be "lt luck" instead of ltl of mtcc..... I hope this will avert amy losses of notes or pages that might otherwise be directed to the old sigh-on and hence never reach me....Oh the lt is not liuetenant. TimL. ---------- response 4 03/24 16.06 jim pso well...... this is progress, but we consultants will still have a great deal of trouble with the names. placing the first and _middle_ initials with the last name will provide a way to remember the some of the name, the middle initial is the real killer, i don't know the middle initial of any of the CERL staff (of course, i can look it up). so now when i want to send a note to larry francis, i only have to try 26 combinations. i know the first initial ¬* the last name, so a maximum of only 26 attempts will now be needed to determine the entire sign-on. l(something) francis is easier than remembering that i was "talking" to sgt (or was it gst, or stg, or .....) that's progress jim ghesquiere ---------- response 5 03/24 16.11 kovara arizona Well, congrats to all, looks like christmas came early this year. Now, if I could only convince them that my real name is Howard Hughes... Happy Easter ---------- response 6 03/25 10.33 bhi mtcc I too think it is progress, but you realize of course that if you try a combination like jehl or tehl or eihl or ehil or uehl or... you will not get me (the post office uses a specs okspell), Obviously -phonebook- is needed. Who likes the idea of replacing bh iehl with bruce iehl ? (as long as we're making this mass change) And now what are we going to do about all those meaningless course names like mtcc. pso, p, s ? ---------- response 7 03/25 17.47 blomme s pso=plato service organization p=programmers s=system staff (and mtc is ok too) ---------- note 13 segtransfr 03/24 15.55 musc30 ames Is there any command which will function like a -block- or -transfer- but will work with segmented variables? And if not, pleasepleaseprettyplease couldja make one????? Thanks, frisco ---------- response 1 03/24 16.06 warner iu Two things are possible: One is to -block- the real variables in which the segments are stored. The segments will go along! Honest! The other, if you happen to have 6 or 12 bit segments, is to use -move-, Move will work fine if you just define a variable as the one at which the segments being. ---------- response 2 03/24 17.59 blomme s As someone else remarked regarding the *blockc* request, the block (and transfer) commands use ecs as an intermediary in order to do a super fast movement of data. They are specifically designed to take advantage of the special capabilities available on this machine. We could, of course, implement a specialized "sub- division" of the command which would be called into play to handle segments, but this would be very slow (and also painful to write) in comparison to the full word movement routine. ---------- response 3 03/24 18.36 fritz ames Warner: wouldn't work... i want to move an uncertain amount of 8-bit segs. frisco ---------- response 4 03/24 22.14 mckeown com Depending on the amount of data you are storing in your 8-bit segments relative to the number of times they need to be moved, it might very well be worth increasing the segment size to 12-bit and using the *move* command.↓ (Remember that the move command can have variable arguments so that even a form such as:↓ move nc1, (start-1) ≠2,nc1, (dest-1) ≠ 2,length≠2↓ is legal with start, dest, and length having values on the order of 100 or so [or higher],) ---------- note 14 prettynote 03/24 16.05 musc30 ames Well, now notes has a graphics routine! Right after writing the last note, I went in to look at it (I'm basically very vain and love to see my name in lights) but when I hit "b" to read general notes, the screen started filling with lines ALL OVER! They were not random, but seemed to make patterns and usually lit almost all dots. I tried back1 several times, and stop1 would't even stop it until I had hit it enough times to go back to the "welcome to Plato" page. Yes, it was repeatable, This is an old terminal, could there be something screwy with it? frisco (soon to be fritz/ames) ---------- response 1 03/24 16.23 meers wright First, press the white clear button and see if you can continue working. If the problem persists, turn the terminal off for about five minutes, If, after turning the terminal back on, it still fills up the screen at a draw command (such as the clock), put a note in repair. You went to the welcome to Plato page because your kepresses were still processed even tho the results of those keypresses couldn't be seen on your screen.. ---------- response 2 03/24 17.59 mgs mtcc I'll lay you ten to one odds that the problem is in the terminal. Try changing card 11 in the back there, We have the same problem with one of our terminals here and the faulty card is the problem. SCHMUCK! (marty smith-mgs/mtcc soon to be ¬Dmg smith/mtcc) ---------- note 20 engl error 03/24 16.55 grohne psych In the interest of good use of the English language, (engineers may turn away at this point), I present the following: units length 91 8000 condense errors and warnings *warning* binary over 8000 words long This is not logically sound, Captain Kirk. ---------- response 1 03/24 18.19 bowery rhrc The reason for this, as any competent user of PLATO can see, is that when writing a program it is much easier to write "8000" than "8001". I think this should be given low priority as systems programmers have more important things to do than change a least significant "o" to a least significant "1". If you think you know so much, Mr. Smartypants Halfbreed Vulcan, why dont you go ask Paul for "p! records and fix it yourself! eh? chicken eh? hah! thought so! ---------- response 2 03/24 18.20 layman matha cmon now -- b nice -- ---------- response 3 03/24 19.55 kovara arizona How about: *warning* lesson too damn big ---------- response 4 03/24 21.36 grohne psych _That_ I don't need any damn compiler to tell me! ---------- response 5 03/24 22.23 kovara arizona Well, CDC has their fin 4.2 compiler issueing advice errors now 'do it this way, not that way..' Whatever happened to programmers job security... ---------- response 6 03/27 10.43 fuller uimc When the compiler starts telling me how to program, I'll open up a chicken farm... ---------- note 21 comn dstry 03/24 17.15 warner iu A suggestion for the present common editor: At persent in order to totally destroy a block of common, ensure its denstruction, and replace it with a new block, one must press the letter of the common, followed by: LAB1 NEXT1 and HELP1 This sequence is necessary to destroy both the ECS copy and the disk copy of a common. Why not either: branch LAB1 to the same page after aborting common (with a sign saying ABORTED) _or_: cause HELP1 to both abort and destroy the common. ---------- note 22 trouble 03/24 17.37 hecht ed at 1005 write While reading through notes just now, my terminal stopped erasing, thus printing one note after another, Shifting back to the welcome page only caused the clock, etc. to be printed on top of the existing mess. Whats wrong? (I was reading note 484 when the trouble started- -5: 30 p. m., Monday, March 24.) hecht of ed ---------- response 1 03/24 18.17 chabay s Occasional failure of the full-screen erase is a common problem -- the fault is with the terminal. Press the white clear button to clear the screen. ---------- note 29 shift-ames 03/24 18.49 boysen ames ATTENTION EVERYONE! Following in the footsteps of mtcc, course ames is in the process of changing its sing-ons IAW the new directives. The new sing-ons may be seen by executing 'isudata' in the student mode. Is everyone happy? Pete Boysen (boysen of ames) ---------- response 1 03/24 22.54 blomme s This is a pleasant "humanizing" change-- thank you. ---------- response 2 03/25 00.02 k mast p Looks like our crusade is working ....now if only I can convince my dad! ---------- note 31 Hi 03/24 20.12 gast cerl Welcome Kent State! ---------- response 1 03/24 23.26 telson arizona Hear! Hear! ---------- response 2 03/25 11.20 jim g reading Bang! Bang! ---------- response 3 03/25 12.46 walter physio That is not very funny. ---------- response 4 03/25 16.08 rdr hum not only not funny; it is SICK! Dick R. ---------- response 5 03/26 11.34 jim g reading Hope you people were as outraged over the aquital of the Ohio National Guardmen as you were over my attempt at a little black humor! ---------- note 39 microcopy 03/25 02.51 schroeder iumusic Any hope (or just wishful thinking, fantasy??) of being able to again be able to copy micros from lesson to lesson, like you now can with charsets? Basically, I wanted to copy the plato standard micro, for some editing purposes to fit my needs, and well.... Any hope? Thanks Nate Syfrig (Beethoven) ---------- response 1 03/25 02.54 blomme s Among the (many) planned changes to the microtable editor is one that will permit you to initialize your microtable to the standard one. ---------- response 2 03/25 09.36 b sherwood phys Also, we hope to re-enable the capability of copying blocks from a file for which you have the inspect code. Conceptually easy, but surprisingly complicated, due to problems associated with attaching and detaching files. ---------- response 3 03/25 13.10 ldf mtcc thank you for that welcome bit of news, bruce. ---------- response 4 03/25 18.39 schroeder iumusic REALLY! ok, thanks! ---------- note 41 SSchange 03/25 09.30 orpheus cu I've used lesson " service" may times, and it has been very useful to me, especially in centering text and displays. There are two little things that bother me about the lesson, however. First, why not modify the lesson so that it can handle non-integer -size-s? This is done in ID, so it must be possible. Second, it would be very nice if, instead of giving up when a command which cannot be handled is encountered, the lesson just ignored it and went on. This is also done in ID and it is useful and convenient indeed. I realize that I could get these features by using ID, but that formatting aid does not allow one to move por- tions of the display--which is _very_ nice to be able to do. Are there any real problems involved in making these changes--space? time? cookies? ---------- response 1 03/25 10.03 michael english Also, PLEASE change the editor so HELP1 is the activation key for an SS directive, not NEXT. I've so often gone to service when I did not intend to. I've heard of captive audiences, but this is ridiculous..... ---------- response 2 03/25 11.09 hinton ssu do you have a recipe for space-time cookies ? i'd like a copy. hinton,ssu ---------- response 3 03/25 12.51 orpheus cu Space-time cookies are one of Albert Einstein lesser known contributions to this field. This might not have been so if PLATO systems programmers had been around when he did his work! M-≤↑ˇB ---------- response 4 03/26 09.51 friedman csa Some special key, perhaps, Gary, but NOT help1; leave that key alone to mean code destruction! ---------- response 5 03/26 10.42 fuller users Help1 is very well suited, then, in this case... (just kidding, m4) DF ---------- response 6 03/26 11.51 hinton ssu followed up the einstein tip...recipe is: eggs=milkxchocolateˆ2ˇ. hinton,ssu ---------- note 45 bug found 03/25 10.15 jmk pso HARDWARE PROBLEM DISCOVERED!!!! If the touch panel has been enabled (-enable- command executed), the terminal will occasionally issue a phony touch input (key=0777) even if there is no touch panel on the terminal. This is a hardware problem and should be reported in "repair" if it happens to you. You may have noticed the problem as: mysterious incorrect touch inputs unexplainable "next" presses If you don't have a touch panel, but sometimes use lessons which provide for optional use of the touch panel, the problem would arise as mysterious "next" presses. Programming schemes which immediately disable the touch panel following as input, or which ignore key = 0777 inputs may not be plagued by this bug. Even so, it is probably a good idea to get your terminal fixed. It is a design error. ---------- note 53 Overwrite 03/25 13.35 fay rtv362 CONTINUED TAG LINES IN THE EDITOR... Sometimes, but not always, I experience the following _annoying_ problem with continued lines: when I try to insert a line the arrow appears next to the last line of the preceding continued line. So the new last line inserted overwrites the continued portion of the previous line. After leaving the insert mode it is rewritten by the editor in correct fashion (i.e., no overwriting) but this poses problems while in the insert mode, specifically it is impossible to read what you are in the process of writing. Anyone else notice this and is there a solution (other than adding a blank line which is later deleted)? ---------- response 1 03/25 17.58 p cohen med This one has been around for a while. The most obvious solution is not to use carriage returns and other devices that mess up the normal double-spacing in insert and replace modes. If you're really desperate, try pressing the white "clear" switch to erase all other writing on the screen. --paul ---------- response 2 03/25 17.58 blomme s The arrow for insert/replace is put at a fixed position on the screen, not one dependent upon where the last line ended up--the cpu usage and delay involved in getting the screen co-ordinates updated in order to plot the arrow "correctly" was found to be intolerable. And just as a general comment: continue write statements by pressing NEXT and writing the next line of text on the new line rather than by using the carriage return function. ---------- response 3 03/26 11.52 jmk pso I realize that trying to find the current screen location is a mess if there are carriage returns in the text. There are other sources of the problem which might be fixed by simply moving the replace/insert arrow down a line or two. Consider the screen situation if your text consists of full 120 character "lines"...i.e. as one might do trying to save disk space writing "defines", "vocabs",etc.. Those long lines also confuse the editor and results in the overwriting problem. (this was in fact the problem which prompted Fay's note) ---------- note 54 holy week 03/25 13.51 layman matha seeing that this is holy week for the catholic faith (as well as for those of the protestant faiths), i thought it would be good if the system had some kind of annotation about same -- the mennorah displays for the channukah (sp?) holy week was a very nice signon -- since this system has a great potential to cultivate a "one-planet" consciousness (-- it is easy to do), it might be a worthwhile endevour -- it would be nice to have some signon message celebrating one of the deepest mysteries of catholic faith with a cross for good friday -- what do you say sysprogs? -- TomL ---------- response 1 03/25 14.18 volker ames After all, we had 'happy birthday Abe' for beloved president! ---------- response 2 03/25 18.09 alex mcl Do'nt forget....... this is also the week that pesach (passover) beginns there should be equall representation! The plato people gave us a menorah for chanukah but they also gave the christians christmas displays. Lets be fair.....holy week displays for the catholics and protetants ......pesach desplays for the jews. A.D ---------- response 3 03/25 19.02 k mast p Though we seldom have time or talent to design displays, we welcome any and all special displays for temporary occupancy either in personal notes or the welcome to plato page. Please contact me for guidelines. Kim Mast ---------- response 4 03/26 07.42 orpheus cu While this issue has been brought up, there's a question that's been bugging me. How come there was no Saint Patrick's Day display? No time? No available talent? No Irish? M¬≤↑ˇB ---------- response 5 03/26 08.10 walton reading We don't have green and black tough panel. Rob ---------- response 6 03/26 09.54 friedman csa Could even an Irishman want a shamrock if the only color it can appear in is ORANGE? ---------- response 7 03/26 11.26 aardvark phar i can't wait until the 4th of july-------- ---------- response 8 03/26 11.54 jmk pso Halloween is PLATO's special day! ---------- note 56 step bug 03/25 14.49 sherman rhrc There is a small bug in the step mode student variable displayer. Apparently, the -showa-d display of student variables ignores shift (070) codes. For example: calc n1‎'aAbBcCd' pause keys=next,term if I execute this code, go into step mode, press data1 and look at n1, it -showa-s a ab bc cd which of course ignored the 070's ---------- response 1 03/25 18.02 blomme s Did you think to look at superscripts, subscripts, and other special characters? These are suppressed deliberately to prevent other lines and information from being overwritten...the "alphanumeric" display is only to give an indication of the contents of the variable in that format--you can always look at the octal code display to see the exact contents. ---------- response 2 03/25 18.07 p cohen med This "clean-ing" of invisible character codes positions the visible characters correctly and prevents flying characters from appearing in unexpected places on the screen. It is a nice feature. --paul ---------- response 3 03/25 18.13 alex mcl Maybe the small bug was you shermy!!! hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe just kidding!!!!!!!!!!!!! p.s. Have fun in the sun...... alex ---------- response 4 03/25 18.55 fritz ames You will notice that if you edit common, all "invisible" alpha chars are suppressed in the common editor, too. frisco ---------- note 57 Burn/next 03/25 15.06 errol kka I would like to suggest that the Press NEXT to begin page be eliminated in favor of a blank page. At least one of our terminals has developed a burned-in "Press NEXT to begin" so that any writing in a lesson that appears where the burned-in writing drops out is nearly impossible to read. ---------- response 1 03/25 15.11 meers wright the press NEXT to begin moves around a lot it also disappears after about 5 minutes. ---------- response 2 03/25 16.24 volker ames How about just eliminating the Press -NEXT- page and having Welcome to PLATO the first page? ---------- response 3 03/25 16.29 heidi conn Then have Welcome to PLATO, etc. burn out? I'd like to hear from engineers about this problem....We haven't had terminals long enough to see any burnout...... heidi ---------- response 4 03/25 17.34 lieber m It would help if the message was written in a somewhat random position each time. ---------- response 5 03/25 18.57 fritz ames It is! Try pressing NEXT repeatedly when the system goes down and the NEXT is still active. The message shows up all over the screen. frisco ---------- response 6 03/25 18.58 schroeder iumusic you haven't seen a burnout? try station 21-27 here. the top and bottom is totally gone...like I can barely see the "INSERT MODE" while writing this...to top it off, the bottom portion is also burned out, which is really fun when you are term-talking!.....as for putting it into repair, I don't think we have the money for a new screen (plus the fact our 'engineer' has known about it for quite some time). Oh well.... Beethoven (rot-nozzle) ---------- response 7 03/25 09.22 kaufman uimc The terminal I am working on now is beginning to lose dots where the Press NEXT to begin message used to appear. Now that the system is randomnly displaying the message, we may avoid this problem on our other terminals. But this problem will eventually affect dots at other commonly plotted positions (i.e. the edit . line) I have heard that there is a new plasm panel with a different gas which does not have this burn out problem. Will the system engineers please comment. Also, will the systems people comment as to what we can do with our burn out screens. Joe Kaufman ---------- response 8 03/26 07.57 avner s Newer versions of the panel are far less susceptable to the "burning-in" problem than the early versions. Note that the effect observed should never be totally missing dots (that is another problem, which in some cases can be repaired) but rather a dimming of dots (a deposit is being formed on the inner surface of the panel.). In many cases the dimming goes away by itself if that portion of the screen is not used as much. For those interested, this sort of problem (i.e.,one that shows up only after long periods of actual use) is exactly why PLATO is being tested in a "real-life" environment. Your