+++ plato iv group notes +++ Public Notes notes beginning march 26, 1976 file pbnotes9 printed at 6:20 pm on june 21, 1976 ---------- note 0 WIN!! 03/26/76 09.50 fay o The winners in the mid-semester update to the PLATO Down Tapes Contest are: Silas Warner for "dotsout" (dots on strike) John Silver for "woof" ("his master's terminal") Dave Holle for "dh" (foot thru machine) In addition, honorable mentions go to the following: G. David Frye for "switch" (plato turning off) Mike Berger for "border" (game board) Mary Dulisch for "field" (plato falling to field) and for "native" (hippo) Errol Magidson for "slotm" (slot machine) ---------- response 1 03/26/76 09.52 fay o Many thanks to all the participants! At the very least, you have made our lives easier by providing material to with which to fill the tapes. At worst, you got a little practice at that time honored PLATO activity: display generation and/or animation!! All entries are on display in lesson "tapejudge". (Honorable mentions WILL be used in the tapes also.) The operating staff... ---------- response 2 03/27/76 11.34 rowlen mflu ...oh well, maybe one of these days..... Jim ---------- note 3 charsett? 03/26/76 10.29 silver ve Were all references to charsets in "charsett" to be changed to "charsets" in the recent system conversion? I have a lesson in which the old name was not converted. The charset involved in now in charsets, I find. ---------- response 1 03/27/76 08.20 judy pso (I thought Rader would get this one....) Yes, a conversion was fun, I _think_ that all references should have been changed. Why don't you send a pnote to rader/s about your specific case. ---------- note 7 groupnotes 03/26/76 11.24 clark lawyer Many authors have asked for an index of groupnotes files. Since I think this is a good idea and many authors have mentioned it before, I have decided to create a notesfile for this purpose. If a systems index is ever created. my notesfile will become obsolete. Until then, feel free to enter the name and description of notesfiles that you think people would be interested in viewing. Please indicate the type of access to the file. It would be better if groupnotes file directors were the ones to enter the title of groupnotes. Let me know of any problems in a p-note as I don't want the file cluttered with irrelevant comments. The name of the file is "groupnotes". J. Clark Kelso ---------- response 1 03/26/76 13.07 j thiher amesrad Many thanks... ---------- response 2 03/26/76 13.19 maggs law Thanks. Most of the replies to note 555 above point out correctly that a group has a right to privacy if it wants it. However a group should also have the right to go public if it wants to do that. ---------- response 3 03/26/76 15.24 dave infe Thanks indeed. I was able to delete a request for just that from -$ 555. ---------- response 4 03/26/76 19.05 carter comm I am sure that if those in favor of restricted conferences would spend an entire month climbing mountains, walking 25 miles per day, canoeing our rivers and similar activities their possessive impulse concerning conferencing would change. ---------- response 5 03/27/76 11.00 john r reading Mr. Carter: One or another of my children, when unable to wrest a desired toy from his sibling accuses the other of being selfish, as though "What's mine is mine" were a more pernicious philosophy than "What's yours belongs to us." Your recent remarks sound like my children's. ---------- response 6 03/27/76 21.29 carter comm My remarks apply only to the academic community. I am in favor of restricted conferencing for the business world. I simply think the open attitude i have suggested is part of the implied contract one accepts when joining the University--as a student or staff member. ---------- response 7 03/30/76 02.07 d williams unidel Would you gentlemen care to step outside and discuss this?↓↓See PAD, note ¬$0 (while it lasts). ---------- note 11 edit micro 03/26/76 12.01 celia pso In lesson "helping" there is a microtable for editing, to be included in lesson "micros" eventually. I designed it after looking at the very nice editing micros by parrello of mfl, bowery of comm, and moore of chema. I would appreciate comments about it--does it contain the right stuff, too much, too little, are things on the right keys? ---------- note 15 word=stop1 03/26/76 12.17 alan hebrew Can someone tell me what the system reserved word "stop1" is. Got a condense error saying it was redefined. ---------- response 1 03/26/76 12.21 michael english Each function key on the keyset is defined by the system so that things like this work: branch key=stop1,x,1 You tried to redefine it. ---------- response 2 04/02/76 15.23 putch arizona But what good is it? A branch which branches to a point if stop1 wasn't pressed might as well be an unconditional branch, and one that branches when stop1 _is_ pressed might as well not be there since it does nothing. ---------- note 21 editmicro 03/26/76 13.54 judy pso I just discovered to my surprise that the micro which is associated with lesson editting is still in effect when I return to the AUTHOR MODE page. Is this intended? ---------- response 1 03/26/76 20.34 k mast p I don't think it was. It's now been fixed. (As soon as the system is re-loaded.) ---------- note 23 zxpy 03/26/76 15.05 bowery comm Could you PLEASE make the system constants zp available to the condensor? They can't be used to define segments at this time (let alone anything else that can't handle variable args at condense time). ---------- response 1 03/27/76 08.25 judy pso I don't know what you are talking about. I suppose the systems people to whom your note is directed know. Since PUBLIC NOTES also serves an educational purpose, I would appreciate a bit of explanation with a cryptic request like this. 1) what purpose do these letters serve? 2) how specifically do they inconvenience you now? 3) how would you like to use them (example) if they were released to you? 4) what other methods have you tried unsatisfactorily? ---------- response 2 03/27/76 11.04 john r reading He's talking about such things as zdswpr which define various system parameters of great potential use in writing more-probably-exportable-to-as-yet-undefined- future-systems. ---------- response 3 03/27/76 16.08 frye mfl More specifically, he's referring to zwpb,zbpw,zbpc,zcpw -- which are system-dependent. Does that clarify the "zp"? ---------- response 4 03/29/76 08.44 judy pso Yes, thank you. ---------- response 5 03/29/76 11.21 friedman csa Now that we all understand the question, could someone generate an answer? Can the system symbols zwpb, zbpw, zcpw, zbpc, etc. be defined to the condensor as constants, so that it will accept them in commands like -common-, -storage-, and -define segment-? ---------- note 25 thesis 03/26/76 15.21 clegg amesrad I need to include a copy of the program for my lesson in a thesis. I can't just use a print-out, because there are some branches which would extend past the 8 1/2 ≠ 11 format. There aren't a great number of these branches --maybe 2 per block or so--so I'm not sure that photo- reduction is the answer. I hate to ask for varians because it would require quite a few pages. Has anyone dealt with this problem before? I'd like to know what others have tried and recommend. janet ---------- response 1 03/26/76 15.58 maggs law Several years ago, students got the U. of Ill. authorities to change the rules and allow computer printouts to be folded and put in an envelope attached to the inside back cover of their thesis. You might get your school to adopt such a rule if it doesn't have one already. ---------- response 2 03/26/76 16.05 chabay chem For my thesis, I photographed the displays from the screen. If you use panatomic-x film, you can do a reversal development, and the prints come out as black on white, and look quite nice. The advantage of photographs over printouts is that the code is much more readable (I still can't remember what all the funny printer symbols mean.) ---------- response 3 03/26/76 17.00 fumento pso I suggest that you contact the med people. They have a special GE terminet printer hooked into a terminal which can list printouts on what I believe is 8.5≠11 paper. ---------- response 4 03/26/76 17.40 david hebrew Also: you may try to find a reducing xerox machine somewhere on your campus. It makes very nice 8.5≠11. copies from normal computer-sized paper. E. ---------- response 5 03/26/76 19.45 elston rhrc The Terminet prints are available in any size width from 4" to 12.5" depending on paper used. The long lines are continued with indentation (both margins can be set). Except for a the greek letters in the access set and fonted characters the text looks very close to the PLATO Editor panel display. Upper and lower case are both available and characters like ¬0¬1¬<¬>‎≠ are made up of composite characters using backspaces. If you are interested in this we might be able to help. It depends on time constraints for you. John Elston ---------- response 6 03/29/76 20.27 meers wright 1. Try lesson 'hardcopy'.. ---------- note 36 lasted flg 03/26/76 19.08 mike b cornell When you set a microtable to be loaded using the DATA1 option from the block directory page of the editor, the last block edited flag is apparently set to block 1-a. Is this intended? M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 1 03/26/76 19.46 blomme s Nope; that should be fixed--the intention of the mark for last editing of that first block is that it reflect only changes to the source text in it, not changes to the lesson directory information (which also happens to be in that block). Thanks. ---------- note 43 schedule? 03/26/76 22.23 church iusn Am getting stuck on the -DATA- page of the shifted-P option tonite. It won't let me see the varian copier schedules or back out. Stop1 is the only way... ---------- response 1 03/26/76 23.45 koning csstaff I'm having no problems... ---------- response 2 03/26/76 23.46 kawell o Works for me. The schedule is a jumpout. Did you wait long enough? ---------- note 54 bye, 4tran 03/27/76 13.24 david behavior Tired of shuffling IBM cards? Too busy for Punchcards Anonymous? There is a fulfilling alternative now available. Enlist yourself in S. H. A. F. T. (the Society to Help Abolish Fortran Teaching) Local chapters are currently enrolling new members. Let's here some appraisals of the role this long awaited organization should play. After all, P-notes are intended to publish opinions. ---------- response 1 03/27/76 13.24 railing iu YEH RAH!!!!!! It's about time somebody did something about that near impossible computer language called Fortran. Replace Fortran with TUTOR!!!!!! Malkin ---------- response 2 03/27/76 14.08 david behavior Well, the author of this note had something a little more fruitful in mind. Surely we could preempt Fortran with a language with greater number crunching ability than TUTOR, APL, perhaps? ≤ At any rate, suggestions as to WHICH LANGUAGE WE SHOULD USE are invited. ---------- response 3 03/27/76 16.01 alan hebrew What's wrong with FORTRAN? If you are clever (I'm not saying that you are.) you can do anything in FORTRAN that you can do in assembler. You can't get more versatile than that. ---------- response 4 03/27/76 16.06 frye mfl What's more, the simpler format of FORTRAN lends itself more easily to object code optimization... I'm not saying it's such a great multi-purpose language, but it certainly is 1) easy to learn (especially for non-CS jocks) 2) easy to program with, and 3) lends itself easily to the number-crunching programs often needed by engineers. APL? You're crazy. Period. G. David ---------- response 5 03/27/76 16.26 luke cornell Alright, but if you want to do anything with characters EASILY, FORTRAN just doesnt have the commands. TOOTER is nice for the student initiated branching, and the judging capabilities, A P L Is great for matrices and vector handling, and SNOBOL is good for list processing. But what we need is a language that can handle all these things universally; I favour PL/I Optimizer for any kind of work except PLATO, its almost as fast as FORTRAN. although nothing can ever replace assembler for versatility ans speed, PL/I is the most convenient for any programmer who wants to expand. Luke Kaven ---------- response 6 03/27/76 18.41 parrello uimatha One should use whichever language which best suits one's needs. ---------- response 7 03/27/76 19.00 david hebrew PASCAL with exponentiation or ALGOL 60 with better I/O would make an excellent substitute for FORTRAN. E. ---------- response 8 03/27/76 20.19 koning csstaff Algol68 ---------- response 9 03/27/76 20.42 jim g reading Esperanto ---------- response 10 03/27/76 21.20 luke cornell Portuguese!! ---------- response 11 03/27/76 21.39 kent unl 1: FORTRAN, although a reasonably powerful lang- uage, cannot begin to "do nearly everything you can in assembler"; e.g., writing your own access methods, recur- sive subroutine calls, dynamic storage allocation, etc. However it does have a fairly fast compiler and produces fairly efficient object code. And certain versions of it, like WATFIV, with its excellent debugging facilities, are very good as a first programming language. 2: APL, an extremely powerful language syntactic- ally--especially with regard to array operations, neverthe- less is fairly inefficient in execution; not so good for real number crunching except, possibly, in devising algo- rithms. Also, it does not implement complex arithmetic. However, as interactive language, it's hard to beat. (cont.) ---------- response 12 03/27/76 21.45 kent unl 3: ALGOL, more powerful than FORTRAN, nevertheless drives me nuts keying in the reserved word delimiters. It also has lousy I/O. If I need its capabilities, I would much rather use 4: PL/I, the language that tries to be everything to everybody and generally succeeds; except for those who demand efficient compilation and object code. However. you can do nearly everything you can do in assembler (except for your own access methods) and if, you're careful, you can make the object code nearly as efficient as that pro- duced by FORTRAN; but not quite. (cont.) ---------- response 13 03/27/76 21.50 kent unl 5: What's this business about punched cards anyway? I though every facility worth mentioning had essentially eliminated the need for an actual physical deck of cards; substituting, perhaps, card images on a DASD file, which is submitted to the input batch stream after appropriate editing. 