comments and complaints are a valuable contribution to the final design of the system. Al Avner ---------- response 9 03/26 14.29 avner s Glen Shafer, our resident plasma panel expert, has corrected one of my earlier statements. A burned in dot requires a higher voltage to be ignited than a less used dot. A partial cure for a burned-in panel is to raise the the panel voltage until all dots ignite satisfactorily. However, if the panel is not evenly burned-in, raising the voltage high enough to insure that all dots will fire may cause some other dots to stay on. Thus, it is the case that missing dots can be the (indirect) result of a panel being unevenly burned in (since the voltage cannot be adjusted high enough to fire all dots without causing some to be left on). This is one case of missing dots that cannot be corrected. Future panels should not have this problem. Al Avner ---------- note 58 interface 03/25 15.06 szolyga rhrc I have developed an interface to connect an RS232 compatible device to the external jack of a "new" (serial number > 262) PLATO terminal. Currently I am using this interface to drive an ASCII printer. The interface buffers the external bits and upon receiving data ready from the terminal, the interface transmits the bits at RS232 voltage levels at 1200 Baud (the actual Baud rated is 1260, but this presents no problem for most ASCII devices.) All 15 bits of the external are transmitted from the interface to the connected device, This allows the interface to be used with 5,6,7 or 8 bit characters. A tutor unit to convert and transmit a "line" of PLATO characters via my interface to an ASCII printer is also available. Contact me through notes and I will answer questions about the interface. Tom Szolyga of rhrc ---------- response 1 03/25 18.11 blomme s I am not clear as to whether a hardware or software service is being advertised here nor as to its relation to the terminet printer (s) we provide service to. The system provides a printer service lesson which will permit print-outs to be made of lessons on certain types of printers connected to the external jack of a PLATO terminal. The people in the research group here at CERL (in particular, Fred Ebeling) have built several (hardware) interfaces for this sort of purpose. It would be helpful to know the relationship and compatibility of your work with that already done/provided by the systems staff. ---------- response 2 03/27 10.37 baskin rhrc As I understand it, the system support for terminet printers involves the use of an old (serial number <262) terminal and a modification to the terminet printer. The parallel external is wired to the input of the terminet printer at TTL voltage levels. What is being described here is a self contained box which plugs into the external output and plugs into the terminet printer (or any other) RS232 voltage levels (+12 and -2 volts). This means that any RS 232 device can be connected to the external output with any needed combination of start and stop bits desired. We are working on a modification of the conversion of the terminet conversion tables for use with out new plato terminal. -continued- ---------- response 3 03/27 11.04 baskin rhrc The new code is just the old reversed and start and stop bits or'd in where needed. The box is quite inexpensive (under $60 with its power). Because the external jack can look like any RS232 terminal. it may be possible to connect the external output to the terminal input for a minicomputer and dump binary data to floppy disk or 9 track magtape. We are still investigating this but we have sufficient need for number crunching binary data acquired on plato that we will almost certainly develop the needed software. As I understand it, this interface and any software developed for it overlaps the existing terminet, but does not use an old terminal. Also this interface is more versatile and promises to have a wider application. ---------- response 4 03/30 22.15 berger users _Please_ talk to the maintainence people before stealing power from your plato terminal. The build-in power supplies just can't handle too much. ---------- response 5 03/31 13.43 baskin rhrc The circuitry in use requires milliamps and the power supply is rated at about 10 amps. In any event the final box we will be using will have self contained power and thus will not affect the terminal power. I agree that, in general, it is not wise to tap the terminal power. ---------- note 60 curic/stix 03/25 15.12 jimw english Have been running into a problem with curriculum statistics. After choosing option 5 - to see statistics- then 3 - scores/lessons completed, I'm only able to choose 9 lessons. If 10 are chosen I am kicked back to the index page for the course. I thought at one time 10 lessons could be chosen to look at, those the students had completed. On the display page that follows there are 10 slots for lesson names. If my memory is wrong, ok, but then why big bump back to the course index page which forces someone to type in everything again? Thanks, Jim ---------- response 1 03/25 19.00 chabay s Thanks. fixed now. ---------- note 62 x search 03/25 16.23 volker ames How about letting the 'x'-search option available by pressing 'X' on the block edit page? (Just a little conveince) ---------- response 1 03/25 21.23 sam martin ve Excellent idea....in fact I made the same suggestion about three weeks ago, but the idea didn't get much response.....maybe now?! ---------- response 2 03/25 21.58 galcher uimatha I also have suggested this a few times but apparently the systems people think that two extra keypresses dont warrant the addition of this feature. If you need the feature bad enough then I guess you'll have to back out to the author mode page...But while we're at it, when in lesson search (for all of you who just hit X from the author mode) instead of throwing you back to the inded after doing a search, why doesnt the lesson bring you back to the "type in an object to search for" page and give options to go back to the index or the what lessons to search thru page Hoping you news is good news, Seldon ---------- response 3 03/26 07.47 orpheus cu That last is an excellent suggestion. For multiple uses of the X search, it is probably more common to change the object of the search rather than the lessons to be searched. M¬≤↑ˇB ---------- response 4 03/26 13.29 fumento p I am planning to let people search for more than one object at a time. This should save you the time of having to enter another object, and it will use less system resources by using one search instead of two or three to do the job. ---------- response 5 03/27 19.37 orpheus cu Great idea! Thanks! M¬≤↑ˇB ---------- note 65 stealing 03/25 17.00 karen tutoring Would everyone PLEASE not make the passwords to their sign-ons the same as the name of the sign-on (the password to this sign-on WAS karen....the course director of tutoring can change it to something else. I cuaght a couple of guys using this sign-on for playing games....On terminals where game-playing is TABOO! Everybody..PLEASE BE MORE UNIQUE WHEN YOU INTIALIZE NEW AUTHOR RECORDS so that the sign-on isnt stolen as soon as it becomes known. Also new authors quite often dont have either the sense or experience to change them on their own (I know...I was once an idiot too) and thus leave themselves wide open to the temporary loss of their sign-on... many dont really know what to do when they cant get on...sometimes it goes unreported for some time while the bandits use it to break the rules wherever they may be. BE SMART! ---------- response 1 03/25 20.37 p cohen med I always thought that new author records are usually initialized with a blank password, so that the new author immediately chooses his/her own, and the course director does not write it in for her/him. --paul ---------- response 2 03/25 22.12 railing iu No! She means that people should make their passwords something else besides their name or part of their name or nickname. Passwords like these are too easily guessed if somebody knows you. Besides, your password gives you a chance to be creative, even if nobody else ever sees it. a good password would also be an inside joke to yourself. Anything odd, unusual, long and complicated makes a good password. Malkin ---------- response 3 03/25 23.46 silver ve Just about any password based on personal data (birthdates, addresses, initials) can be cracked by motivated- individuals. About five or six members of a class of 80 vetmeds found out that they were all using their wife's first name as a sign on, the hard way! I have used a shifted character or two in my sign on code, on the theory that it is harder to see over my shoulder. I have a lot of respect for the over-my-shoulder vision people, though! ---------- response 4 03/26 10.36 celia pso To p cohen... Course directors often put a password on a new record, especially if the author will not begin using the terminal immediately, in order ot avoid presenting thieves with an un-passworded author record. Then the new user can change the password to whatever (s) he likes at he first sign-on. Karen's point is well-taken; a password that is the same as the name is very easy to guess and almost the same as no password at all. ---------- response 5 03/26 12.27 grohne psych I am proud to say I have used the same 9-letter password since the beginning of author-sign-one, and it has never been broken. All it takes is a tiny bit of imagination. "tom" probably would have been a little easy. ---------- response 6 03/26 12.55 fuller users Yeah, and my password is the same as Tom's ---------- response 7 03/26 14.55 meers wright my password is 'password' and one has ever guessed it ---------- response 8 03/26 14.58 judy pso I don't remember his name, and I don't remember his course, but I shall never forget the student whose records were fouled up (accidentally, by his teacher). He didn't type well, so I said, "Look, tell me your name, course and password and I'll do the typing for you.." name ¬↓ course were standard, but the password was (*****censored*****). Poor guy, he was dreadfully embarrassed. ---------- note 91 delete rec 03/26 08.30 little buddy matha we have a problem -- maybe somebody can help us . . . our elementary school children are restricted to one 30 minute session of our material during school (this is because of scarcity of resources) lately the clever kids have figured out a way to beat the system . . when their session is almost thru, they sign in at another terminal and delete themselves. This aborts their record and lets them have another session. The problem lies in the fact that the delete/abort gives the router no chance to do/remember anything By keeping data in common i could possibly beat them, but our common is quite full now . . . Any possibility of doing the finish unit with a special flag set . . . or an 'abor' unit . . or anything? ---------- response 1 03/26 10.36 fuller users Hmmmm...perhaps a case for a new setting of -backout-? ---------- response 2 03/26 11.20 little buddy matha let me mention that we do not use 'autocheckpointing' so that the delete/abort can go back up to 30 minutes . . . LB ---------- response 3 03/26 13.05 chabay s We do intend to fix things so your records is not aborted when you kick yourself off from another terminal. ---------- response 4 03/26 13.24 fuller users Gee... you mean it was never intentional that the kick out routine did not update your records? I blithely hmmm DF ---------- response 5 03/27 08.10 little buddy matha thats great, ruth . . . thanks LB ---------- response 6 03/27 10.37 bradley iu Why don't you use a multiple signon where they type in their name at the beginning of the session? Then they cannot delete themselves. ---------- response 7 03/03 22.18 berger users But they _can_ screw up data collection by typing a false name" These 4th, 5th, and 6th graders are pretty smart! ---------- note 92 ruth--rout 03/26 09.45 lederman cerlcc Any chance of making DATA1 active on options page of datafiles...so that we can more easily enter the Security Code...those of who are responsible for many such files......would be very grateful... barb ---------- response 1 03/26 15.33 chabay s Yes...done. ---------- response 2 03/26 21.11 lederman cerlcc Thanks.....as usual...... ---------- note 95 data files 03/26 09.58 bilbo cdcc Why are student data files course dependent? It seems to me that if authors want to collect data on their les- sons from all courses that use that lesson, it would be much easier if the author could establish the data file in the lesson itself. It other words, why aren't data files lesson dependent instead of course dependent? ---------- response 1 03/26 11.06 golden s Although there is merit to your suggestion, the major collector of data is the instructor who must collect data on all his student year after year, not the author who needs data on a few students only while he develops the lesson. Course dependent datafiles file this need, and let the author look only at data from students he wanted in the lesson, so he can know something of their backgrounds and the context in which the lesson was used. ---------- response 2 03/26 11.14 michael english Except that, for the average instructor not familiar with the internal construction of a lesson that he uses or the concepts used in TUTOR, the current measures collected by the datafile package do not meet the need for _summative_ data. The PEER group has constantly maintained that the area measures are formative data. useful primarily to the author. The data needs of instructor are, in my own opinion, not met by the system package, but only by groups which have either written statistical packages which process -outputl- commands or have devised procedures not based on the system data-collection machinery at all. It is an entirely different question whether it is possible to collect system-wide summative data. I doubt it myself. The display of *lscore* values kept by the system router comes close; however, comparing scores across lessons can be misleading. ---------- response 3 03/26 15.41 chabay s Yes -- the area data (etc.) are primarily useful to authors in evaluating their lessons. Having a course-specific data file, however, provides an easy way of identifying the students who generate any given data. Presumably an author ought to be able to make arrangements to get data on use of his lessons from any instructor to whom he has given permission to use the lessons. ---------- response 4 03/27 09.37 black cdcc Just as a general comment, it seems like the student data collection was created with the assumption that lessons would be used by students in the same course as the lesson author. The reason we're running into problems is because we are producing curricula (including PLATO courseware) for general sale and consumption. As a result, the lessons will be used by a large number of different courses, and we will not be running any actual classes of our own (other than pilot testing). With the current set-up, we have to do all sorts of dataset manipulation, and still can't do all we want because of the limit on I/O in -finish- units. (By the way, this is on the CDC system, not the CERL) Blackstar ---------- note 100 wed night 03/26 10.50 golden s CDC test time tonight has been rescheduled. PLATO will be off 10 pm to 6 am. ---------- note 116 secode chg 03/26 15.30 ye ed tutoring Could it be possible in the course records editor for a course director to change the security code (_not_ the password) of a student or author? This would be handy in two ways: 1) to give restricted access by student to datasets for which the change code is not available in the lesson, due to the structure of the codewords, and 2) to allow a course director to give an author temporary access to a file he does not normally have access to, without telling him the code. ---------- note 119 out error 03/26 16.15 judy pso out error pso 6 0 I pressed shift-STOP from the author mode page. Prior to that I had been editing course records. ---------- response 1 03/27 09.28 rader s Thank you. ---------- note 120 Outer 03/26 16.16 kennedy cerlcc Was asked to report Out Error received as I pressed Shift-stop to next page to the leave the system about 3 minutes ago. ---------- response 1 03/27 09.29 rader s Thank you. ---------- note 121 out error 03/26 16.38 sharon matha OUT-ERROR... matha 62 0 ---------- response 1 03/27 09.29 rader s Thank you. ---------- note 123 Q ¬↓ sS 03/26 22.03 michael english Any chance of changing the execution key on the Q and SS directives in the editor to a shifted key? Hitting Q4 instead of A4 kills the save buffer. Hitting SS takes you on a guided tour of the system. Ideally, I think D, E, Q and SS all ought to be initiated by HELP1. (Disagree with you there, George; they all destroy something, be it source code or the save buffer).) (I refuse to offer a system programmer a bribe in public... Catch me in my office, Dave....) ---------- response 1 03/27 10.18 friedman csa Main thing here is to require conscious (but trivial) effort to execute such a directive. I agree with this point, Gary. On the other hand. typing (e.g.) D when you meant E could have very bad effects; also AA for SS could easily screw things up (the 2nd A, of course, would be discarded). On the other hand. having several different execution keys would make them all hard to remember.↓ I have a different suggestion: Make it necessary to type in A, SS, D, and E as shifted letters. (Currently, they may be either shifted or not.) Then use NEXT as the execution key for A and SS, and HELP1 for D and E. This would require the desired conscious effort. (It still wouldn't solve AA for SS, though.) ---------- response 2 03/27 11.01 michael english Fine with me. Big problem currently is that the editor is so slow that doing U searches often drops the directive, causing the first recognized letter in the unit name to be interpreted as a directive, with very disconcerting results. Unfortunately, the solution here probably lies outside the editor itself. ---------- response 3 03/27 11.24 friedman csa Paul Tenczar says we should all be patient about the general problem of losing keypresses, short timeslices, etc.--give them a few days to tune some new system code.↓ But the problem of accidentally doing the wrong thing in the editor remains. ---------- note 126 HELP 03/27 08.13 steve summers ufdent I am curious about what is involved in obtaining lesson space. Do we have to wait for someone to trun in their old lessons or is there disc space availible. The reason I ask is because We have so long a delay in getting space. I have lessons already written in Coursewritter III that I can translate into plato easily but i cann't get the space when I need it. I have three programmers waiting for space. Please tell me if there is a problem that I am not aware of and I will try to be more patient. For we are new on Plato so we need lots of lessons to get our curriculum started in Dentistry so maybe we are asking to much. ---------- response 1 03/27 09.30 golden s Answered via personal notes. ---------- response 2 03/27 10.19 jp mtcc By the way Bill, What is the status of new files anyway? We would all like to know. ---------- response 3 03/27 11.55 golden s The available space is being disbursed at a rate guarranteed to make it last for a few months. Nothing is known yet of the date when additional disk capacity will arrive. ---------- note 127 confused 03/27 08.54 glass aero I has been brought to my attention that many new users of the system have been getting confused when they come across a Condense errors and warnings! page when going into a lesson. Would it not be a good idea to only show the page only to people that have condensed the lesson on the block listing page. or are listed as the last to have edited the lesson? ---------- response 1 03/27 09.50 judy pso A new author will soon learn what "condense errors" are and when to ignore them. I think I prefer the present system. A "finished" lesson really shouldn't have condense errors. If I see a finished lesson with errors, then I know that I should drop a comment to the author... and people do the same for me. ---------- response 2 03/27 12.16 kovara arizona Then how about an option whereby the author can have 'informative' or 'warning' errors suppressed? Thanks ---------- response 3 03/28 09.15 avner s I would agree with Judy even for "informative" or "warning" messages. Many of these messages suggest potential problems which might occur with minor revisions in the system. Good programmers try to eliminate all code that produces any sort of system warning as soon as possible. Al Avner ---------- response 4 03/28 20.16 mckeown com I don't think I agree, Al. Some system warnings are generated for items which are not likely to become dangers through system changes (The warning may have been generated due to a system change--e.g., the warning of redefining a system variable.). While I do want to see these messages displayed to the author (or anyone else who condenses the lesson with the change or inspect code), I think it is unwise to try to set up for all authors the criterion that a 'finished' lesson ought not to generate any error or warning messages. (I also see no need for these messages to be displayed to every author who condenses the lesson.)