6: Basically, after all this, I have to agree with Parello, that anyone should have the processing language he or she needs available--even if it's some monstrosity like STAGE II! ---------- response 14 03/27/76 22.36 frye mfl Almost everyone at the U of I in Urbana has to use punched cards -- in fact, it's hard NOT to find a CS freak who does- n't have a big box of them under his arm... As for your claim that ALGOL has lousy IO and something (very unclear) about delimiters, let me say that I have found Burroughs extended ALGOL to be an excellent high- level language with but one fault: it doesn't have high- level data structures, unless you define them yourself (a feature not present in many regular ALGOL compilers). PL/1 might be the best all-around, if it wasn't for the utter ugliness of the language -- there's just not as much structure to it: My first rule in PL/1 is to stick in a semi-colon every 3rd word; it never fails then! G. David ---------- response 15 03/28/76 03.03 alan hebrew And you can write access methods, recursive subroutines, and dynamic memory allocation schemes in FORTRAN. Remember, I said you had to be clever. If you can't figure it out. send me a pnote and I will show you one of FORTRAN's neatest features. ---------- response 16 03/28/76 23.07 banks mfl Fortran is a good language for scientific programming. If you want graphics, you can have TOOTER. The choice you should have is the language for your needs! Fred Banks ---------- response 17 03/29/76 10.12 roth csa G. David: It's true that the 360 at U≤ˇI can't be used interactively, but it's not all that hard to master the DEC-10, which allows interactive FORTRAN, among other things, and permits you to run batch jobs on the 360 without the need for cards. I think it would be more accurate to state that most true CS jocks would be carrying around an Infoton terminal, not a box of cards, if that were possible. M. Roth ---------- response 18 03/29/76 13.53 puterbaugh medneta Yea for M. Roth who seems not only to be a C. S. jock, but a racquetball jock. I personally enjoy programming in the CSL or more commonly known as the Cocker Spaniel language. TˇL ˆP ---------- response 19 03/29/76 15.54 david hebrew One more vote for B6700 ALGOL. Also, you DEC-10 people might get a kick out of looking at a language called SAIL, which is based on ALGOL but has excellent I/O. E. P.S. Al, your clever trick will work only on IBM FORTRAN as far as I know. ---------- response 20 03/29/76 18.13 marquart ee The PLI Level X Optimizing Compiler has everything that has been discussed in these notes. The compiler is quick (it slows down a little when you ask for "ultimate" optimization, but you don't compile a program in that manner very often). It produces VERY efficient object code, and, believe it or not, is relatively useful for writing interactive procedures (before I did PLATO in it I would want multiple ATTENTION keys). The associated PLI Checkout Compiler is very useful in debugging. As for "structure", I find the syntactical "free-form" very useful; just remember what you are doing and the semicolons seem to fall into place naturally. Don't destroy FORTRAN; it's a nice little language for learning first, it lets you realize how fortunate you are to have PLI, and some people like to dink around with it. ---------- response 21 03/30/76 03.20 daleske amesrad I havent seen a language that I like yet. Each has its bad features. None has a flexible yet fast method for making new commands in any language that the system can support, adjusting them to the system's standard, optim- izing them, and allowing them to be used in any language on the system. PL rates quite well. Tooter gets a plus as being the best educational language and one of the better graphics languages (DALI from MIT is the best graphics language that I've seen, talk about flexibility!). PL was created in order to completely replace FORTRAN. They changed it so much that instead of calling it something like FORTRAN 5, they renamed it. Just as well get rid of the dumb languange... Cards! Yeckkkk, no self-respecting CS person would be seen with them! John ---------- response 22 04/01/76 19.42 bob hoffman pitt Nobody mentioned BASIC! PDP-11 RSTS speaks only Basic-Plus. This is a language which takes some of the best features of fortran, algol, etc. and puts them together for a rather powerful system. It took the 'else','while' and 'until' statements from algol and coupled them with the 'if' statement normally found in Basic. Virtual arrays and Record-oriented I/O make this a fine interactive language that is easy to learn. We have students as young as 7 years coming here to Project Solo to learn programming and they learn surprisingly fast. My vote is for Basic-Plus! R↑ˇB↑ˇH ---------- response 23 04/02/76 22.38 luke cornell I stay. Record I/O is Ok, but I like having the choice, myself. PL/I could use a few improvements, but its the best thing going right now. (And I wont comment on ALGOL, I'm sure it's a fine language, but I'd like to find more machines that use it) Luke ---------- response 24 04/04/76 18.11 jr lewis mtc Another vote for B6700 Algol, one of the easiest languages there is to program in and much more powerful than other languages I have seen. If you want to see it in action the compiler here at the Air Force Academy is one of the best. Jeff Lewis ---------- note 56 SM 03/27/76 13.55 snellen medneta I suppose I am overlooking something, but I have been unable to get the 'justification' feature of SM to function in any way differently than normal text insertion. I _did_ remember to set the right hand margin, but the text would still run past it to the right edge of the screen, both in SD mode and upon condensing. --JES ---------- response 1 03/27/76 16.29 luke cornell I would like to see the '¬W' in the right hand margin left during text insertion. Often when writing the first line, I cannot judge where I set the margin. Luke ---------- response 2 03/27/76 16.43 midden s Justification only pads spaces and half-spaces into the line. It does not truncate the line. ---------- response 3 03/28/76 15.33 warner iu And you have to hit LAB to turn the justifier on, while you are writing the text itself. The little word "Normal" that comew on when you are writing text turns to "Centered" and "Justified" in succession when you hit LAB. ---------- response 4 03/28/76 15.52 snellen medneta Yes, I knew about using LAB to set the justification option. Also, a friend told me about the fact that the "justifica- tion" option not being able to truncate a line; it might be a good idea, Midden, to mention this fact in the help sec- tion on text insertion. It's no big thing, but it could serve to prevent confusion on this point in the future. Thanks, --JES ---------- response 5 03/29/76 08.06 seager mtc Another suggestion: how difficult would it be to "draw" two vertical lines, one on the left hand side of the screen (not essential), and one on the right hand side, to mark the margins that were selected?