↓ (I have only given one example of a possible reason for not correcting conditions which generate warning messages but there are others which I consider valid and which sometimes even generate error messages.) ---------- note 134 plato off 03/27 10.13 golden s Four CDC engineers are hard at work on our computer problem. They will continue tests on the following schedule: Thursday night...midnight to 7:30 am Friday night....midnight to 8:00 am Saturday........noon to ??? Sunday..........as needed ---------- response 1 03/27 10.20 friedman csa "Sonday"? (Sorry, couldn't resist.) ---------- response 2 03/27 15.49 bradley iu Why doesn't this note say '2 responses' at the top? ---------- response 3 03/28 07.54 s gooch p The CDC engineers found and fixed the problem. It was a design error, which happens to exist in all CDC Cyber 70 computer systems which have 2 CPU's and at least 500K words of ECS. All times which have been scheduled to look for this problem are cancelled. PLATO will be up Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday. Thank you for being patient while this error was corrected. ---------- response 4 03/28 16.01 bradley iu Is that the answer to why the message at the top of the original note says it has one less response than it has? ---------- note 146 wrong data 03/27 13.15 tamar cerlcc To prevent the double dump of data we need in some situation to have an 'area blank' in the finish unit, Right now it gives an execution error. Could it be possible to allow an area command in the finish unit? (the sooner you can...) ---------- response 1 03/27 15.43 chabay s Not in the finish unit, but in the ieu -- coming soon. ---------- note 149 out - error 03/27 16.06 bcs mtcc Received msg to leave following note: OUT-ERROR mtcc 58 0 Had pressed STOP1 from author mode page. bc seager ---------- response 1 03/28 22.20 rader s Thank you. ---------- note 150 out error 03/27 16.46 celia pso OUT-ERROR pso 1 0 I got this after STOP1 from author mode page. Previously Had been inspecting lesson "pronoun". ---------- response 1 03/28 22.20 rader s Thank you. ---------- note 151 backout 03/27 17.47 b cohen med In reference to the backout of logical site 3 at 5:15 ↓p.m, today: Please, please give more than 30 seconds ↓warning and/or don't keep flashing messages on lines 30 ↓and 31. I was engaged in an important "talk" and the ↓flashing messages made it impossible to communicate and es- ↓pecially to respond to the comments of my caller, because I ↓could not read his line. Fortunately, I raced to another ↓site in time to correct what must have seemed to him ↓as an act of rudeness. Thank you very much for your ↓consideration of my request. ↓ Barry ---------- response 1 03/27 18.10 fuller uimc The messages are locked into lines 30 and 31 by the site director options. As to the other matter. take it up with the operator in room 166. ---------- note 153 x-l p-word 03/27 19.33 railing iu Something that I happened to find quite by accident which may help people protect their passwords from paying eyes. Make up a ten character password, then when other people are in a position to observe you. type it in and add one or two characters to the end. Plato seems to ignore anything over ten characters as a password. Most people remember the last thing they saw the best, and and even if they get the first part of it right, they will think there is still some to be added. This isn't foolproof by a longshot, but the idea could come in handy sometimes. Malkin ---------- note 155 plato on 03/28 08.15 s gooch p The remaining times which have been scheduled for CDC engineers to search for the elusive problem that they have been looking for are cancelled. PLATO will be up on Friday night. Saturday afternoon, and Sunday. The CDC engineers found and fixed the problem which they have been looking for every night for the last week. It happens to have been a design error which exists in all CDC Cyber 70 computer systems containing 2 CPU's and at least 500 thousand words of ECS. Thank you for your patience while this error was being corrected. ---------- response 1 03/28 09.31 judy pso Out of curiousity, do you know how many other installations fit that criterion? That is, 2 CPU's and .5 million ECS ? ---------- response 2 03/28 09.51 s gooch p From talking to the engineers, I understand that there are a number, but countable on your fingers. The engineers did say, however, that a change order would probably be sent out (eventually) for all CDC Cyber 70 systems with 2 CPU's. so that this change need not be made if they are ever used with ECS. ---------- response 3 03/28 11.34 mgs mtcc -I ¬I ¬I¬↑ˆ___¬↑ˇ¬I ¬I¬↑ˆ___¬↑ˇ¬I ¬I¬↑ˆ____¬↑ˇ¬I ¬I¬↑ˆ___¬↑ˇ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I¬≤ˆ-¬≤¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I≤ ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I-I ¬I----¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I----¬≤/ ¬≤ ¬I---¬I ¬I----¬I ¬I≤ ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬/ ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I___¬I ¬I___¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I ¬I_¬_¬≤¬I ¬≤O ---------- response 4 03/28 11.39 drw mtcc Now that this is all over, i seem to have lost track of when plato is supposed to come up (mon thru fri). can someone remind me? ---------- response 5 03/28 12.25 schroeder iumusic yeah, it's SUPPOSED to be up during prime-time ALL WEEK! That answer your question?(snicker) ---------- note 165 busy? 03/28 22.10 thiher ames In the last couple of days I have begun to get the message that xxxx is busy when trying to call them. I know that there was much talk about getting such a feature but never saw its implimentation. Has this been implimented and if so how do you communicate that message to a caller. duffer ---------- response 1 03/28 22.19 blomme s That message says: grohne is busy but has been told you called. The message I am referring to merely says: Paging grohne of psych... (a few iterations) (then) grohne is busy Can you explain how this was done? duffer ---------- response 3 03/28 23.24 woolley p grohne did a term "reject". ---------- response 4 03/28 23.40 thiher ames I think if he (grohne) types reject you get something else, so I tried that with the next terminal and as expected I got the message "rejected." Now what do you say? Forget it? duffer ---------- response 5 03/28 23.47 schroeder iumusic Sorry, Dave, but a term-"reject" shows up on the caller's screen as "rejected". (he's not fit for life, anymore...he's been rejected) .... the time you get a " blah of course blah is busy" is when blah signs off the system while you are paging them.....however, as been mentioned before, "rejected" is a little drastic. can that be changed to something like....ummmmm...well, you get the message... Thanks! Nate Syfrig ---------- response 6 03/29 20.56 blomme s Going from a "paging" to a "busy" state sometimes indicates that the person has signed off the system, I believe...we'll try to fix the message to be more appropriate. ---------- response 7 03/30 20.44 grohne psych I do not reject calls, "grohne" said huffily. ---------- response 8 03/30 21.14 rick mfl Would it be possible to do something like: what term? ¬6 talkt [t for Topic] what topic? ¬6 tutor problem and what term? ¬6 rejectr [r for Reason] what reason? ¬6 big test This could soften the "rejected" which appears on the initiator's screen, and also let the person who is being ¬TERM talk-ed know in advance a little about the proposed conversation; if he's busy, for example. he can say why instead of just rejecting the caller. An alternate suggestion would be to append -n- to both of the standard terms to stand for Note (for the sake of consistency). ---------- note 173 shift≡ 03/29 14.37 morgan arizona I was wondering if a shift divide could be made to do the same thing as shift stop.I am left handed an i feel this is a prime example of discrimination...... ---------- response 1 03/29 15.02 bradley iu Turn your keyset upside down. That should solve your problem (you should be able to type as well up-side-down as right-side-up because if you aren't used to shift-stop on the right, you're not well enough acquainted with plato for it to make much difference where the other characters are). ---------- response 2 03/29 15.21 layman matha and whatll you do with ↑≡ ? ---------- response 3 03/29 17.41 silver ve Listed to all the narrow minded right handed people! Can't handle such a sinister suggestion, because you are so orthodox! I survive on Plato using a right handed key- set, but having gone both ways playing musical instruments, I'm fairly sure we should have left handed keysets for left handed people. When the number of Plato terminals gets a bit bigger, I'll bet they start making left handed ter- minals, too. But only God can make a right handed person who can empathize with the problems that lefties have, I guess. Ortho-freaks...sheesh! ---------- response 4 03/29 21.46 eric weather speaking of keysets, has any thought been giving in having keysets with keys arranged in the "new" typewriter format? i recall having read some articles on a redesigned key arrangement for typewriters that increases the typing ability of the users. (all this assumes that plato would be able to handle a higher average input keyrate...) ---------- response 5 03/29 22.19 schroeder iumusic eric, you're assuming a lot!!! Some people are lucky if they type...plus echo-times on the keypress???? oh well...... Beethoven ---------- response 6 03/30 08.38 kovara arizona Actually, any change could be made by simply changing the keys physically on the keyboard, since all character echoing and processing are a software function. As on other systems, you could have some type of code designating different types of terminals (left-right handed, new-old keyboard format etc...) All this would have to be done at the driver level. so you'd have to ask a systems programmer. ---------- response 7 03/31 08.50 jones rhrc Re that 'new' typewriter keyboard mentioned. the faster speeds reported on it are for right handed people, the standatd typewriter keyboard actually favors the left hand (the common letters a,s,r,e are on the other side on that new fangled board) Being left handed. i admit that pushing NEXT,BACK, etc. with my wrong little finger actually leaves it stiff and in need of a rest after a few hours of plato, but then i think that the advantages of a standard keyset far override any sinister considerations.↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇ'nother leftist↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆx≤↑ˇx≤↑ˇx≤↑ˇx≤↑ˇx ---------- note 176 p-notes 03/29 16.32 patty phar Thanks for the change in p-notes. It sure is nice when you press the back key after writing a note. to find out who you are actually sending the note to. AND it is even nicer to be able to back up to a previous note instead of having to go through the index. Us lazy, absent-minded people in the world of black and orange terminals really appreciate it. patty ---------- response 1 03/29 17.11 railing iu AGREED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Malkin ---------- response 2 03/29 22.20 schroeder iumusic patty, how about dinner tonight? ---------- response 3 03/29 23.01 patty phar Sure!!!! ---------- response 4 03/30 12.45 ken conn Getting back to the subject of the note. i also agree that the new notes set-up is GGGRRRRRREEEEEEAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!! ---------- response 5 03/30 15.28 sto¬uren k matha Theyre great. Thanks! ---------- response 6 03/30 15.35 schroeder iumusic back to serious matter myself. Thanks!!!!! however, one little thing. after you go through deleting all your notes (blanking the file), anyway of being able to inhibit from there, instead of going back into it? I realize that is an EXTREMELY minute detail, but decided to ask....however, they ARE great! (don't let it get to head. though) ---------- response 7 03/30 16.33 curly iu One thing though....The new forwarding option makes it very easy to pass on chain notes...if you aren't careful the chain letter craze will come back stronger than ever (I just recieved a chain note today....am NOT passing it on). Still, overall I like the changes! curly≤≤≤≤≤¬↑ˇ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆcurly ---------- response 8 03/31 10.32 aardvark phar happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday, sweet patty happy birthday to you aardvark ---------- response 9 03/31 11.22 mgs mtcc I agree also... SCHMUCK ---------- note 184 jr authors 03/30 00.20 gilpin peer A number of recent observations suggest to me that a new category of record for junior authors would be useful, Such a record might have the power to edit only the file assigned to it by the course director, to inspect files according to the usual rules, to read Notes but not to write them (except, in the new system, Tutor Questions --or, maybe, Junior Authors), to use consult (maybe) but not talk, to look at nothing as a student but its own file ¬ aids, and to neither receive nor send personal notes. I realize that there are good reasons for trying not to multiply the different kinds of records there are, but I believe the benefits of a junior author type record are overriding. Mainly, it would allow the desirable PLATO tradition of self-selected young people teaching themselves TUTOR to continue on a decentralized basis while holding system costs of that activity within reasonable bounds. ---------- response 1 03/30 00.23 bowery comm What exactly would be the savings to system load by creating such a user-type? ECS, CPU or both? And how would this type of signon effect this savings? ---------- response 2 03/30 00.56 giplin peer Here's three--the loss of cpu to game-playing by "irregular" authors would drop to zero; the loss of time fending off frivolous talk-calls would drop to near-zero; the disk space and accesses consumed by "noteswar" would sharply decrease. And the fact that the people would be screened out whose ONLY interest in PLATO is screwing around would work a general improvement in PLATO working conditions. But the thrust of my suggestion is not the savings for the system--those it seems are going to come anyway-- but rather the preservation of the named tradition to the greatest extent possible. ---------- response 3 03/30 07.50 gorey cerl Not too many months ago I suggested this same type of signon. I now consider it to be a mistake. There are too many people on this system who would like to turn us all into junior authors, and I don't think that the precendent should be set. Beyond this, I believe that this would place a load on the course directors, who are on the whole too busy as it is, to be truly effective. Kevin ---------- response 4 03/30 12.46 ken b cccs How would it place any additional load on course directors? ---------- response 5 03/30 18.00 giplin peer I'm sure that the idea of a junior-author type record has been considered many times. But I think recent changes in system experience make it worth considering again. As Bruce Sherwoord, Stan Smith, Bill Golden, and others have observed recently in these Notes, the new scarcities in system re- sources, especially cpu, no longer allow us to tolerate practices that were readily absorbed previously. The intent of my suggestion at this time is to make it possible to put a lid on those practices while retaining as much of the old freedom as possible. Course directors would _benefit_ from this--they would be able to give signons to promising persons with much less supervisory burden than now. And they would have a means of disciplining an employed author who abused his privileges that stopped short of pulling that author's record entirely. ---------- response 6 03/30 19.19 sharon matha Sounds like a good idea to me, John. We've had frequent needs for something like a jr. author record. ---------- response 7 03/31 00.22 eric weather You seem to feel, John, that the tradition of learning Tutor with author records is threatened by the scarcity of the system resources (as described by Mr. Golden and others). You therefore propose to preserve this tradition by created a "junior author" user type restricted in its use of some system resources. Your response to bowery's question says we will gain cputime spent in frivolous use of term talk, gamesplaying, and gain diskspace consumed by noteswar. This assumes that frivolous term talks, gamesplaying and noteswar are done mainly by new authors learning Tuto I do not believe this is the case. Furthermore, I doubt that noteswar consumes a significant portion of our disks or that frivolous term talk a significant portion of total cputime. Additionally, such a junior author would be unable to study instructional techniques utilized by other authors. ..more=> ---------- response 8 03/31 00.34 eric weather The new author who inquired a while back about sized or rotatable FONT characters would be unable to utilize Dave Eisenberg's program to do this. Finally, one of your responses implies that junior author signon could be used as a disciplinary mea- sure. This would seem contrary to the stated purpose of junior author records: to learn Tutor. I do feel, however, that a definite curriculum for new authors could be created. This curriculum should not only include instruction in the Tutor language, but also in author resources, how to use the editor, and reasoning behind current system philosophy on games-playing during primetime, storing notes in your notesfile forever, and whatever other stuff is frowned upon. Perhaps this curri- culum could be attached by a course director to a new author's records; the new author would then go thru all this material before... ---------- response 9 03/31 00.48 eric weather being turned loose on the system. Perhaps it wont save a great deal of system resources, but it will insure that the new authors fully realize both the capabilities and their responsibilities, as authors, on PLATO. This could be implemented thru a modification to course records; when a new "author" signon is created, it is automatically attached to lesson "newauths" unit "start" (or whatever lesson sequence would contain this curriculum of information). Once a new author has satisfactorily com- pleted this sequence of material, he would sign into lesson "edit" unit "start" as all authors do now. ¬[Should the course director be creating a signon for an already exper- ienced author, he can modify the signin lesson/unit while from the course records editor.¬] Discipline for abuses is a separate matter which needs to be defined independantly... ---------- response 10 03/31 02.13 schroeder iumusic Erik, you are on the right track, but for what you are saying, I think we already really have the basic resources for making sure the 'new' author goes through certain lesson; that being commonly referred to as the datafile. Now what was done with me was I was told by my course- director to go through such and such, etc (with my syfrig/iu signon that is)., before I went around requesting space for my lesson, and the lessons had dataons on them... also, gilpin, for the game-playing, datafiles can also be used to see how much time is being spent to games in relation to hours on system. This is also a suggestion to game authors to put datons in their games. (Thank you Brand, for already doing that with airfight and spasim). I don't see what a jr. author record would solve. Beethoven ---------- response 11 03/31 09.34 jmk pso With the possible exception of inhibiting the use of "notes" (which, as john [gilpin] points out, could be handled automatically in new "notes" formats), I don't like the idea of a "junior author". My objections: 1. Most of the consulting requests that I answer are through term "talk, and not consult. The number of "frivolous" talk calls I get is negligible. 