↓ This would appear only during the text insertion.↓ B. C. Seager ---------- response 6 03/29/76 08.52 judy pso Perhaps a Text Insertion which has requested justification could use a -long- to prevent overextending a line. Then an extra LAB (or something) would act like "margin release" on a typewriter. I'm just getting used to pointing at the approximate location in SM to move the cursor around. Such fun! ---------- response 7 03/29/76 09.05 michael cornell Poor Marshall! That is a nice idea, Judy, but how could he possibly guess how many hidden characters you were going to type? Of course, he could use a simulated arrow, but I think marking the margin would be reminder enough for me. M↑ˇi↑ˇk↑ˇe O↑ˆl↑ˆt↑ˆz ---------- note 62 4therecord 03/27/76 16.10 frye mfl To whom it may concern: I have received several remarks during the past few days referring to my involvement in a forgery charge here in Urbana. I wish to state that I am in no way connected with or related to the "David Fry" accused of manufacturing fake U of I ID cards. What a coincidence....! G. David Frye MFL Tag Team ---------- response 1 03/28/76 18.38 schramm cs317 Dave: It just so happens that I work at the ID center here at Urbana. You'll be hearing from us in a few days. We _do_ have ways of making you tale.... J-≤RS ---------- note 67 autosignon 03/27/76 17.21 bob y reading -autosignon- is currently requiring that a password be entered by instructors even though the correct password is attached to the terminal. is that intended? ---------- response 1 03/27/76 23.51 curly iu Uh....would you like just any old user to come up to your terminal and play with an INSTRUCTOR record? You should certainly see the possible damage that could be caused by a malicious user(or a stupid one). Would you let anyone use your author records? I doubt it. The password is to allow only those who SHOULD use the signon to use it. curly≤≤≤≤≤¬↑ˇ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆcurly ---------- response 2 03/28/76 13.59 berger mfl Curly, you misunderstand. Lesson "signon" requires you to type the password to enter the lesson each time, although you may already have it in your codeword buffer. I agree that this is annoying. ---------- response 3 03/28/76 16.41 bob y reading yep, that's what my original note said, mike. but it wasnt what i wanted to ask. let me try again: if i use lesson -signon- to attach a password to a terminal, students can sign in without having to enter the password. but instructors are asked to enter the password even though their password matches the terminal's autosignon information. did someone intentionally do it this way? i'd prefer to have consistency so that the password can be automatically matched for any type of user. ---------- response 4 03/29/76 21.12 meers wright I tend to believe that an instructor shouldnot be able to be autosigned-on to a terminal and that the asking for of the password is intentional. ---------- note 69 fixfair 03/27/76 18.25 sellers arizona Could the reinitialization of the public notes please be standardized so it would be a little more fair to the notes written not too long be the reinitialization could have a fairer shake? I noticed that the very most recent note in the archive notes was a controversial one. I know it was still actively being added to because I was writing a response to it when notes were re-initialized. ---------- response 1 03/27/76 18.31 blomme s Normally only the last day's notes are left; this time since it was a weekend, the notes for the last two days were left. ---------- response 2 03/27/76 19.18 sellers arizona Tell you what I will do. Tonight when I get off work I will come down to plato and check through all the archive records and see what the distributions of lag time of responses to the various notes are. I don't know, but I suspect the that average is higher than one day. If it is higher, could the policy be changed so that the last notes get a better shake? ---------- response 3 03/27/76 20.05 blomme s Since these notes were nearly full, further note writing would soon have been impossible. I therefore spent some time getting an archive file set up and doing the required re-initialization so people could keep writing notes. I assume that any discussions considered important enough will be continued; I really do also hope that most people have something more valuable than this to talk about. ---------- response 4 03/29/76 11.20 lombardo ed I really disagree that this topic is not valuable. It appears that notes are much more rapidly fading into the archieves which does in fact cut down on the amount of discussion that ensues. I realize it is possible to continue the discussion but it requires an individual to go back, look up the old response, return to the current notes, find the note of interest again, cycle to the last response and write a comment. Why are they disappearing so rapidly these days? ---------- response 5 03/29/76 11.32 friedman csa Probably because they're being CREATED more rapidly. ---------- note 85 copyright 03/28/76 00.37 incorvia aero Where can one find information about obtaining a copyright? I have tried AIDS but all the information there refers to Public notes which are not on record (the latest one listed is on 2/20/75 and Public notes on record only go back to 12/12/75) ---------- response 1 03/28/76 01.41 hinton ssu Perhaps Systems could put this discussion somewhere so that in could be accessed ? It was a very enlightening dis- cussion. ndh ---------- response 2 03/28/76 11.52 railing iu Just what kind of information do you want? How to get a copyright on anything, or information on copyrighting PLATO materials. I have on hard copy most of the old general notes dealing with copyrighting PLATO material and will be hapy to share the info if you need it. If all you want is a general copyright, then write to the Library of Congress, Copyright Division, and ask for information and the proper forms. Hope this helps... Malkin ---------- response 3 03/28/76 14.01 berger mfl Since PLATO doesn't provide copyrights, it is unfair to expect "aids" to have such information. There used to be a discussion of copyrights, etc. in a notefile called "courseware". I believe there are a few printouts of the notes around. ---------- response 4 03/28/76 16.14 mike b cornell Notesfile "courseware" is still around (or was last week). Some of the earliest notes are not listed in the directory--just enter 0 at the "what note" arrow to see these. This file contains lots of interesting stuff--I was glad to see that it was kept. M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 5 03/28/76 18.39 lawrance medokla1 PLATO says -courseware- "Does not exist." Ah, well.. ---------- note 87 monitor 03/28/76 03.01 rick hebrew Today, I've been in monitor mode several times (watching the other person's display), and when I type, I've been losing an awful lot of keys. Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon? ---------- response 1 03/28/76 16.17 mike b cornell The talk arrows in monitor mode are fairly slow-- if the other person is a fast typist, or if the system is just slow, you may lose keypresses or experience long delays before your keypresses appear on the panel. This is some- what annoying; I wonder if anything can be done about it. M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 2 03/29/76 08.29 marty smith mtc more on monitor: - was monitoring a student this morning and upon my exit via -STOP1-, the "Users currently running" display from records was displayed on the student's screen. - there hasn't been a day in the past 3 weeks where i haven't lost keys in talk. ---------- response 3 03/29/76 08.33 fay o At least I have noticed in the monit_or_ (vs. monitor_ee_) mode that typing at any reasonable speed is IMPOSSIBLE. This is (for me, locally here in Urbana) a relatively recent (and very unpleasant) development! This is definitely not the way it was behaving not too long ago. Help?! ---------- response 4 03/29/76 10.33 sherry park We've been having the same problem when monitoring students and upon exiting the students see the display "students currently running". We have notified the author and she is checking it out. ---------- response 5 03/29/76 11.00 berger mfl I complained about the "students currently running" display problem several months ago. ---------- response 6 03/29/76 12.31 fay o To avoid confusion: This discussion is covering TWO TYPES of monitoring. The first is (apparently) the monitor mode in which one finds oneself upon pressing LAB1 while -talk- ing to another author. The second is the type of monitoring that is initiated by an author in course records on a user in his/her course. The typing speed problem is apparently present in both situations. Obviously, the students running display would not be seen by monitor-_ee_'s in the first instance. ---------- note 89 holdover 03/28/76 08.16 sellers arizona Public notes fills up at a very fast rate. The most recent section of Public notes archives was re-initialized after 8 days. I tabulated the following stats for -$0-555 3/17 to 3/25: ¬$hrs written after main note: 0-24 24-48 48-72 72-96 96-120 120-144 144-168 ¬$response: 384 49 11 7 2 2 2 16; of the response were writen after 24 hours, 5: after 48 hours, and less than 3: after 75 hours. These figures are not weighted to take in the truncation affect of re-initialization. Could more than one day's notes be held over when notes are re-initialized? ---------- response 1 03/28/76 08.53 bonnie matha Interesting data! Carrying another day into each new notes file, however, will just make the turn-around time for a file one day shorter. It's not much more difficult to go into the most recent archive to read a particular day's notes than it is to read notes for any day in the current Public Notes file. (You have to type the actual date rather than press -BACK- until you get there.) It would be helpful though if the HELP section for Public Notes could more fully explain how to get to archives. It is not obvious that you can type in an OLD date and be taken into an archive. I really had a difficult time finding archives the first time I tried. (continued) ---------- response 2 03/28/76 09.10 bonnie matha Also, when an author sees note ¬$0 at the top of his list, perhaps -BACK- could take him directly to the last page of listed notes in the most recent archive (as if archives and the present file were one continuous file). There could be a special message about this feature on the main page, seen only when ¬$0 is listed. ---------- response 3 03/28/76 12.17 d williams unidel He means: so you can still _respond_ to a note. Once it's in archives you can't respond to it anymore. (He's continuing note 69.) ---------- response 4 03/28/76 17.21 frye mfl I must admit that that is some very impressive data, but I don't see what good it does! It shows that over 84: of the responses were made within 24 hours, which seems reasonable. What your "statistics" do NOT show is 1) the time required to get the desired response (i.e. a system response or the answer to a question 2) lag time on responses to notes which are of a general interest...for example, see george carter's note in recent archives. My guess is that the results of (1) would be will within a 24-hour limit; (2) is not relevant since a particularly interesting discussion will carry over into new Notes. Just my opinion, however. Do we HAVE to waste any more space on this?↓ G. David ---------- response 5 03/29/76 14.49 d williams unidel Excellent points, I think. You've changed _m___ mind, anyway. ¬↑ˇ↑≡≤↑≠Dan≤≤≤¬≤I≤['≤"]≤ˆˆ_ ---------- response 6 03/29/76 21.29 meers wright Maybe the public notes file could be extended and then archived regularly (every 3-4 days), but only for the earliest 3-4 days worth of notes. This would keep the latest 4-5 days worth of notes active, but would require an extra archiving operation about once a week. ---------- note 97 *error 03/28/76 15.46 novak politics There is a very wierd error in lesson "cs196j". In block "d", unit "twos", if there is not an asterik on the previous line, there is a condense error stating that the unit caoont be found. With the asterik on the line before the unit command, the program condenses fine; no errors The same unit was tried out in different lessons and blocks, and there were no problems. You have to see it to believe it. I showed the error to midden/s, so if you want more info, contact either him or me. Chris ---------- response 1 03/28/76 18.08 white p Should be fixed now. ---------- response 2 03/29/76 11.08 novak politics Thanks, it's working ok now...... Chris By the way, what happened? cn ---------- response 3 03/29/76 12.34 white p The last line of the previous block was missing its "end-of-line" indicator, so the first line of the next block was a continuation of it. Thus, your -unit- command was a continuation of a write statement. When you had an "*" in front of the unit command, the "*" was part of the -write-, and the unit was condensed properly. However, by the time I got around to looking at your file, you had made some modifications to the previous block, so there was an "eol" on the last line... and the problem was "fixed". The only way I know for this to happen is with a common-to-source conversion. ---------- note 103 pnotoption 03/28/76 17.40 heckman css What about the possible pnotes option of being able to enter more than one course for a particular person, perhaps separated by slashes. It would either send the note to all of the signons, and/or whenever the person signs on, it sends it to that particular course, so that he wouldn't have a number