2. If a junior author can write and execute his own programs, he can program jumpouts to whatever game he chooses. I don't see how to inhibit that capability without a major change in the current jumpout rules. I would rather that didn't happen. 3. The cost of writing personal notes in terms of disk accesses is trivial. The cost in terms of bother to the receiver is also trivial. The cost cont'd ---------- response 12 03/31 09.52 jmk pso in terms of disk space is zero for whatever notes he writes and a block or two if he has a p-notes file attached to his course. What is the cost in terms of loss of one of PLATO's most significant qualities as a communications network (and incidentally, an instructional tool), i.e. the capability to locate the need for information and supply it when it's needed? J. Kraats ---------- response 13 03/31 10.48 parrello uimatha Also, it is obvious from your comments on "noteswar" that you had no idea what was involved in the contest. Are you sure you aren't confusing this organized, small-scale contest with the barrage of chain letters a few weeks ago? ---------- response 14 03/31 12.23 dimitrief english I really can't disagree with some of the thoughts presented here, but would rather this type of record was labeled a "beginning author's" record. I interpret some comments made in this series of note and responses to mean that "junior authors," or "kids," are the ONLY ones who practice such habits as noteswar, an excessive amount of term talks, etc. This is not true. An example would be the chain letter craze mentioned by Bruce Parrello in his reponse to this note. Kids didn't have much to do with that, it was mostly college students and adults.... ---------- response 15 03/31 13.16 gilpin peer It is a FACT that control of the distribution and use of author records is being tightened: drastic measures such as the restriction of entire sites against all ,for- eign, authors have been implemented, and further dras- tic measures, such as systemwide re-registration of all authors, are being considered. As this process continues, it's altogether possible that access to the system by "volunteer" authors will be centralized in cerl or, for practical purposes, dropped altogether. The intent my suggestion is to forestall these possibilities as long as possible. It is, however, probably true that author pri- vileges are abused by some regular authors. In such cases the disciplinary use of the junior record would seem altogether reasonable and useful. Measures that depend on continuing surveillance are less useful and, to me, less desirable. ---------- note 190 easter egg 03/30 12.25 walton reading Nice work on the signon page. I don't know of another Easter Egg in the country that can tell time. Rob Walton ---------- response 1 03/30 12.46 ken conn And in ORANGE, yet!!!!!!! ---------- response 2 03/30 14.54 layman matha nice egg -- is the time always eggsact? Tom (Mr Gramm_o_r Hisself) L ---------- response 3 03/30 15.12 rdr hum certainly it is! and thats no yolk! Dick R. ---------- response 4 03/30 15.31 layman matha its a transistorized egg with an electron shell!! ---------- response 5 03/31 02.15 schroeder iumusic ah, gee, that even beats the 'egg-beaters'! ---------- note 196 T option 03/30 15.25 layman matha shouldnt there be some reference to the -T- (time) author page option on the option page gotten to by shift-DATA? ¬+, just to be consistant, have -t- give the time on that page. TomL ---------- response 1 03/31 16.59 blomme s Yep, you're right...and there should also be some mention somewhere about the shifted letter choice capability... ---------- note 201 cu change 03/30 17.59 steve cu In the interest of conformity and greater overall confusion, course "cu" is going to become course "cornell". Many of you will remember that this is where we started a year ago. The change is supposedly going to take place on Monday, March 31 at 4: 00 PM CDT. Please remember this when attempting communications. Steven Lionel/Cornell University ---------- response 1 03/30 22.37 galcher uimatha After all, cu SHOULD stand for : Champaign-Urbana authors (all those non-uni high people who use the system), or in udder woids (as my good grandfadder frum brooklyn would say, " all dose peoples who aint doin' nuttin but is here anyways". Hoping your news is good news, ******$≤≤≤≤≤≤Seldon ps. what the normal people of New Jersey (of which I am from) would call 'miscellaneous'. pss. Just to dispell an old rumor, New Jersey is NOT a suburb of NYC, even though the lost misguided members of the towns of Jersey City and Hoboken still think so. ---------- note 203 filldestr. 03/30 18.58 wood siu Does filling up the screen (i.e.,having every one of the plasma dots glowing) burn up the plasma screen? If so, how long would it take? Mandrake ---------- response 1 03/31 07.47 frankel p If it remains fully lit for around 30 minutes, the panel will break. We would suggest that you not try this; new panels are very expensive and are currently in short supply. If you do try it, just be sure to leave a check for $2500 in the slide selector. ---------- response 2 03/31 10.08 judy pso My query from the hardware people got the answer 30 _seconds_ rather than 30 minutes. They said that 30 to 60 seconds should blow a fuse. If the fuse fails to blow, 5 minutes or less should destroy the screen. In other words, DON'T do it! have gotten several questions about this during the last 2 weeks. Is somebody cooking up a conspiracy? We have never had wanton destruction at PLATO. I can't think of anything that would cause faster yanking of records and restriction of sites. ---------- response 3 03/31 10.28 wood siu Am not contemplating doing it, but there are other authors here who are, and have, done it. Quite simply, I can tell them my own opinion but the view of a "plato person" is much more convincing. Why don't you put the fact about the burn- ing out of plato in aids? Or would that be inviting disaster? Mandrake ---------- response 4 03/31 11.28 wells cerl does this make you an accessory to a conpiracy to burn out a plasma panel?????(3-5 hard labor).... AZOG.. ---------- response 5 03/31 14.23 grohne psych This reminds me of the recent show of PBS's fine "Nova" series where a young physics (or was it chemistry) student (not necessarily an engineer) designed an apparently workable atomic bomb. Of course, he had no intention of using in.... ---------- response 6 03/31 16.26 al mfl Back to the plasma panel burn out. Lighting up the entire panel is not necessarily done as a destructive prank. Many times black writing on an orange background would look much better. It is nice to know beforehand, however, that this would burn out the panel very quickly. If it takes 30 min. writing like that really wouldn't hurt since you wouldn't suppose that the text would stay there that long. If in fact it takes only 30 sec. -¬≤¬¬≤- that isn't recomended. ---------- response 7 03/31 18.01 ian conn does the thirty minutes mean at one sitting? i mean,what is going to happen if one such plasma panel "filler" lesson is used repeatedly for 20 min, a time at one terminal? is there possibly any cumulative time limit? ---------- response 8 04/01 10.09 alvin siu Well, Which is it??? _I_ am the one that fills up the screen - but, it is purely for aesthetic means. SO PLEASE, IS IT 30 SECONDS or MINUTES ????????? Dave Alvin (humble artist) ---------- note 213 unit 03/30 22.58 halvorsen forestry Is anything being done about a feature that was requested recently about indirect unit addressing? The idea was that you could place the unit name in a variable and jump to the unit specified in the variable. Have a lesson that would greatly benifit from this type of addressing and I would like to know whether it could or will be implemented in the future. Thanks. Tim Halvorsen ---------- response 1 03/31 01.15 blomme s As said several times before: (1) It probably will be done some day. (2) It is a very expensive (in cpu time) way to do branching and not one to be encouraged. (3) Please check with TUTOR consultants about your specific lesson design problems and objective. ---------- note 220 talks dumb 03/31 05.09 bowery rhrc Please make term talk so that if two people are simultaneously terming each other they contact each other rather than getting told that each is talking to another person. The present set up is stupid. ---------- response 1 03/31 07.43 coms344 ames I can really appreciate the problems you are having and second the motion" duffer ---------- response 2 03/31 15.26 p cohen med What do you think happens when two people try to call each other on the telephone? --paul ---------- response 3 03/31 16.05 bowery rhrc Is this ma bell speaking over a cdc PROGRAMMABLE computer? ---------- response 4 03/31 16.27 al mfl In France if they both dial the same invalid number the two parties end up talking to each other. ---------- response 5 04/01 10.08 petry cibuls Generally if you dial at the same time another person does you dont hear any rings or anything...Just nothing until you start talking and then you find out the other dude is already on the line...It's happened to me quite a few times already... leo ---------- note 224 autobreak= 03/31 08.34 rick mfl In reference to General Note ¬$46, it was found that a pause loop (no keys= parameter) occasionally caught a key=0777. Since this only happend when I was typing fast, I dubbed it the "autobreak" key. (This was back in the days of the STUDENT MODE page.) The terminal did not have a touch panel, and there were no touch commands in the lesson. However, is there any way in which the two might be related? ---------- response 1 03/31 16.12 midden oldedit Somewhere, not too long ago... It is a hardware design problem with the terminal. Have an engineer fix it. ---------- note 225 flashing 03/31 08.45 tenczar s A flashing message "now preparing lesson please wait" now appears on the bottom of the screen at any time that a long condense wait occurs while doing a -jumpout-. This message is in addition of any message put on the terminal by the jumped-out-of-lesson. Its purpose is to inform the student/author that something is still going on and should solve the dead-screen- dead-system uncertainty encountered when the condensor is greatly behind. ---------- response 1 03/31 09.04 friedman csa Thank you, Paul. ---------- response 2 03/31 11.51 john r reading I wish that message were optional. I can see it leading to a rash of 'What does that say, teacher?' questions to our (already-harried) users followed by a rash of the same questions from the teachers to us. Any chance of making it optional? ---------- response 3 03/31 12.38 celia pso Thanks also for the wording change from "be patient" to "wait". ---------- response 4 03/31 13.23 errol kka This is great" it will allow many of us who have made up special messages for the jumpout to delete them. ---------- response 5 03/31 15.33 artman cs109 About what is the period of the flash? I waited for a lesson to condense for about 20 seconds, and no flash. This led me to the screen dead--sys down? train of thought, which this feature is supposed to correct. Is this a real slow flash, or didn't I wait as long as I thought I did? ---------- response 6 03/31 16.32 al mfl First, a long condense can be up to 20-30 min. 20 sec. hardly qualifies. Second, is there any chance of not only making it optional but having a third option that would give the same waiting to condense message that authors get and allow students to stop1 out of that mode of operation if they don't want to wait? Thank you. AL ---------- response 7 03/31 18.14 parrello uimatha Give 'em an inch. . . . The Mile-Taking Red Sweater ---------- note 228 pers notes 03/31 09.25 mont csa I sent a personal note to strass of csa, and then wanted to continue it. First, I sent a copy to myself, and then typed in the end of note to strass. When I tried to send it. I got : Disk Error = 2 : location = notify r1 However. it seemed to recover, as I was then able to send to strass, and myself. What happened? Richard Montanelli ---------- response 1 03/31 09.34 k mast p Let me know if it happens again. ---------- note 231 nEXT1 03/31 09.36 jones rhrc I find that NEXT1 and NEXT on the mode page quite convenient, but they don't always work. After STOP1 to get out of a lesson they do, but when condense errors occur, they don't ... why not, this is one place where they are most useful (why should I retype the name of the lesson that I was editing. just condensed, and found errors in?) ↑ˇ↑ˇ↑ˇjones↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆ jones ---------- response 1 03/31 10.57 parrello uimatha 1) On the CONDENSE ERROR page, pressing STOP1 will return you to your lesson in edit mode, and NEXT will send you through it in student mode. 2) On the CALL YOUR INSTRUCTOR page, everything returns you 10 author mode and you have to retype the entire lesson name in order to correct something silly like a mistyped lesson or common name, or something urgent like a unit too long. Since it has been requested several times that this be changed so it will remember the lesson name and a system response has never been forthcoming, I assume they think we need the typing practice. ---------- note 233 site allot 03/31 10.01 berger users The "note enough ECS" message is appearing more frequently. Each time I have tried to condense a lesson where the necessary ECS was not available, the site wasn't even near it full allotment, It would be very useful if we could instead see the base allotment, so one can see exactly how much over the allot- ment he is. MB ---------- response 1 03/31 11.17 meers wright multiply the number of terminals for that logical site by 1350 to get the base allotment. . . currently each terminal gets 1350 words of ECS. ---------- response 2 03/31 12.43 berger users That suggestion is good except that: 1. It's very difficult to find the exact number of terminals on sites on the u of i campus. 2. This number changes frequently in some sites. 3. The base per terminal allotment may change. The number really would be helpful. ---------- response 3 03/31 13.21 meers wright That suggestion was fantastic because: 1. There have been 24 terminals at wright for months. 2 The number isn't bound to change for years. 3 We don't care about our base allotment until we get the 'Nd ECS' message anyway. ---------- note 239 kirnsearch 03/31 11.06 wood siu Does anyone know a guy by the name of James J. Kirn? If so, tell him I need to get in touch with him. Mandrake ---------- response 1 03/31 11.14 meers wright kirn of uicc ---------- response 2 03/31 18.02 lieber m They caught ya jim! ---------- note 244 out error 03/31 11.42 judy pso I entered using the name "j sherwood" of "park". Then I went into p-notes and left a message saying that I would n_ote_ receive notes. Returned to the Author Mode page, pressed shift-STOP, and got OUT ERROR park 67 0 ---------- note 254 Error 03/31 13.26 rikel med Out Error med 48 0 ---------- note 255 datadump 03/31 13.28 wallace park Is there are hope of being able to delete selected block of a datafile instead of re-initializing the entire file? I would find this very helpful, but perhaps I'm alone. sfw ---------- response 1 03/31 22.39 sinder ee340 Yes, I would also find that a very useful thing. ---------- note 259 biorythms 03/31 15.03 obrien conn I understand that there exists a lesson on biorythms. I would appreciate it if someone would leave me a pnote regarding this. I am also inter- ested in any information of references which would enlighten me on this subject. obrien,conn ---------- response 1 03/31 15.12 cross p I believe that Marshall Midden had a program that plotted these curves, given the birthdate of the subject. Contact "midden" of "oldeit." ---------- response 2 03/31 15.44 hody med careful.... this type of "biorhythm" is akin to astrology--and without offering any value judgements, it isn't based on any known scientific evidence. these weird predictions must not be confused with the precise, fascinating study of biological clocks and "circadian" (daily) rhythms-- a field which is of increasing importance to medical science and which may even hold some of the secrets of the ageing process. there are definitely biochemical, physiological and behavioral phenomena which show periodicity and cyclic changes-- there is no evidence i know of that this information can be applied in any beneficial way to the making of personal plans by individuals-- despite the wild-eyed claims of recent news articles and other proponents with vested (financial) interests. ---------- response 3 03/31 17.59 roper siu The program "demons" used to have biorhythms of the astrological type. I think it still does. Good luck, Quetzal ---------- response 4 04/04 15.31 heidi conn I realize this note should have appeared in help notes originally, but to continue the discussion... Quetzal makes a point of saying biorythms of the astro- logical type, and s/he is correct. Strictly defined the fascinating circadian rythms ARE "biorythms" (Stedman's Medical Dictonary) The term -biorythm- is properly used in a seminar entitled "Biorythms and human reproduction"...... So let the reader beware that though the term "biorythm" is often misused in the popular literature to mean something akin to astro- logy, it is by definition a proper term which encompasses the circadian rythm, and that every occurance of the word should not necessarily be equated with bunk. ---------- note 261 eplov 03/31 15.14 volpe mflu Try lesson -eplov-. It 's a new thing I worked out for the ESL people. Let me know what you think, by personal notes. Thanks. TV volpe of mflu ---------- response 1 03/31 16.36 volpe mflu I want to add a help option. It will circle the beginning (first letter of a word not found yet) of a word. This is needed,I know; but very hard to do. I'm working on it. Thanks. TV ---------- response 2 03/31 17.26 david hebrew Done. ---------- response 3 03/31 18.16 daleske ames What is an ESL people? Extra-Sensory League? Extremely Simple-Languaged.... Starkhan ---------- response 4 03/31 18.18 parrello uimatha E≤6Nglish as a _S_econd _L_anguage. ---------- response 5 03/31 21.38 dave infe Maybe a good idea to either expand the recognized words (many real words are marked as not such, hardly to the benefit of new learners) or specify the class of acceptable words in the instructions. As is, lesson is quite inconsistent ¬+ hence harmful if used in a learning situation --tho fun otherwise. dd ---------- response 6 04/01 09.30 judy pso We enjoyed doing your puzzle. I agree that you need a more clearly defined class of "acceptable" words. Your page is full, but I think it would be nice to give credit (maybe in a 2nd list that works upwards from 3258) for "non-breakfast" words which the student finds. After all, this poor student is trying as hard as possible to learn English. If he finds "scoff" he should get credit for finding it! List of non-acceptable words on next page.... ---------- response 7 04/01 09.39 judy pso Words the puzzle won't accept: a, an, pa, up (Rule: no two-letter words?) alp,elk,nee,pod,run,fete,tome,tune,scoff (If "car" is a breakfast word, then a scholar might be reading a "tome" and listening to a "tune" and "scoff"ing at a newspaper report! Really, "car" doesn't belong.) HELPs: If the helps are going to be generally in order, as "knife,fork,spoon" then menu ¬+ cafeteria should be 1st. money should come after all the food, and ad should be with newspaper. Napkin should be either with knife,fork,spoon or else at the very end with money. Surely "napkin" doesn't belong between juice and coffee. It's a very nice puzzle. If it weren't we wouldn't have bothered with these details. Judy Sherwood, Sally Wallace ¬+ Barb Lederman ---------- response 8 04/01 22.09 curly iu If no two letter words, then why is 'ad' a word? curly ---------- note 271 commonloss 03/31 16.49 wood siu It seems that whenever you switch from temporary common to permanent common, you lose (effectively) access to another 1200 variables. Is this true, and if so how do you get around it? Mandrake ---------- response 1 03/31 18.17 blomme s You'd better contact a consultant and discuss what it is you are trying to do. If I were to make a guess, I'd say that you have been using a temporary common statement and then treating the vc variables as if they were additional student variables. . . this technique is only viable if you never have more than one person at a time using your lesson, else interactions will occur. Additional space for storing temporary variables associated with each student is available through the storage command. At any rate, in no case are variables lost by changing from temporary common to permanent common. You should study carefully the write-ups in aids regarding common and then contact a consultant to get these things straightened out. ---------- note 272 new aids 03/31 16.59 jim pso additions to AIDS: -readr- -reserve- -release- -initial- -findl- -in- "zreturn", "usersin", "fromnum", "lessnum" -area cancelled- the -reader- description was written by darlene chirolas. please send comments via personal notes to "jim" of "pso". ---------- note 274 Notice! 03/31 17.21 rader s MICROWAVE SITES: We have been running our microwave signal on a temporary frequency license, which ends Saturday. The engineers attempted to switch this last weekend, but ran into equip- ment trouble. We have decided to put off the next attempt until Saturday, due to interference with running classes, and the lack of prior notification. The microwave signal will be turned off at 10 pm Friday, and the new transmitter will be put in service on Saturday, if possible. In no case can we go back to the temporary frequency. It is expected that almost all failures can be repaired over the weekend, and all microwave sites will have their antennas adjusted over the weekend. If the new equipment cannot be made to work, the microwave sites will not be able to run on Monday, nor until the necessary repairs have been made. ---------- note 283 thank sys 03/31 20.23 john r reading What delicious Easter presents!! -reader- just reduced the complexity of reporting to teachers by a factor of about 25: - and reduced our use of datafile disk accesses by a number commensurate with the increased number due to -readr-s. -reserve common- just made a very important lock-up much more error resistant, and also eliminated (I think) any need for us users to know that there are such things as timeslices. Thank you, Ruth and David. ---------- response 1 04/01 08.58 michael english ditto ---------- response 2 04/01 11.01 friedman csa My thanks also!! ---------- note 285 some stuff 03/31 22.38 warner iu Great flooing hoglers! 5 days (count'em,5) off the system, come back, and what do I find? Facilities to watch the action of the little ****s playing with the system, and a_nalyze _ it, yet! No need to drum it into student's heads not to press STOP1 at crucial moments during dataset operations! Funkey eliminated in almost every inter-terminal lesson by removal of the famous 2-arg press! A little orange envelope that goes POOF! Systems staff, you definitely got collective insomnia this weekend. Thanks a pizza! ---------- note 287 condense 04/01 00.18 wilmot mxc I tried to run biology of biology, just after the system crashed. I got to the 'now preparing lesson' page, when I found that I could not shift-stop out untill it condensed. This happened to me the last time that a new plato was loaded. Is this a serious problem even though it is not prime time? ---------- note 288 sarcastic 04/01 00.19 dale texas I notice that the system just went down for the apparent reason of changing the signon page. The normal warnings were ignored simply because they were not normal (going down in 60 sec???") and I thus lost about an hours worth of work. Many thanks to the system programs who made this possible. thePhantom ---------- response 1 04/01 00.31 brand matha How did you lose your hour's worth of work? The backout procedure will return your changes to disk. Also, why would you ignore such obvious messages as '10 seconds till interuption' that was also given? And what the heck is so ambiguous about '60 seconds till interuption???'? Shouldnt you assume the worst? How long does it take to press BACK every few minutes or so? After all, this was not during prime time, and since when do reasons have to be given for a non-prime time interuptions? ---------- response 2 04/01 00.48 blomme s It IS hard to understand what the problem is--please describe in detail what work you lost and how. A normal system 60 second warning was given and a general backout done which should have updated any edits. If you were not signed off the system, please let us know. System tests of various sorts are always in progress during non-prime time, but it is standard procedure to give warning and save people's work (except when a "hard" crash or disaster occurs and that is impossible). ---------- response 3 04/01 09.57 judy pso Conceivably, "dale" could have been building a graph or picture which needed lots of data and manipulation to reach the final objective. In that case, there's little that can be said. The system _does_ go down during non-prime time and he is running a calculated risk by doing such work during non-prime time. I know that sometimes such work _must_ be done at night. Perhaps we could help you plan your program (and data- storage) so that a backout would not be so disastrous. ---------- note 289 platopage 04/01 00.22 dragon stan plato.. GOOOOOOOOOOD front page... keep it up! Dragon ,(stan) ---------- response 1 04/01 01.11 creager cs109 Gee,after four hours on the system, it looked normal to me! $H≤ H≤ H≤ H≤ H≤ H≤ H≤ H≤ Happy April,from a f≤ f≤ f≤ f≤ f≤ f≤ ≤≤f≤ ≤≤f≤ ≤≤f≤ ≤≤f≤ ≤≤f≤ ≤≤f≤ fool ---------- response 2 04/01 01.17 daleske ames We have nearly determined that the function of the number of the NEXT keypresses from Press NEXT to Begin is a randu from 3 to 6 and that the number of times the Welcome Page replots is either a function of the number of NEXT's required (N) divided by a randu of from 2 to 3 OR that there are two randu-s, one being (N) and the other replots (R) from 1 to 4... which looks like: N=randu(3,6)$or$randu(1,100) R=[N/]$or$randu(1,4)$but-not$(day=tuesdays$or$ day=thursdays)$otherwise$[moon=full$and$(day=tuesdays $and$time=nighttime)]$OR$[fizbin=(fizbin-N)≠[flag(how- the-sysprog-feels)] Starkhan and frisco ---------- response 3 04/01 01.23 schroeder iumusic one slight problem....there should be the usual, although 'fooling-around' one-liner of now preparing lesson bit...I was signing on, and was wondering why it took so long...however, seeing the clock-page was WELL WORTH THE EFFORT!!!!! Congragulations!!!!! it is great! Beethoven p.s. by the way, how about some help on writing my 10th symphony? It would be appreciated! ---------- response 4 04/01 02.37 mgs mtcc Hahahahahaha The "yokes" on you, systems! I got a copy of your blunder before you could change it!!!! Chuckle, chuckle By the way everybody, the systems staff has promised me that Plato will not crash all day long! Live it up! APRIL FOOL!!!! ---------- response 5 04/01 05.39 sutter cs109 send me a copy of the blunder...it will be useful to remember that i am not the only one that makes mistakes. (I goofed when I let Him send me down here, thought its a might warm, its ok.) ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ ΔΔΔΔSATANΔΔΔΔΔΔ ΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔΔ april fool.....and a happy one up there. ---------- note 297 breakthru 04/01 07.23 socrates faa Just read it in WSJ. A small West Coast bit bucket factory in conjunction with a Nipponesebrain trust has come out with what they call the ultimate in CAI hardware. The terminal is only 6"≠6"≠4" with a projection lens that can project a 4'≠4' image in broad daylight on any surface. The terminal is self powered with nicads and is driven from an FM xmttr with a 100 mile range. Programming is done via telephone line to the CCC where it autocoded. The average cost per lesson of 10,000 48 byte words is $2.98 plus state and local taxes. The cost of a terminal is $12.95 including shipping with a doiturself model at $9.95. Let's hear it for BSenterprises. Have A Happy First Day Of April ---------- response 1 04/02 00.57 creager cs109 What kind of batteries does it run on??? ---------- note 304 out error 04/01 10.53 r lacoe mtc At 1050 hrs I was leaving the system in routine manner: in lesson-pressed back≠2 author mode page - shift stop out error mtc 112 0 message you don't belong here. I wish I wern't, and don't know how I got here. Hope this helps. Bob LaCoe ---------- response 1 04/01 16.48 rader s Thank you. ---------- note 306 erasure 04/01 11.07 tracht ced Would it be possible to have the block erasure command work with coarse grid coordinates? It would make the programing alot easier. Sincerely Tracht.ced ---------- response 1 04/01 11.16 jim pso to customize erasing, one can always: * at, wide,¬+ lines are -define-d variables do erase(at,wide,lines) * unit erase(at,wide,lines) at at erase wide,lines specific example... do erase(1420,12,5) * unit erase(at,wide,lines) at at $$ equivalent to -at 1420- erase wide,lines $$equivalent to -erase 12,5- the same can be done with fine grid -at-. ---------- response 2 04/01 12.10 shirer vu No plan at present to do this since combination of -at- and -erase- will do it easily. However when we get intelligent terminals on PLATO V...V.V.V.V. watch our smoke. dls ---------- note 307 time?? 04/01 11.14 pete faa How accurate is plato's time hack?? It appears to be about 2-3 minutes slow as of this writing. What kind of time source are we using for time readouts? (atomic,cesium beam or what???) Pete ---------- response 1 04/01 11.16 dzierzak rhrc peanut butter.... ---------- response 2 04/01 11.18 pete faa Maybe that is why it appears slow,it's sticky!!! ---------- response 3 04/01 11.20 walton reading Wall clock, I believe. Rob ---------- response 4 04/01 11.29 d sleator oldedit Plato is set by a wall clock, which is set by plato when it is off, then when plato crashes, plato is set by the clock again...ect ect ect. Amazing that it was only 2 minutes off!!! ---------- response 5 04/01 11.29 frankel p Yes, a wall clock, interpreted, of course, by whoever happens to be bringing up the system (sleepy operator, irate systems person, etc.). ---------- response 6 04/01 12.58 kawell cerl But, we soon hope to have a more reliable time source built into the Cyber. Len ---------- response 7 04/01 13.24 dzierzak rhrc mouse run clock???? ---------- response 8 04/01 14.25 schroeder iumusic A suggestion was made to just tap into the Colorado- time number. We figured it wouldn't take that much to do; when the system comes up, it checks in with Colorado for correct time, and sets itself. Any possibilities? Beethoven ---------- response 9 04/01 15.40 dzierzak rhrc it could also check with the navel observatory... ---------- response 10 04/01 19.01 john r reading Hmm. I didn't know computers had belly buttons. That would certainly justify the strongest of Philip Slater's claims about technology reducing general feedback systems to tight little loops. ---------- response 11 04/01 19.51 eric cornell The National Bureau of Standards Lab in Boulder Colorado maintains a cesium-rhubidium standard which functions as the primary standard for much of the world. The Interna- tionale Bureau de l'Heure (or however you spell it) does dictate occasional corrections (in steps of 100 ms) to Coordinated Universal Time. PLATO could tie into this via a telephone number, but this would be less accurate (by a few hundred millisecs) than listening to the shortwave radio station WWV, which broadcasts signals kept in close synchrony with the primary standard. Very low frequency radio stations WWVB and WWVL provide even more accurate time signals and additionally are coded (BCD) with the Time of Day, Date, and Year. Decoders are simple to build or may be purchased... provid- ing the ultimate in clock accuracy for PLATO (the operator ---------- response 12 04/01 19.54 eric cornell would no longer need to enter date and time when bringing plato, either!) ¬[Additionally, color burst synch signals on the national TV networks are checked each morning at Boulder for accuracy; a network broadcast provides, in your home television, a frequency standard only a few parts in 10^9 different from the world primary standard.) ---------- response 13 04/01 21.02 weeks uimc Picky, picky, picky!!!! ---------- response 14 04/02 00.59 creager cs109 Gee,I simply look at my wrist and depend on Mickey! ---------- note 314 char error 04/01 11.29 judy pso Execution Error lesson charset station output buffer full Typed "C" on the author mode page and requested to load charset newchars from lesson ger. It worked ok when I tried it again. ---------- note 315 AERA? 04/01 11.41 hody med how about some information on AERA? is it better than ADCIS? ---------- response 1 04/01 12.38 avner s AERA has a wider audience than ADCIS (i.e., the general educational research community). This year at least 4 sessions are being presented which involve PLATO (including 2 from U of Illinois and 1 from U of Florida). The conference is at Washington D.C. ---------- response 2 04/01 13.55 errol kka Which sessions, participants, and papers will involve PLATO? ---------- response 3 04/01 14.33 hody med and where can order for reprints and proceedings (and membership info) be sent?? ---------- response 4 04/01 15.41 dzierzak rhrc for all us dummies....what is AERA? ed ---------- response 5 04/01 16.40 heidi conn I believe it is the American Educational Research Association. ---------- response 6 04/01 17.06 avner s AERA=American Educational Research Association Reprints will be available from ERIC Clearinghouses in future---(see a friendly local member of the organization for a copy of the meeting schedule with names, etc.). Two sessions from U of Illinois are on "CAI Design as an Evolutionary Process" (Avner,Stifle Tenczar,Steinberg,et al) and "CAISMS: A Computer Based Study Management System" (Anserson,Anderson,Biddle,Alessi, and Smock, et al). ---------- response 7 04/01 20.26 baker me Who pray tell ARE friendly members?? Fred Baker ---------- note 316 fooled 04/01 11.53 d sleator oldedit Ha Ha Ha Ha........boy the writers of "news" were sure fooled this april. Fooled by the funniest april joke of all!...... I am refering to the map in lesson news with the claim that it cannot be colored in 4 colors. I colored it in four colors! You were sucked into Martin Gardners greatest hoax! ("Graph Theorist" William McGregor my foot!!) The press should excercise more "responsibility" in what they print. ( ha ha ha ..especially around april 1 ) ( See Scientific American april issue, the mathamatical games section.) ---------- response 1 04/01 11.57 parrello uimatha Martin Gardner is losing his credibility faster every second... ---------- response 2 04/01 13.37 grohne psych Think about what kind of clown would sit around coloring a SciAmer, then ask yourself, "Who really got fooled?" ---------- response 3 04/01 18.53 blomme s If Dan actually found a 4 color-ation of that quite interesting appearing map, I'd say he solved what did not appear to be a trivial problem. ---------- response 4 04/01 22.13 grohne psych And I'd say he was as fooled as anyone else. ---------- response 5 04/02 14.05 artman cs109 and it wasn't even hard, you chumps artman / cs109 ---------- response 6 04/02 17.03 d sleator oldedit I never claimed I wasn't a fool. On the other hand, I didn't blindly take for granted that it was the truth without proof. I also worked on the statement that exp(¬p*sqrt(163)) is an integer. It is an integer out to 27 digits. Of course this doesn't prove that it is an integer. ( The calculation was done in double precision fortran, not by hand. ) ---------- note 321 chess 04/01 13.18 alan m block I would like to know the names of all chess programs on Plato if at all possible. Thank you. alan m / block ---------- response 1 04/01 14.16 steve cornell This really belongs in -help- notes, but we can start the list with : chess3p5 chess oldchess feghoot HOLMES4 ---------- response 2 04/01 14.21 alan m block Thank you Steve. I put the note here because it wasn't a major problem deserving of help's attention. ---------- response 3 04/01 14.36 grohne psych Well, hopefully new notes will make this all perfectly clear.... ---------- response 4 04/01 16.22 bradley iu also,lessons chess2 and chess3 ---------- response 5 04/01 21.33 thomasson users Well, I guess I'll blow all of these guy's cover --↓↓ There is also a lesson chess4, written by Wegman of users, which (I think) will find 2-move checkmates.↓ And, a lesson mate, written by Vondruska of psych, to teach elementary mating techniques.↓ And, a lesson gwwk, written by Weast of users, which has the Plato Chess Tournament(defunkt).↓↓ If you gotta question about lessons chess thru chess3, or oldchess, you send yer little p-note to me.↓ Jim Thomasson 4/1/75 ---------- response 6 04/02 15.00 fritz ames I think you have your notes mixed up, alan..... This is a minor problem not deserving the attention of GENERAL notes, and so belongs in Help notes. General notes are stored forever and ever amen, but Help note space is periodically recycled (at least, that's the way it was last i knew). So, any small problem should be put in Help notes. frisco ---------- note 323 roto-route 04/01 13.35 fay rtv362 System routers, general routers, ¬+ roto-routers: I have a general question. It relates to the relative ease of installing and the economy of space inherent in the system router versus the much larger space required by the separate router lesson and the individual programming required by same. Why would it not be possible to adapt the system router to be able to handle lessons which actually consisted of 'mini-lessons' and which allowed conditional 'jumpouts' or 'routing' to other lessons which themselves consisted of 'mini-lessons'? The necessary coding could be contained in the instructional lesson space as far as the conditional routing is concerned. Maybe even a 'mini- lesson' command could be instituted which would tell the system router a) the student completed a 'mini-lesson', not the whole lessons. b) in conjunction with an 'sroute' command [cont'd in next note] ---------- note 325 roto-contd 04/01 13.38 fay rtv362 could conditionally specify which lesson to go to next. I have no objection to using a router lesson as opposed to the system router, but since there is a limit to the space available on the discs perhaps my proposal to expance somewhat on the system router is not infeasible! ---------- response 1 04/01 15.48 andersen s Since we plan to go to a shorter minimum lesson length in the not too far distant future (7 block files) a mini-router will be relatively unneccessary. ---------- response 2 04/01 17.08 fay rtv362 to Andersen of s: I disagree that the shorter minimum lesson length will make the 'mini-lesson' concept invalid! If you re-think my note you will see that the lesson length is NOT what I am complaining about, the _router_ lesson length _AND_ the relative complexity of same is what I am talking about. WHY NOT MAKE THE SYSTEM ROUTER MORE FLEXIBLE including possible 'mini-lesson' command? Tim Fay ---------- response 3 04/01 18.25 michael english Personally, I doubt if the system router could be made to handle complex curricula and still meet the need for simplicity and generality. Whether ANY router can do all three simultaneously is doubtful. We handle 125 "min-lessons" in the Community College English Project, and after much experimentation have elected to give instructors routing control of medium complexity while requiring little knowledge and effort. This approach, however, has resulted in a router which is so directly con- nected to the instructional material and teaching techniques used that it is not readily adaptable to other curricula. ---------- response 4 04/01 18.55 john r reading Both the elementary reading and elementary math projects have developed reasonably general routers capable of handling quite complex lesson interconnections. At least in the case of reading's router, the procedures are readily utilizable by other people. We are more than willing to share what we have, but our ex- perience has been that other curriculum projects either have small, reasonably linear curricula that don't need 3000 words of router overhead, or the teachers really want to handle the routing themselves. ---------- response 5 04/02 11.04 b sherwood s I am confused. I don't think we are responding to Fay's question, and I don't think we have understood what his question is. Fay, could you elaborate on the difference between your "mini-lesson" and a "normal" lesson? What is it that the system router doesn't do in terms of getting your students to the lesson or mini-lesson of their or your choice? ---------- response 6 04/02 13.17 schroeder iumusic I'm not trying to add anything to this particular topic, but I do have another thing about the systems- router.