of the same note lying around. For example: name ¬6supreme being course ¬6m/p/s ---------- response 1 03/28/76 18.19 mike b cornell Being able to send a note to more than one course at once would by a convenience, but only a minor one. It is pretty easy to send copies of notes now, and I'm sure that most of the authors on the system only have one sign- on anyway. Also, I don't think the latter part of your sug- gestion--delaying the sending of the note until the person signs on--is feasible. The note has to be stored some- where in the interim, and things just aren't set up to allow that. M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 2 03/28/76 20.28 k mast p Yuck. I know of no reason why a person would want to recieve notes for more than one sign-on. Are you aware that you can press the COPY key and get the name of the last person to whom you sent a note? It is thus quite simple to send notes to the same person in more than one course anyway. ---------- response 3 03/29/76 07.59 mont csa I thought copy usually gives one's own signon? Please leave it that way. However, I have occasionally found myself in the position of not being sure of the course for the signon I'm sending to. It would be nice if I didn't have to reenter the name each time, as I try several courses. ---------- response 4 03/29/76 08.12 marty smith mtc pressing -NEXT- at either arrow without typing anything gives your own name and course at each respective arrow. ---------- response 5 03/29/76 09.12 copeland pfw also... Having just sent a note to someone, -copy- will return at the arrows the name and course of the person that you have just sent a note to... **just like the man said**... seeyuz later the Wiz hisself ---------- note 109 goodthing 03/28/76 21.32 levy mcl Turn-off feature in course records is very useful. Couldnt comment about it in System Features, so doing it here ---------- note 116 copier 03/29/76 08.44 schreiner csa Are the copier shifts two or four hours? The rules say two hours, -help- in edit mode says (and edit mode enforces) four hours. ---------- response 1 03/29/76 09.28 fay o Thanks for the report. The help sequence on that page was in error: two hour shifts is the rule. That error has been corrected. However, I am puzzled by your report that the earliest you are allowed to sign up is four hours from the current time. I tried it myself and it seemed to to make the appropriate check and let me sign up for the first slot which was two hours from the current time. Let me know if you can duplicate this apparent problem. ---------- response 2 03/30/76 07.45 schreiner csa -personal note: I was too dumb to use it right. ---------- note 121 next ¬D 03/29/76 09.12 hinton ssu When one presses NEXT on the block display page, an arrow indicates the last block entered. However, if you go into, say, block "b", then go to "c" by pressing NEXT1, or back to "a" through BACK1, then leave or condense the lesson, the arrow will still indicate block "b" when you return and press NEXT. Often this makes no difference,but if you are out of a lesson for several days (or maybe even hours), and assume that the arrow will tell you where you were editing last, you will be wrong. If there is a lot of similar-but-not-identical code, or the lesson is long, you may have trouble finding your place. Could the ¬D be updated as one condenses or backs out of a block ? Or is there too much hassle involved ? Low priority, I guess, but useful.... ndh ---------- response 1 03/29/76 09.22 woolley p It _is_ updated whenever you finish editing a block in any way. The trouble is that the last edit time is only stored to the nearest minute, so if you change two blocks within the same clock minute, there is no way of knowing which was actually the last edited. ---------- response 2 03/29/76 09.27 hinton ssu Oh, I see...I wasn't aware of the time factor, and I had to go to another block to make a quick change in a unit that had args passed to it. After I found out, I tested it several times, but of course I just went from block to block, then condensed, so I was well inside the time limit. I think that makes this a special case that would be too unusual to require any special treatment. Thanks for the quick response. ndh ---------- note 125 pnote opt 03/29/76 10.08 baker me Does the option in course records to prevent a person from receiving pnotes still exist. I have an author who cannot recieve pnotes (yes the rest of the course can), and I cannot find the place (if it exists) where I can let him get pnotes. It used to be with the allowable author options but I cant find it. Fred Baker ---------- response 1 03/29/76 10.44 k mast p Hmmmm. I think it was an allowable feature for a few days, but due to negative user reaction it was removed. It was finally decided only allow a person to turn on / off his TALK and NOTE options by himself, i.e. not to allow a course director to turn on / off these options. We thus hope to put an extra option off of the user display to allow one to accomplish this, but have not done so yet. ---------- response 2 03/29/76 10.48 michael english Could it be that he himself has turned off his PNOTE recep- tion capability and does not know how to turn it back on? Just a possibility. ---------- response 3 03/29/76 10.49 stone pfw I would suggest turning the option that says " c TURN OFF a record." to YES, then back to NO and see if it makes any difference..It shouldnt.. Scott Stone ---------- response 4 03/29/76 11.34 baker me Scott that didnt work. Also if the author turned off the pnotes anyone who tried to send him a note would be shown the message that was left. All one gets in this case is this person cannot recieve personal notes. By the way he is welke of me Fred Baker ---------- response 5 03/29/76 12.40 judy pso Try deleting him completely, and the re-entering him in the course. ---------- note 135 -from- 03/29/76 11.21 kane phys The old form of the -from- command (where the name of the from lesson is put in a variable) is no longer flagged as obsolete, but it is not mentioned in "aids". Can we count on this form working in the future? ---------- response 1 03/30/76 10.51 frye mfl See New Systems Features note ¬$102. We at the language lab have taken this to imply that the variable -from- and -jumpout- will indeed work in the future without condense warnings; however, we've been known (on rare occasions) to make mistakes -- a systems response would be appreciated. G. David Frye MFL Tag Team ---------- response 2 03/31/76 16.14 friedman csa In response to a question in psonotes, I got the following from Bill Golden. In the absence of a system response here, I insert his note:↓↓ *response* 03/30/76 13.32 golden s I believe this will stay as it is, but it is not clear that the old form should go into aids since it still may be prohibited from published lessons. Basically, the system staff has decided to let this aspect of TUTOR slide. They don't like the way it is, but won't fix it on PLATO IV. ******** ---------- response 3 04/01/76 09.11 kane