(and if I read fay's note correctly, this could be verry indirectly related) Would it be possible to include an option for station-control, like of who is allwed to use a signon...system-router presently does not have this...any hope that can be incorporated? (one of the main reasons, I plan on writing my own router) ---------- response 7 04/03 14.29 fay rtv362 To b sherwood and others to whom my question was unclear: I would like the system router to be able to distinguish between the "end of the entire block of space defined as an instructional lesson" and "the end of an instructional sequence _within_ the lesson space." In other words, for purposes of using the system router, allow a number of separate instructional entities within the same lesson space. I would like the sys. router to recognize that a) a student has reached the end of some defined material; and b) that there is more instructional material in the same lesson space. Basically, it is this: can we have more that one listing on the sys. router index coming from the same contiguous lesson space and _can_ they be treated separately? I hope I have resolved any ambiguity regarding my query. Tim Fay ---------- response 8 04/03 14.45 b smerwood s Thanks for the clarification. David Andersen's response was in fact appropriate--he is a better reader than the rest of us! If you have different pieces of a file which are different lessons ("mini-lessons"), they should in fact be separated into different files. Among the reasons for this is the notion that a lesson should be as much as possible a self-standing entity, in order to make it esy for instructors to create curricula composed of such modules, possibly written by different authors. Is there some reason why distinct lessons (mini or not) must be placed in one file space? We will not subdivide files--separate lessons must be placed in different files. ---------- response 9 04/03 15.29 fay rtv362 Bruce and others: In response to respons no. 8. The only reasons I would opt for the features outlined in response no. 7 are: a) To avoid requesting separate file spaces... i. because such a process is slow, ii. because such a process uses a lot of space (not at condense time but at least reserved space on the discs), iii. because such separate files carry some (admittedly small) overhead for file data b) To avoid the necessity of having to condense a number of lessons in the course of events when on is all thats needed (in terms of space used, anyway) I guess in the end I would like the sys. router to keep track of things which it currently does not. Tim Fay ---------- note 340 outflo err 04/01 17.40 dave matha One of our datafiles reports this execution error today: STATION OUTFLOW unit line 0 (This was the only such report, and many students used the lesson today.) ? ---------- response 1 04/01 18.33 chabay s Hmmmm.... This isn't supposed to happen. Thanks for the report. ---------- note 355 phonebook 04/02 08.03 ken cornell Would it be possible to have a bigger and better version of 'phonebook' or soe other way of finding out an author signon? The reason I ask is that recently I wasa looking at some lesson in 'catalog' in various fields, however I hae no way of using these lesson since their names are not listed in catalog and neither is the authors sign-on. This means that in order to use the lesson I have to either call the author (at long distance) or write him a letter. While I can afford the $0.10 loss I do find this inconvenient considering all the methods available on Plato here's hoping, ken rush ---------- response 1 04/02 08.49 tebby pso Send a note to tebby of pso and she will give you the signons you need. ---------- response 2 04/02 12.28 grohne psych Are we referring to ourselves in the third person today? Just kidding, Tebby, I'm sure someone wrote the note under your sign-on. ---------- response 3 04/02 13.46 fritz ames While we're on phonebook, I might as well add my gripe, too. is phonebook's common full, or what? I have tried (several times) to enter myself into phonebook, but de data, she no stay! The only ames signons listed are ones that were entered MAAANNNNY moons ago. When I enter my info, it seems to stay in for a while, but when I come in the next day, <≤-*poof*>≤- -- not there. Apparently the ecs version is being updated and then aborted, or the common is full and there is no warning to tell you, or something. Some nice person fix? frisco ---------- note 358 newaudio 04/02 11.20 ec sweeney shpeast ANNOUNCEMENT Demo of New Audio Device To users on or near the U of I. Urbana campus--a demonstra- tion of a new audio device is being given all day today in room 269 CERL. dominic skaperdas eileen sweeney ---------- response 1 04/02 13.19 schroeder iumusic Thanks for the warning!!! I would have been interested in that, but....however,would it be possible to send something down explaining what this new thing is? Would appreciate it....thanks! Nate Syfrig ---------- response 2 04/02 14.24 susan research This "warning" pertains to the new commercial version of the random access audio device which will supercede the present one. Demos will be conducted until 5:00p.m. April 3. Dominic Skaperdas Susan Rankaitis ---------- response 3 04/02 15.02 warner iu Can we have more info out here in network-land? Like, what are costs? The medium -- still mag disks or cassettes? Does it still need air? How long does it record? It would certainly be nice to see the thing (hint to the people who put these notes on the day of the demo) but still we would like to know a little more about it. ---------- response 4 04/02 15.24 bradley iu Can't be on a cassette if it is random-access. ---------- response 5 04/02 17.10 silver ve A random access audio device which uses tape casettes was demonstrated at CERL recently, but I couldn't attend. A note describing the thing would be appreciated. ---------- response 6 04/03 12.41 ec sweeney shpeast The audio disks are enclosed in the new unit. After inser- tion they are automatically aligned. Frequency response is good through 8 KHTz. New disk material eliminates the sinu- soidal amplitude variations present as the old disks rotated 180ˆ0. New unit also uses compressed air. Unit can mechanic- ally switch tracks with no noticeable interruption of the audio stream. The initial order is for i50 with an option for 100 more. Ken Barr Eileen Sweeney ---------- note 359 site restr 04/02 11.52 kaufman uimc Form what I can best tell, the course restriction list is destroyed periodically. I am not sure whether it is daily or just when the system crashes. Why is this done? Why do we have to re-enter the site restrictions? Joe Kaufman ---------- response 1 04/02 12.11 obrien uicc There are TWO site course-restriction lists; one is in lesson "site", and goes away every time the system goes down, the other is in lesson "plato" itself, is managed restrictions, you have to talk to Bell. (The permanent restriction list will eventually be managed by lesson "signon", but Ghod knows when.) ---------- response 2 04/02 14.02 meers wright They promised me that it would be accesible to course directors next week. ---------- response 3 04/02 15.03 chabay s Tomorrow. ---------- note 360 out error 04/02 12.01 chen ames Just got an out-error---- ames 30 0 I had just pressed stop1 to condense my lesson, and got the out-error. Hope you find it. ---------- response 1 04/02 15.33 frankel p Thanks, I think Marshall Midden has located the trouble. I hope and I think...it should be fixed soon. ---------- note 362 out-error 04/02 12.17 ferry med had OUT-ERROR when SHIFT-STOP from AUTHOR MODE page time about 11:00 cdt 4/2/75 ---------- response 1 04/02 15.33 frankel p Thanks. ---------- note 363 notes/talk 04/02 12.21 petak ed If while talking to someone on the system, one gets a note --- the personal notes flag is not changed to indicate to the person he has a new note. ---------- response 1 04/02 12.46 frankel p That right; this is kind of hard to fix due to the way the talk option works. ---------- note 366 vietchars 04/02 12.52 wood siu I am looking for a vietnamese charsett. Is there a charsett for that on the system? And if so , where ? Mandrake ---------- response 1 04/02 14.10 judy pso I don't know of one. i am (slowly) starting to update and clean up lessons "charsets" and "charsett" which contain character sets useful to many different people. I would like to collect the alphabets for spoken languages into one place, together with any necessary micros, so that they can be listed in aids and found by everybody. Perhaps we can also include italics, script, verysmall, gothic, etc. Please leave me a p-note if you have a candidate. ---------- response 2 04/02 15.02 gilpin peer Hooray for you, Judy! A charset catalog will be a very valuable service! ---------- response 3 04/02 17.21 p cohen med Judy: Your notes file is full, so... How about including the very useful "keycodes" charset...I forget the exact name. Or, even just a set of "normal" characters will do. Very handy when you want to identify the slots used in a multiple altfont display. --paul ---------- response 4 04/02 18.13 steve cornell Be the way, could someone tell me where charset "digital" happens to reside? Thanks. ---------- response 5 04/02 20.34 judy pso "digital" (so I was just told) is in "android" I cleaned out my notes file, so I can get more suggestions! Paul.. I don't understand what you mean by "keycodes" charset. Could you elaborate? We will definitely include a charset which is exactly like the built-in characters. ---------- response 6 04/02 20.39 david hebrew In lesson read2 (I think) is alternate charset that contains the assignments, with micro-a represented by a char that looks sorta like a¬n etc. so you can read the actual charset representation right off. There's also a charset that has the slot number in the slot, I think. Both of these marvels of modern technology have been produced by Rob Walton. ---------- response 7 04/02 20.59 thompson ed I think there's a better looking digital character set in lesson traficsim, under charset 'chars'. The letters and especially the numbers are more readable than the ones in 'android'. tjt ---------- response 8 04/03 07.29 walton reading Yes, folks, in read2 is a charset 'keys' which will allow you to look at an altfont write command and tell exactly what it is. Each key has an underline to denote a fonted character as opposed to an unfonted character, and the access keys have squiggles above them. Also in read2 is charset 'keycodes7, which has the slot number in every slot. Both these charsets were designed to aid in deciphering large altfont pictures. You are free to copy them or anything else from read2. Rob Walton ---------- response 9 04/03 09.12 friedman csa These are several charsets in lesson cslibrary which I would be quite willing to have used publicly. Some of them have author-use micro tables for ease of use in lesson writing; writeups are in the "how to use" blocks of cslibrary.↓ Judy, please feel free to use any of these you wish.↓ One of these charsets, "keytops", contains images of the control keys on the right side of the Plato keyboard. All the others include "keytops" as a subset.↓ Execute lesson csauthors to see these charsets in use. ---------- response 10 04/03 10.11 ken cornell Is there anyone out there in Plato land who could give me the instructions to the gothic characters in lesson charsett. Otherwise it is impossible to figure out how to use the capitals. thanks , ken rush ---------- response 11 04/03 10.32 parrello uimatha There are capitals. The Red Sweater designed a gothic charset with capitals (oldengchr) a long time ago but it was destroyed for lack of space. I'm sure he would do it again for a very small fee. ---------- response 12 04/03 11.08 gilpin peer A second charset that has the number of each slot IN each slot is -charset proc, testnums-. This charset was made to label points on a graph, so it has the characteristic that each number has the same center point. The differences from Walton's "keycodes" are that the numbers are tiny and left-to-right rather than fairly large and top-to-bottom ("keycodes" is easier to read, especially the higher numbers). Anyone who wishes to use testnums is welcome to do so. ---------- response 13 readily absorbed previously. The intent of my suggestion at this time is to make it possible to put a lid on those practices while retaining as much of the old freedom as possible. Course directors would _benefit_ from this--they wou ---------- note 369 U option 04/02 13.24 layman matha when using the U option (list of on-sys users) could we have the option of specifying only one site or maybe initializing the site¬$ at which the list starts -- for someone who wants to check one or more of the higher-numbered sites, its wasteful of system resources (as well as a royal pain) to wait for the "earlier" -site-ed users to dribble out on the screen -- is this -do-able? TomL ---------- response 1 04/02 16.31 zielinski matha ...OR to be able to specify a course too!....sounds like a useful idea. ---------- note 383 monitor 04/02 16.40 sherman rhrc Problem encountered with monitor mode today. Several times i paged someone. He responded with term talk. Then he pressed LAB1 for monitor mode. The problem is that b_oth _ of our screens said "entering monitor mode" and of course, i wasnt seeing what he was doing. I could also do a term talk at this point and recieved the message that he was busy, but had been notified. This WAS repeatable. ---------- note 391 readr dir 04/02 21.52 bob y reading the -readr- command is fabulous; but i can think of one great improvement... could we get the course directory? perhaps something like, readr directory;nc1,100 ...could transfer the first 50 names in the course into nc1 etc.. i foresee offering a teacher a roster page and letting her choose the students she wants to looks at; such a page would have to be as up to date as the course roster; and it would seem best not to have to generate such a page by picking up -statistics- in a readr sequential loop. ---------- response 1 04/02 23.05 chabay s Yes, this will come soon. ---------- note 393 readr err 04/02 23.07 chabay s An error in -readr- rvars has been corrected on the non-prime time version, but the correction will not appear on the prime-time version for a few days. (For the router variables, the read began 3 variables past the specified beginning point.) ---------- response 1 04/02 23.13 alan reading Aha" And I was just going to ask about this. Thank you. By the way - my programs work for the present scheme so a day's advance warning before the correction would be most appreciated. ---------- note 395 pers notes 04/03 00.42 k mast p Instructors are now notified of new Personal Notes by an "¬D" next to option 4 (read/write Personal Notes) on the instructor mode page. Let me know if there are any problems, or if you can think of any other appropriate means of notification. ---------- note 398 readr 04/03 09.29 sinder ee340 One more feature for the readr command which would be very usefull. readr lesson,n1 $$ This would return the name of the lesson whose student vars are stored in the record. ---------- response 1 04/03 10.25 michael english Instead, add the restart info to the "stats" available. ---------- response 2 04/03 11.45 sinder ee340 Yes, that would be fine. ---------- note 399 site direc 04/03 10.09 golden s To Logical Site Directors: A small, but crippling error prevented the inplementa- tion of the new site-director options promised for today. I expect they will be available tomorrow. ---------- response 1 04/03 15.57 golden s The error has been corrected and the new options are now available. ---------- note 405 ↓ parts! 04/03 11.38 steve cornell Many thanks to whomever added the insignificant, but thoughful feature to the editor. It used to be that, if you had a multipart lesson, with no blocks in the next part, that pressing "↓" did nothing. Now, due to the great insight of some nameless (so far) systems programmer, pressing "↓" in such situations replots the part you are on. I'm glad to see that the "s" and "p" people are spending their valuable time on such worthwhile projects. Steve Lionel ---------- response 1 04/03 11.43 roper siu Do I detect just a note of sarcasm? The ever inquisitive Quetzal ---------- response 2 04/03 13.11 parrello uimatha Whether he does or not, this afternoon I tried pressing "↓" in a two-part lesson with blocks in the second part and nothing happened. I had to press "2" to get the second page. At the time, since I could not repeat it readily, I though nothing of it. But now... ---------- response 3 04/03 13.18 steve cornell Hmm.. It is also true that, if you have a two part lesson with no blocks in the second part, if you press "2" from the first part, it replots part 1. Pressing other numbers doesn't do anything, nor does "-" from part 1. As for the accusation of sarcasm....who, me? I'm just happy to see the results of one of the "higher priority" projects the systems people always seem to want to do before getting around to some of our suggestions. Maybe now that they have this difficult task over with, our "lowest priority" suggestions will get bumped up a notch. Steve Lionel ---------- response 4 04/03 15.55 brand matha Maybe one high priority job should be to re-evaluate certain author signons and courses.... ---------- response 5 04/03 16.15 p cohen med Aha! know what happened with you, Mr. Parrello. Your finger slipped and pressed -TAB- instead of ↓! -TAB- is the only key which locks I wrote a note about this "feature" a while back (and no one seemed interested). --paul ---------- response 6 04/03 21.53 gilpin peer Mr. Lionel: Perhaps you may not have noticed that since the end of February there have been 15 New Systems Features notes, some of them announcing several new features--including, among others, autobreakable judging, help on the same page, and -dataout-s in finish units. Or that since the end of February there has been exactly ONE system crash due to software. The systems people work their butts off and are continually supplying new goodies both on their own initia- tive and in response to user requests. They do this while at the same time making deep changed in the system that you never hear about to run >500 terminals. If on occasion they seem to have a deaf ear for users, it may be that *ss-h*le communications like these of yours have something to do with it. ---------- response 7 04/04 10.54 bh iehl mtc Maybe our impatience can be understood when it is remembered that 2 years ago this system was advertised as a 4000 terminal system, easily programmed by the average person. Now Steve, if you'll wait just a second while I fine those darn contracts, I'll tell you if your request was part of the original plan.... ---------- response 8 04/04 13.27 gilpin peer Mr. Lionel's notes are so very offensive precisely because he was not _making_ any request--he was merely heaping some very ill-placed scorn. To the extent that you have a point, it is not one that is usefully addressed to systems--there is nothing they can do that they are not already doing--very responsibly and capably. If you feel you have a justified gripe along the lines you mention, the have your administrators talk to our administrators about it. If you just want to vent frustration, find another outlet; notes like Mr. Lionel's are biting the hand that's keeping your head above water. ---------- response 9 04/04 19.16 brand matha If Mr. Lionel feels he is so competent to judge systems work and decisions, I would recommend he start his own system. The system staff is doing a remarkable job given the constraints of the system, and asinine notes such as yours serve no purpose but to antagonize these people. I find it inconceivable that people actually exist that think like Mr. Lionel must. Please, Mr. Lionel, remove yourself from this sys- tem, or else babble to yourself about your superiority out of hearing and reading distance of other users of the system... ---------- response 10 04/05 09.09 silver ve ...And Mr. iehl, can you imagine what this string of replies would be like with 4 times as many partisans having at it? Let's leave it at a thousand terminals for awhile, so we can get some work done! ---------- response 11 04/05 19.19 steve cornell I am very sorry if I gave the impression that I thought that the systems people weren't doing a good job. That was not my intention at all! My comments were supposed to be humorous, with no malice intended. I feel that PLATO has the best user- systems interaction of any computer system I have seen, and that the systems people bend over backwards to please the users. The basis for my "sarcasm" was a request of mine a while back, that, on the admission of a "s" person, would only require one -writec- in the editor, but the "s" people had no time for such trivialities. Great! There have been lots of nice new features added that are taking up their time. It just bothered me a bit, that little changes like the one I commented on in this note, are on the same level as my previous suggestion (a condense flag indicator on the edit page). -continued- ---------- response 12 04/05 19.27 steve cornell (continued from previous response) One day, I noticed the small editor change and decided to comment on it. Having seen a great deal of user requests answered with "It's at the bottom of our priority list. We have much better things to do.", I wondered if the aforementioned trivial change was one of them. So, I wrote a very small bit of sarcase, agreed. I certainly did not expect for my comments to backfire, and produce such negative reactions. I apologize to all who I offened, and would welcome an exchange of thoughts with them, hopefully being able to erase any ill feelings that may have arisen. Steven Lionel ---------- note 408 byebyecom 04/03 11.47 roper siu How about a new option? When you are preparing to leave your lesson via a jumpout, make available a command that will inactivate the common that the student is using, thereby reducing his ECS usage, saving space, and many other assorted nice things. Any luck? Quetzal ---------- response 1 04/03 12.09 friedman csa Do I miss something? That doesn't seem to make sense.↓ Common is attached to a lesson, not to a student. So if the student is leaving the lesson, and there are other students in the lesson, the common MUST remain; if no other students are in the lesson, then both lesson and common are no longer charged to the student's site.↓ ↓router common, of course, MUST stay in ecs as long as the router lesson is in ecs, i.e., as long as any student is being routed by that router lesson. ---------- response 2 04/03 13.48 roper siu Well, we only have one terminal, so when that student leaves everybody is out. But is there any reason why the router common couldn't be removed from ECS when it is no longer needed? (I know it's impossible now, but could it be made possible at some future date?) Or if the leslist command could be made executable, so that I could load a new leslist after already loading one, I could save 644 words of common right there. I've heard talk of this but never heard if it was going to come through. Thanks, Quetzal ---------- response 3 04/03 15.49 kimble ustaf Huh? The leslist command IS executable.... ---------- response 4 04/03 16.21 cohs siu what is he talking about????? NIGUL ¬+ Olorin ---------- response 5 04/04 12.53 friedman csa The leslist command is executable, but once it has been executed, a 2nd one won't work, but will return a value in error. However, once the router jumps out to an instructional lesson, the leslist is detached, so that a leslist command must be executed again in the endlesson and error units of the router; this new leslist command command need not specify the same leslist as the first one.↓ I don't think you'll ever get a command that will detach a common. In a router, when the student re-enters the router at the endlesson or error unit, the common is presumed to be needed again. Anyway, special features for one-terminal sites don't make sense; except as an experiment or a demo, one terminal sites are uneconomical. I can't imagine treating them as a permanent aspect of Plato. [The last two sentences are obviously my personal opinion.] ---------- response 6 04/04 13.07 roper siu I'd love to have more terminals. But nobody wants to pay for them. Quetzal PS What about that feature to load a new leslist on top of an old leslist? I know the systems programmers have talked about ir. ---------- note 414 tutor mix 04/03 13.51 deiss phar Does anyone have a document or can anyone just tell us what the relative usage is of all 200+ TUTOR commands in an "average" mix of lessons of an "average" mix of lengths? thanks, s.d. ---------- response 1 04/03 15.31 bradley iu I'd guess the -calc- command is most used. ---------- response 2 04/03 15.40 warner iu That info is available in the labyrinth of systems function...perhaps a job for the PEER group? ---------- response 3 04/03 16.20 gilpin peer In a report dated 30 May 74, Al Avner listed the 23 commands that accounted for at least 1; of command occurrences in condensing OR in execution. Here are data for the top 8. Command Condensing Execution at 14; 8; write 13; 4; unit 11; 7; calc 6; 20; join 5; 4; do 4; 4; goto 3; 13; jump 3; 2; Quite likely the figures are a little different now, -goto- and -join- being used somewhat less, and -do- and -branch- somewhat more, that shown here. ---------- response 4 04/03 18.56 deiss phar Thanks but I already have the figures for the top 10. I need them for the whole 200. Does Al have that too? ---------- response 5 04/03 19.36 avner s Sorry--below about 1; usage the figures are so idiosyncratic of the particular mix of lessons run during the sampling period that no justification for the effort seemed present. Could you let me know what you needed the information for--maybe you have found such a justification. Al ---------- response 6 04/03 23.00 b sherwood phys Another kind of info is that typical modern lessons use about 60 different commands. ---------- response 7 04/05 01.26 deiss phar Thanks, I'll get in touch to describe my reasons soon. ---------- note 415 cs109c del 04/03 14.04 artman cs109 There appears to be some worthwhile junk in lesson cs109c. It all will be deleted soon, so would any owner(s) please copy it out using save in the editor. Leave me a p-note if you have any questions. artman/cs109 ---------- response 1 04/04 12.57 friedman csa Before someone asks: The lesson in question is for cs 109 student practice; anything left there by a student to whom the lesson is no longer assigned is subject to destruction by the next student assigned the lesson or by the instructor. ---------- note 417 nitpicking 04/03 14.37 oberpriller arizona This is nit-picking, but... When re-condensing your lesson via STOP1, when someone is using the lesson gives the author options, one of them is to press BACK to go to author mode. This actually takes one back to the editor. Shouldn't this say "editor" rather than "author mode"/ blue kangaroo ---------- note 423 jokes 04/03 15.30 crooks siu Is there some sort of rule against playing practical jokes with the talk option? If so what are the penalties? Olorin ---------- response 1 04/03 15.43 warner iu The general rule is that anuone caught being persistently nasty to someone through their talk-option or any other communication feature, and who does not desist when asked, will have their signon deleted or repassworded by systems. At Indiana, we supplement this by deleting the person responsible from the PLATO room...preferably through a second-story window! ---------- response 2 04/04 10.13 jim g reading You seem to have found a very good use for the "exit" command, Warner! ---------- note 432 c≤/-er 04/03 16.06 p cohen med I hate to break such earth-shattering news, but... The cursor in ID, SS, and -TERM- cursor is not initially centered! Ir plots first at gross grid location 1632, while everyone knows that 1633 is the center of the screen. Could you change it, please? It seems to me that one would often like to center textual material by back- spacing as on a typewriter. Thanks for your efforts. --paul ---------- response 1 04/03 16.24 cohs siu perfectionist ---------- response 2 04/03 16.30 warner iu Better yet, why isn't the cursor put at the location last -at-, in SD mode?? why? ≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤_≤≤≤_ ≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤$ WHY? ---------- response 3 04/03 20.22 m4 peanuts I always thought SS plotted in the upper left corner of the display... ---------- response 4 04/03 20.53 judy pso I find that for visual balance that pleases _my_ eye, I have to center things slightly to the left of center anyhow. "1632" suits me just fine for the nominal center. ---------- note 441 bodyneeded 04/03 16.31 lindley mflu I am looking for an outline of a human body to use in a french translation lesson. This involves a pointer to part of the body with the student filling in the correct french name. Thus the body should ideally take up only the middle one-third of the screen from top to bottom. Anything will be greatly appreciated....... Thanks........Todd Lindley............ ---------- response 1 04/03 16.36 hody med answered in personal notes ---------- response 2 04/03 16.56 lindley mflu response to your personal note in your notes. Thanks. Any more bodies? ---------- response 3 04/03 18.06 schroeder iumusic sorry, not while it's still alive..... ---------- response 4 04/04 12.57 creager cs109 Mine's available! ---------- note 445 inspectsit 04/03 16.50 hody med at a previous u of i users meeting, the concept of an "inspect only" mode for the site director option was proposed. this was intended to provide a way to running (and perhaps to send messages) but not to exercise any of the selection and "enforcement" options. a separate security word would be required to exercise this priviledge. using it, one could also see, from any location, what course restrictions, lesson guarantees, etc etc existed, but could not alter them. there was considerable support for this option and this is a request for its inclusion in the new "site director option" at the earliest convenient time. ---------- response 1 04/03 23.06 b sherwood phys ....answered in pnotes..... ---------- response 2 04/03 23.59 grohne psych Well, that's great for Hody, but how about the rest of us? ---------- response 3 04/04 14.21 obrien uicc I agree...What7s the story here? ---------- note 447 findall - 04/03 17.10 layman matha the write-up on -findall- says that negative increments will be made illegal after variable increments for -find- are implemented -- since the latter is true, any idea on when the former might occur? TomL ---------- response 1 04/03 18.03 k mast p I'd forgotten all about it. Any objections to making negative lengths on -find- commands illegal within the next few weeks? ---------- response 2 04/03 18.43 layman matha NO!!!! -- the writeup said that the neg.incr -findall- would be illegal when the neg. incr -find- got done to "replace" it -- ---------- response 3 04/03 23.39 k mast p But the negative increment -find- is done! (and has been for many moons.) ---------- response 4 04/04 11.51 layman matha right! but in yr 1st resp you said make the _find_ w/neg inc illegal (rather than findall) -- (im also not suggesting it be done, just asking if itll be done) ---------- note 455 bump-warn 04/03 21.33 fay rtv362 I have a problem: I do not like to 'kick' people off my lesson when I try to condense new material, even though they may be 'unauthorized' or 'non-preferred' users. I should say, I don't like to kick them off without issuing a warning to that effect so that they know why they got bumped. A couple of possibilities exist: an automatic system response to users in such situations (much like backout warnings issued by sysprogs), or a manual option available to the author attempting condense. I have found in most cases that I cannot reach users outside my course via the talk option (probably turned off, etc). I welcome comments. Tim Fay ---------- response 1 04/03 21.47 layman matha nice idea or if not a warning, some following message (like the kind one gets w/fatal errors: common not found,etc ) -- maybe "Lesson deleted by author" -- TomL ---------- response 2 04/04 08.21 avner s Or, in more positive terms.. "Old version of lesson deleted--New version now available"? ---------- response 3 04/04 11.28 kimble ustaf A fairly simple, non-system solution to this (which I often make use of) is to use a common var as a flag that can be turned on or off (perhaps by a hidden, -term-ed unit) with a conditional write in an imain unit containing whatever warning you want to give. If you want to get fancy, you can even enter the message itself in common, to fit varying conditions. ---------- response 4 04/04 14.15 daleske ames You can put a message system in the imain unit (must be stored in common to do this) that on message lenght (gotten from jcount in a storea) longer than 1 (or two) mode rewrite at 3201 showa message,message lenth otherwise branch around it... This gives a message that appears exactly like that of a systems message and allows variability of message. When editing, I would have "author editing". Before recondensing,I would put " one minute before recondense of lesson"... (Ect...) John (Starkhan) ---------- note 458 priorities 04/03 22.13 hody med i'd like to revive the discussion about a "low priority" flag for lessons which would give them a decreased lien on system resources. this is prompted by the observation that, although i have not condensed for at least five hours. i am now 54 of 76 in the condense queue as plato comes up with a new version, while most of my students were able to condense moonwar, dogfight and trek with gleeful ease. i may be a sore looser but this sort of condensor roulette doesn't seem fair to those who are willing to try to work at odd hours in order to improve their chances and the work load distribution on the system. the same applies in spades for cpu time in high use rate hours! again, i am NOT against games-- i am FOR priorities. can it be done? ---------- response 1 04/03 23.09 michael english Only one (1) of them condensed it....others entered a condensed lesson. Since students usually condense rarely, they get high priority. If what you're asking for is a flag attached to the lesson which says to the condensor "I'm unimportant; get me last." -- who attaches such a flag? Lesson owner? Systems? You? User-associated priority seems fairer than lesson-associated scheme. ---------- response 2 04/04 02.28 al mfl Dr. Hody, I seem to recall that a short while ago you became very gung-ho on cracking down on system abuses. In light of your past statements what were your students doing eating up proc time playing games? ---------- response 3 04/04 08.24 hody med oh wow! students were playing games using a single multiple record which accesses an index which includes careful checks on site/station, ecs, and which limits use to non-prime time hours (except for 5-10pm fridays)... which should be enough caution! no? ---------- response 4 04/04 14.26 bargen conn We too here in Conn. have been concerned with designating low priority usage as such, and have spent several months trying several approaches. Currently, we combine local control of priorities (3 levels) on a lesson by lesson basis. Should a routed student be unable to condense a lesson due to an ecs shortage, the router will attempt to obtain sufficient ecs by "deleting" (pressing stop1) a student running at a lower priority. A full description of the router may be read by condensing lesson -danwork-. Unfortunately, we can only deal with the ecs short- age. We hope to find a way to establish and implement locally priorities for cpu usage. We've looked into -cpulim- and it does not appear to be usable in the same fashion. Any systems staff comments? continued ---> ---------- response 5 04/04 14.39 bargen conn cont'ed We are currently on site -network- with 4 terminals. We will have an additional 4 very soon which would suggest that we form our own site. We firmly believe however in seeking cooperative, rather than isolationist, solutions to the problems inherant in sharing a finite resource such as PLATO. We therefore re-extend our invitation to all users to view -danwork- and the router, and invite them to share this router with us. We are quite open to suggestions for revisions as we are more interested in sharing resources than in preserving the particular format of this router. We would like anyone interested to contact either: bargen/conn, mcnally/conn, ken/conn or heidi/conn Mark Bargen Dan McNally Heidi Neubauer ---------- note 464 sign funct 04/04 00.08 davem mxc A long time ago there was a note about a needed function: the sign function. I don't think any working function was ever proposed, but I just figured one out. Try: Sign(x)=x/[abs(x+[x=0])] I've tested it pretty thorougly and it returns 1 for positive numbers, 0 for 0, and -1 for negative numbers. ---------- response 1 04/04 00.42 brand matha If you arent concerned about the value of the function at zero ( a 0 returns +1, a -0 returns a -1), then a good one to use is one given before of: sign(x)=1-2((x$cls$1)$mask$1) ---------- response 2 04/04 01.01 bowery comm There have been several notes written about this. Numerous defines have been suggested all of which utilize some of the slower functions (ie<>=/ blah bla).... a system defined function could do it all so fast! Please? Besides.. What was wrong with sign(i)=(i<0)-(i>0) ????? Or maybe you didn't go that far back. ---------- response 3 04/04 02.33 al mfl How about: sgn(x)=x/abs(x) When using n-variables this works for zero, too. AL ---------- response 4 04/04 18.38 ian conn al, wouldn't that give a division by zero at zero? i understand that such a number(one divided by 0) is void of all functions, in other words, useless?! however, some of those other suggestions don't sound to bad. but it feel that before we get a "sign" function, how about tan, or sec, or some arc trig functions? i know that there is a list in aids of how to obtain these functions, but is that any easier than defining sign? (i hope you can find a point to this response, i can't!!) frustrated ---------- response 5 04/04 19.02 brand matha for v vars, v1‎0/0 is equal to 0/0. however, for n vars, n1‎0/0 is equal to _0_... this is what he was trying to say.. ---------- note 471 logsites 04/04 09.11 golden s The new site director options went into effect yesterday afternoon. Directors of logical sites should enter the permanent and temporary course restrictions they wish for their sites. ---------- note 472 Notice! 