phys Thank you. ---------- note 138 goto¬=join 03/29/76 11.52 michael english Both ¬)File¬) and ¬)Topic¬) are similarly dimensioned arrays. The following line condenses perfectly: goto And(File=Topic),reinit,x Yet the following do not: do And(File=Topic),reinit,x join And(File=Topic),reinit,x jump And(File=Topic),reinit,x ---------- response 1 03/30/76 10.21 shirer vu Last summer, when arrays were announced, it was noted that they were only guaranteed to work in -calc- and -show- but might well work in other places. Each individual command must be rewritten to use arrays correctly. Evidently no one else wants to do this, so it will have to wait until (or if) I can return. Eventually, arrays should work correctly everywhere an ordinary calc would work. ---------- note 139 sd/touch 03/29/76 11.57 liftig conn In the SD it is often the case where one must trace a pattern onto the screen. This is impossible with the cursor being movable by the touch panel alone. Is there any possibility of having that feature toggled so that items can be traced onto terminals with touch panels? rl ---------- response 1 03/29/76 12.43 judy pso With touch panels, you can move the cursor either by touch OR by the arrow keys. For tracing, I suppose that the touch could be a nuisance as you ran your finger along the line just to "keep track". Turning the touch off would be handy for that case, but you CAN use the arrow keys. ---------- response 2 03/29/76 12.50 golden s This need has been noted by others. Therefore an option to disable the touch panel was added this morning. Try shift-p. ---------- response 3 03/29/76 13.46 liftig conn Wonderful! Thanks very much! rl ---------- note 140 sequence c 03/29/76 12.31 errol kka One of our instructors wanted to set up a sequence with review for his students who had been using the usual index page previously. He set up the sequence on the module page as module 1. Unfortunately, he failed to template the students to this new set up. Then he had them do the 1st lesson he wanted on the last page of the index modules. Now he wants to have all the students just go through his sequence, but he is concerned that they would lose their place in the lesson or credit if he did the template now. Is this concern correct? ---------- response 1 03/29/76 13.01 chabay s Students who have already completed the lesson will have no problem. In fact, the sequence with review should allow them to begin with the second lesson in the sequence. However, templating the curriculum assignment for students who are in the middle of the lesson will indeed cause them to lose restart status. A possible solution would be to set up the curriculum so that completion of the lesson in question is the criterion for completing the index module, and that after completing the index module, students are sent to the sequence with review module. That way, students will be sent to the sequence after completing that lesson, and will then be able to proceed with the rest of the sequence. ---------- response 2 03/29/76 14.34 boas unidel I also have developed modules of instruction in Vocational-Technical Education that assist teachers in developing modules. I would be happy to share ideas with you. Send a p/note to (boas of unidel). E↑ˇB ---------- note 147 shift ‎ ¬$ 03/29/76 13.44 kreft cs196 Can anybody tell me if and /or where there is a lesson describing the -‎1- ¬$ codes for internal mode erase,rewrite etc? I have looked through AIDS with no luck. Thanx Kipp ---------- response 1 03/29/76 14.02 dave fuller uimc They will not be listed in AIDS. They are a means for plato to do some special things with writing, and are by no means released, or public. You should not use them in any "serious" work, as their function could become meaningless at any time. Otherwise, public notes excepted, they sure can be fun. I would direct you to lesson "discuss1", where the most complete discussion of these codes, and animation in general resides. ---------- note 153 seminar 03/29/76 14.53 golden s PLATO SEMINAR Title: the PLATO V Student Terminal Jack Stifle CERL Wednesday, March 31 Room 198, CSL, 3:00pm Abstract: The prototype model of the next generation PLATO V terminal will be discussed. Arichitectural and operating features will be described. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 05.09 daleske amesrad Will this be taped and tapes available (along with diagrams etc?) How can we get a copy of the tapes? John ---------- note 154 itoa 03/29/76 15.48 dvm a please correct "aids" re -itoa- the third argument _returns_ the alpha character length. ---------- response 1 03/30/76 09.54 jmk pso Fixed. Public announcements of AIDS errors are certainly of value, but they may get quicker attention if noted through "psonotes". If in doubt, send a copy to "psonotes". ---------- note 156 Condensor 03/29/76 16.20 stewart arizona I just noticed that when both a student and author are trying to condense the same lesson and the student condenses the lesson, the author is _not_ taken out of the condense queue. Finally when the author condenses the lesson, the student gets deleted. If I remember correctly, this did not use to happen. Is this a bug or something intentional??? Bruce Stewart ---------- response 1 03/29/76 16.52 dave fuller uimc Been happening for ages... I gave up the crusade for this one long ago... ---------- response 2 03/30/76 09.19 judy pso If the author does a shift-STOP condense, PLATO has no choice but to assume that the author _wants_ new copy of the lesson brought in, and this requires deleting the student. If you (the author) do not want this to happen, condense the lesson with DATA from the Author Mode page. ---------- response 3 03/30/76 09.22 schreiner csa Shift-LAB ?? ---------- response 4 03/30/76 10.10 stewart arizona Let me make myself clear. This happen right after a crash, the student signs in and is put in the condense queue. At the same time the author trys to run the lesson from the author mode page, not by STOP1. This should not delete the student when the author enters, but it does. Bruce Stewart ---------- response 5 03/30/76 10.14 michael english Try SHIFT/DATA. Its function is redefined regularly; who knows what it does now? Gary Michaelˆ* ˆ*One who has entered his security code 487 times into the edit micro slot. ---------- note 157 Q 03/29/76 16.30 clark lawyer in the it would be nice dept: In the editor, you are only given ten spaces after "Q". This means that oftentimes, you cannot access what you want in aids without retyping it at the DATA arrow in aids...any chance of getting more space there (even if more than 10 letters aren't displayed?) ---------- response 1 03/30/76 09.15 jmk pso It would be nice. In the meantime, just type Q (no tag). You get to the DATA arrow with a minimum of hassle. ---------- response 2 04/02/76 22.47 luke cornell How about having the "Q" (no tag) take you right to the DATA arrow? Luke ---------- note 160 russian 03/29/76 19.06 schramm cs317 I've just noticed that charsets/russian has no character