04/04 09.13 williams m Tonight at 10:00 pm, sites Physics, Chemistry, Chanute, Foreign Language, Vet. Medicine , and Parkland College will be taken out of service for microwave changes. If all goes will all sites except chanute will be operating again on monday morning. Chanute's service will be restored monday after downconverter change there. Mike Williams ---------- note 473 site rest. 04/04 09.51 md csa While working in room 165 CERL, I signed off and then tried to sign-on again with 'md' - 'csa'. I recieved a message saying that I was not allowed to use this site at this time... I asked the operator on duty why I had been restricted from this site, but there was no record of any such restriction. Also, course 'me was restricted during this time. I tried signing on several times and each time received the same message. Then I came back after asking the operator to check the restrictions lists a second time and I could sign on. Is this a bug in the new restrictor, or was it testing? And I did not dream it, the operator saw it also. md ---------- response 1 04/04 11.46 kimble ustaf A problem (although not an error) does exist with the new site restriction options. It was formerly possible to restrict specific courses from using terminals at a site. This is no longer possible. All that can be done is to specify a list of courses that CAN sign-on...so it is really more of an "allow" list rather than a "restriction" list. Thus, to inhibit 1 or 2 courses entails listing perhaps as many as 10 to 100 or more courses that are allowed. And then, if someone else in yet another course tries to sign-in, he will recieve the message you got. Seems in some respects to be a step backward. ---------- response 2 04/04 12.00 golden s Not so! The new system allows seperate settings for students, authors, instructors, and multiples. A course which is listed but has all 4 user types restricted is a prohibited course. Everything possible before and much more is possible now. ---------- response 3 04/04 12.29 meers wright Also notice that misspelling your course name no longer gives you the message that the course is restricted from that site but instead tells you that the course does not exist. A lot of work went into that restriction list and if the person (singular) responsible can identify him(her)self then I will send them a bag of jelly ---------- response 4 04/04 12.37 md csa But why did I get the course restricted message??? ---------- response 5 04/04 13.00 golden s What happened in your case will probably remain a mystery. My guess is that the restriction lists were being edited at that moment and got into a bad state which was then corrected. ---------- response 6 04/04 13.12 kimble ustaf Hmmm... I apologize for hastily maligning the new version of "site". I would suggest, however, that the help material be made a bit clearer... being able to restrict a course by putting it with courses allowed, but with no users specified wasn't immediately apparent, to me, at least. There does seem to be one option that is no longer available, though (correct me if I'm wrong). That was the ability to inhibit an individual user's records at a site... useful in the case of abuse by just one person in a course. ---------- response 7 04/04 13.37 oberpriller arizona The new vesion of site is FANTASTIC!! However, I agree with kimble that the ability to restrict an individuals records from a site is very useful. Can this be implemented in the new site? Or is it too difficult with the new version? Thanks again for the new options! blue kangaroo ---------- response 8 04/04 16.37 al mfl Maybe Mark was trying to sign in on an intelligent terminal. ---------- response 9 04/05 14.44 baker me In gen. note 360 it was said that the course restriction list¬ would be accessable to course directors. How does one get at the list??? Fred Baker ---------- note 479 sys resp 04/04 11.52 layman matha could i have some sys response to note 370? ---------- note 481 mad as hel 04/04 12.17 osborne iucs all i can say is that i am mighty dissapointed in the "systems staff" of whoever those people of course s are. I refer in particular to someone named chabay who got rather short with me because i questioned an implementation of the way tutor evaluates some expressions. If PLATO purports to be an information exchange medium and learning device then no one should expect lack of patience on the part of a person supposedly getting paid in part by my college merely because he/she disagrees with a feature of plato. No one enjoys being talked down to or being made to feel like he/she is not worth the time to bother with. yours osborne course iucs ---------- response 1 04/04 12.56 grohne psych Unfortunately, the "systems" people are just that, people. If you believe that you are in a perfect mood every day, then more power to you. But humans have bad days. I agree that it would be great (and every effort should be made) for all "s"er's to be charming all the time, but it isn't possible. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and more often than not, they will be reasonable. By the way, I believe calc-comments would be more appropriately made to b sherwood-s. P.S. Don't construe this as a defense of rude behavior, however! ---------- response 2 04/04 13.08 osborne iucs I sent a note to b sherwood a couple of days ago when i discovered that something didn't operate the way i thought it did, but as yet have not heard from him. All i wanted was some answers as to why tutor does the things that it does. One person in course s seemed as good as another for that. ---------- response 3 04/04 13.26 brand matha How about some specifics on your questions on 'how tutor works'? I cant imagine why said person would be rude to _anybody_ without a good reason... Besides, contrary to popular opinion, s people are NOT consultants. If you have question it is best to ask a pso person, who is paid to help you... ---------- response 4 04/04 13.35 hody med probably it is best to ask anything which is not immediately urgent by personal or "help" note rather than by talk-- it is easy to get short-tempered when interrupted by a "talk" request which could have easily waited for a note... nevertheless i agree with grohne that everyone on the system deserves a courteous reply.... to any reasonable query. ---------- response 5 04/04 13.35 osborne iucs alas, i realize that people of course s are not consultants, and i didn't want consultation (reread my note). it was a question on IMPLEMENTATION. the statement inquestion was an integer divide. I know how it works i was asking about why TUTOR was written to evaluate the way it does. give me a break, i wasn't the one who was rude. ---------- response 6 04/04 13.39 brand matha Once again, how about some specifics? ---------- response 7 04/04 14.14 white p Osborne, I presume you found that the machine we are running on (CDC 6500) doesn't have an integer divide hardware instruction. For tutor to perform an integer divide with truncation (as in Fortran) whenever you said n1/n2 for example, would take longer than just doing the divide. Additionally, you are probably aware that using a truncating integer divide would bother students whenever they used, for example, 3/4 to mean .75. ---------- response 8 04/04 14.31 layman matha use int(n1/n2) for the integer divide ---------- response 9 04/04 16.20 b sherwood phys Just saw all this after already responding (politely, I hope!) thru pnotes. One comment here--the speed of doing integer divides on this particular machine has nothing to do with the fact that 3/4 is 0.75 instead of 0. Rather it seems that 3/4 SHOULD mean 0.75, as mentioned by White. Moreover, we (I) refuse to differentiate between 3.0/4.0 and 3/4. Both forms really must be treated equivalently. Other computer languages have bizarre, non-intuitive conventions in this area, and in fact typically handle mixed-mode expressions poorly if at all, partly as a result of the poor treatment of things like 3/4. ---------- response 10 04/04 16.39 b sherwood phys Oh, and by the way--Ruth Chabay is in fact very helpful to users and works hard to help them. She didn't think she had been rude and is sorry if that impression had been given. ---------- response 11 04/05 16.15 b sherwood s I just noticed a peculiar aspect of osborne's complaint. He said he had written to me a couple days previously to ask about these matters and rad not yet received a replay. In fact he wrote to me earlier that same day, and I answered within hours. ---------- response 12 04/05 20.17 osborne iucs sorry if i got my days mixed up but iwork nights and get how long since i've done something mixed up occationally. One would question why there are two types (n and v) in tutor if you always end up with a floating point number anyhow. Also , i might add, it makes more sense to have it with truncation from a scientific standpont, i.e., signigicant digits. 7/5 _IS_ i to one sig fig, the number of sig figs in both arguments. For that matter, if you insist on floating point numbers......3/4 would only be .8 not .75 without injecting a degree of accuracy neither argument possessed. still grumbling osborne of iucs ---------- response 13 04/06 13.31 gilpin peer Well, 7/5 truncates to the correct 1-significant-figure result. Now, about 9/5... The basic point is, if you want 3/4 to be 1, Tutor gives you that with no fuss; if you want 3/4 to be .75, Tutor gives you THAT with no fuss; if you want 3/4 to be .8 (or 0) Tutor gives you that with little fuss. Compare with the parallel cases in other implementations. [And do take a little more care with you facts...in Notes you are speaking to an audience of hundreds, and if you are consis- tently careless, credibility erodes fast.] ---------- note 505 brokenline 04/04 14.45 rucinski uimc Is it possible to draw broken lines without having to use draw x,y;x1,y1;skip; etc.etc.;skip;etc.? I would think that it would be useful if the gdraw could be done like the circled. Some people, in making graphs like to show more than one curve on the graph, and a drawb or gdrawb (or something similar) would be might handy. If someone out there has figured out a way of doing it (making a broken line without having to do the 'skip' thing), would you please let me know either here or in a p-note? thanx, terry runcinski ---------- response 1 04/04 15.14 grohne psych Contact judy-pso for info on several different routines found in lesson -judy1-. ---------- response 2 04/04 15.52 carter comm bowery of comm also has done some work in this area. ---------- response 3 04/04 16.23 b sherwood phys A -functb- would be nice, for that matter! Usually a function is not plotted with a multi-argument -draw- but is rather a tight loop with a one- or two-arg -draw- statement. In this case it is not difficult to draw every other line segment in order to get a dashed function. Judy worried only about dashed straight lines, not functions. ---------- response 4 04/04 22.47 fritz ames Wayne Dowling (dowling - ames) has a nice broken-line routine he uses in his graphics lessons which are very versitile. I.E., you can do such things as long line - two short lines - long line etc. while specifying the length of the lines ¬+ spaces. ---------- note 507 line list 04/04 15.28 pete faa Is it normal for the line separation on the general notes and help notes front pages to have a 3¬o list to it?? Pete ---------- response 1 04/04 15.53 warner iu No, you're probably getting terminal errors. That usually happens when the 3rd-from-the-right bit gets busted, resulting in a line 4 dots over, Obviously, you can also get 1-dot,2-dots, 8-dots, up to 256-dots. ---------- response 2 04/04 16.43 hody med let your sails out a bit until the wind eases ---------- response 3 04/04 17.33 grohne psych Does that give you less list? ---------- response 4 04/04 22.49 fritz ames oooooh, bad pun.... ---------- response 5 04/05 03.10 daleske ames ooooooh good fun... ---------- response 6 04/05 11.33 grohne psych oooooohhhh, just one.... ---------- response 7 04/06 07.41 fay rtv362 to Grohne: .....groan.... ---------- response 8 04/06 11.34 sellers arizona god I hope this is DONE! ---------- note 516 vertical 04/04 16.52 tracht ced Could someone _please_ change the explanation in AIDS of the vertical segments. I had to write two help notes before I thought I understood it and now I find that I didn't really understand it at all. (And now have to modify most of my lesson.) One major point not even mentioned is what number to use in the lesson to index the variable. (if. calc vertseg (???)‎1) I thought the no. started with the no. of the var. in the define statement and my lesson ran fine until I decided to set my variables to values other than 0. Please don't let anyone else go thru what I am now. ---------- response 1 04/05 11.32 judy pso We will look at "vertical segments" and meditate about your problem. Maybe an example is all that is needed. But, at the risk of sounding rude, it sounds to me as if you made (unintentionally) a colossal blunder. I'm not sure a fuller explanation would have helped. Secondly, "aids" really can't afford to explain the philosophy of indexed variables for indexed vars, and then for segments, and again for vertical segments. It makes it too unwieldy for the "ordinary" user. What you really should do (should have done?) was start at the beginning of "define" and read all the way through. That way you should have found out how indices work, before you arrived at "vertical segments". ---------- response 2 04/05 13.04 bradley iu I think a display showing several consecutive words and marking the bits that are used in the vertical segments would help. When I first read the write up on vertical segments,I couldn't think of any reason why anyone would possibly need to use vertical segments over regular segs. Possibly the display would have several vert. segs. in these consecutive words showing ow useful it is for storing tables when some of the segments might have to be of different lengths and maybe greater then 30 bits long. ---------- response 3 04/05 18.02 daleske ames It might help to give relative speed differences between segment; segment,vertical; and standard word addressing. It might suprise some and help others who worry about keeping ECS down as much as possible but also maximizing effective use of the cpu.... John ---------- note 520 alarm 04/04 19.04 iezek ames Lesson alarm is a good feature and I appreciate it. The hypnotic effect of PLATO can make one lose track of time. What I would appreciate is something stronger like a full screen erase followed by size 3 writing since the line at the bottom can be overlooked. Assuming it is possible (and it probably isn't) could something like this be made an option in lesson alarm? $*≤ ↑ˆ*≤ ↑ˆ*Mark Iezek ↑ˆ↑ˆ ************≤↑ˆ*≤↑ˆ*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤≤*≤↑ˇ* ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆ ↑ˆ≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤ ---------- response 1 04/05 00.05 oberpriller arizona A lot of peopl don't want to be so brutally interupted by a full screen erase, for such a gentle reminder, but the thought is a good one. How about an option giving the user of alarm the choice as to whether he just wants a line on the bottom of the screen or something more drastic (like 3 lines on the bottom, sized writing)? blue kangaroo ---------- response 2 04/05 00.18 telson arizona good idea! just an option to change the location of the alarm would be enough. the message would be harder to miss if it came up on eye level. (about line 8 or so) ---------- response 3 04/05 20.03 creager cs109 How about another option: have the message continue to flash until some special key,say ANS, is pressed? ---------- response 4 04/05 20.23 sutter cs109 The problem with that is that the message can only last 1 minute at most so that the program can look to see if another alarm follows. I like the idea of sized writing and placing it in the middle of the screen. HOW about it?≤! SATAN ---------- response 5 04/06 11.40 sellers arizona As I understand the relative importance of alarm to the system indicated that the changes were of a low priority. (hit data while in alarm to see something about current useage). On the other hand it would be interesting to see if a more extensive program would be used more on the system. ---------- note 522 dsetseterr 04/04 22.10 alan reading How about having a dataset command set error to -(¬$ of blocks [or parts] in the dataset) providing everything else is in order? Possible? ---------- response 1 04/04 22.22 blo0mme s How about a reserved word that has the information? (or another command or some other way to get the info... crowding other info into the error return doesn't seem quite the right way to go). Sorry, though, I'm not volunteering to do anything about this right now...but this info plus parameters on disk block size and also on computer word size and character size in bits will be forthcoming one of these days. ---------- note 523 H. Myers 04/04 22.13 hagstrom iuchem Note to Harvey Myers, author of Carbohydrates, Part III, in the organic chemistry lessons (sorry I don't have the signon). The name of one important synthesis mentioned in that lesson is spelled "Kiliani-Fischer" NOT "Killiani-Fischer" in every text I consulted. Why spell it with two l's, then, and then also require the student to make the same misspelling to get an answer counted right? Surely a mistake! Otherwise a good lesson. E. R. Hagstrom ---------- response 1 04/04 23.32 chabay s Dr. Myers' signon is "harv" of course "chem". ---------- note 527 sys people 04/04 22.54 grohne psych At one time, it may have made sense to consider the student room (203b¬D165) as the basis of PLATO. However, this is no longer the case. Only a small percentage of all terminals are located in 165. Nevertheless, the operators still find it necessary to delete and inhibit lessons (yes, _game_ lessons) system-wide in order to clear game-players off so that students may use terminals. Now, if the operators are simply taking the easy way out by clearing the room this way, then action should be taking against them. If they do not (and I am not familiar with site options) have the ability to inhibit lessons and to back off only one certain site, then action should be taken by systems people to give operators such power. Doggone it, I worked hard on my game lessons, and believe they are excellent examples of programming. To have my lessons unavilable to myself at ---------- response 1 04/04 22.57 grohne psych 10:30 PM on a Friday night because of some rude people in 165 CERL (a site as remote to me as Arizona or San Deigo) is absurd. I believe it is one of the terrible defects of the best damn instructional computer system in the world. Thank you for your consideration. ---------- response 2 04/05 00.50 chabay s This was basically a misunderstanding, and has (hopefully) been cleared up. ---------- note 532 putd ¬, 04/05 00.12 oberpriller arizona Here is an interesting "feature??" of TUTOR: It would seem that the ¬, is as close to the universal delimiter as one could come. But this delimiter does not work with -putd-. Aids makes no mention of this, and its use as a delimiter in many other commands makes it a likely choice in a -putd- where one would normally want to use some of the usual delimiters (puntuation marks) as fields to be -putd-ed. Is this intentional, and why? Can it be fixed? thanks blue kangaroo ---------- response 1 04/05 00.35 blomme s Whoops...¬, is TWO (6 bit) chars (look at it displayed in octal format), and putd takes the first (6 bit) char as the separator! ---------- response 2 04/05 00.56 oberpriller arizona Well, ok.... But since ¬, is the universal separator (see "writec" feature in aids) shouldn't: 1) -putd- be modified to accept it -OR- 2) aids make a special point of where it applies and where it doesn't to eliminate confusion I for one spent almost an hour trying to figure out why my code wouldn't work, when all was was this. blue kangaroo ---------- response 3 04/05 11.40 judy pso "universal separator" is an unfortunate name, since it only applies to -writec- I had thought that -writec- explained this. Perhaps "keycodes" needs to mention it also. ---------- response 4 04/05 15.45 oberpriller arizona Right, judy. "keycodes" also calls it the "universal separator". How about calling it the "writec delimiter"? blue kangaroo ---------- note 543 error 04/05 12.51 meredith stmary While inserting material in a4, received the following message at 12:47 : OUT-ERROR 0 0 ---------- note 544 directory 04/05 12.55 rodby ames Try this some time: 1) Change the change code to a lesson 2) Press a shifted letter to add a block 3) Press LAB for copy-a-block 4) Press NEXT for the same lesson 5) Press BACK when you get TYPE YOUR SECURITY CODE: You will get a nice little note saying that there is an error in your lesson directory, and to leave a note here to alert systems people about the problem. ---------- response 1 04/05 13.45 frankel p Thank you. ---------- response 2 04/05 13.54 frankel p Fixed. ---------- response 3 04/05 16.10 rodby ames Thank YOU for such a quick response! *** end of notes ***