for the Cyrillic capital V ("B"). The slot is open, so I hope this will be corrected in the near future, as I am using this charset for my lesson and would hate to have to change charsets at this point in time....I would appreciate a pnote response when this is corrected. ---------- response 1 03/30/76 11.35 judy pso This was an error which crept in when the "copy-a-charset" option of the character editor was skipping a letter. "copy-a-charset" is working correctly now, and I have fixed the missing "B". Please, everybody, if you find missing letters in the charset library, report them to us! ---------- note 166 SD copy 03/30/76 02.08 sellers arizona I have a suggestion for the SD copy key. When one uses the justification ¬ mode ¬ of text ¬ insertion, ¬ the copy buffer con- tains ¬ the ¬ copy ¬ of ¬ the modified line of text ¬ with ¬ half-spaces and all rather than the original line of text. I think that the original line is more useful to have ¬ than ¬ the ¬ modified ¬ line. ¬ One ¬ can always reproduce the modified ¬ line ¬ from the ¬ original, ¬ but one can not reproduce the original ¬ (plus ¬ or ¬ minus ¬ a ¬ word ¬ or whatever ¬ one ¬ wants to do the line) from the ¬ modifed ¬ line ¬ without ¬ retyping the line. The modified ¬ form ¬ is ¬ not ¬ likely to be useful ¬ if ¬ there ¬ are ¬ additional modifications ¬ to ¬ be ¬ done ¬ to ¬ the ¬ line. The original line can be useful. ---------- response 1 03/30/76 13.00 harkrader o Here's something I'm curious about: Why do people justify lines in their notes? I have never had any trouble reading notes that aren't justified, and I'm sure that the use of half-spaces will make the eventual printing of notes as difficult to read as animation does. Also, it's distracting to have those little 'breaks' when plotting justified lines. To top it all off, I feel like I am reading a form letter from some insurance agency, since they are among the few groups who feel compelled to justify letters. See, you were able to read this... Al ---------- response 2 03/30/76 15.41 midden s It looks more professional to have margins that line up. Hummm... ok, John. But, I see can't understand why people even wanted the copy key to be honest. M.Midden ---------- response 3 03/30/76 16.54 michael english It sure would be nice if half-spaces were hard-wired so the framer doesn't have to keep resetting the terminal *at* location, thus slowing transmission and plotting, and in- creasing the amount of bits that need to be sent. If it is of any interest to anyone, in timing tests using the justified and unjustified version of the note which began this sequence, the justified version took 30: more time to plot and 15: more CPU than the normal version. Anyone know if the PLATO V terminal has hard-wired half- spaces and half-backspaces? ---------- response 4 03/30/76 17.40 sellers arizona I feel that my notes are justified. ---------- response 5 03/30/76 20.01 blomme s Conclusion: it may be justified, but it's a waste of time! ---------- response 6 03/31/76 08.34 berger mfl Incidentally, I use spaces to justify my notes. I still feel that the appearance shows a little more "care", and it is not significantly slower than an unjustified note. ---------- response 7 03/31/76 09.57 parrello uimatha The most upsetting thing was not the justification, but the fact that the lines were so short. ---------- response 8 04/01/76 16.49 sellers arizona As much text per line as a REAL news paper. ---------- note 172 testor err 03/30/76 09.51 mcneil a uicc Why isn't option q (echo times) working in testor? ---------- response 1 03/30/76 10.05 woolley p It works ok for me... ? ---------- response 2 03/30/76 11.15 al9000 german I have to conclude that this terminal has a bad echo register. I have sat on that page for more than a minute with nothing happening. ---------- note 174 binaries 03/30/76 09.58 lawrance medokla1 A note of curiosity from a relatively new author: After a series of system crashes this morning we get the message to the effect that new binaries are being loaded due to new PLATO. What exactly does this mean and what all does it entail on the computer end of the line? $d≤ d≤ d≤ d≤ d≤≤≤≤≤i≤ i≤ i≤ i≤≤≤≤v≤ v≤ v≤≤≤a≤ a≤≤D≤↑[***** ---------- response 1 03/30/76 10.10 fay o You will learn in time that that wonderful lesson "aids" contains many answers to these seemingly obscure problems. According to the "aids" writeup (in part): "Binary refers to the condensed version of the lesson." In other words when you request to run a lesson in "student mode" it is gotten from the disk and condensed. The lesson then resides in memory (ECS) so that you may "execute" or "use" it. The "aids" writeup goes on to explain how copies of binaries are made on subsequent requests to use the lesson. Tim ---------- response 2 03/30/76 10.18 fay o (Sort of forgot the first part of your question): Whenever we load different versions of the PLATO software into the computer, the old copies of lesson binaries (made while operating under the previous version) are automatically destroyed. This is to ensure compatibility in the manner in which the lessons behave under the new version of the PLATO software. ---------- response 3 03/30/76 11.56 judy pso Thus, with a new version of PLATO, each lesson requested must be "condensed" anew. Normally, as students drift in the lessons are condensed little by little during the day. When everybody tries to condense all at once we get the big condense queues. Condensing is a very "expensive" operation for the computer. ---------- response 4 03/30/76 14.26 dave fuller uimc Please do not animate in notes. It makes a real mess out of (future) prints of these notes files. The limits of the printer make it such that printing the contents of an innocent animation turns it into a garbage pile of un-intelligible characters. Thanks (this is a recording) ---------- response 5 03/30/76 14.33 guerra uimc ¬W‎4*¬< *¬< *¬< *¬< *¬< *¬< *¬< *¬< *¬< *¬< *¬< There! Have a little taste of your own medicine! ---------- response 6 04/01/76 10.17 woods med all oklahoma authors are being instructed by a sign-on message that the use of animation in public note files will result in restriction of author priviledges... since i came on the system over a year ago i have seen repeated pleas to stop such childish misuse of resources... and i have a file of printed notes with all that unintelli- gible garbage ...i have had enough of it and there will be no more such input from oklahoma... any other course directors willing to play the heavy on this one?... ---------- note 175 course msg 03/30/76 10.03 mont csa I just used the new course editor for the first time, and I notice that there is still no way to enter the same message in several courses, without retyping it each time. This was particularly frustrating this morning when I had to enter a message for 6 courses, and PLATO went down every 2 minutes. Any chance for an improvement in this area? Another related problem: sometimes half the students in a course have the same old message which I'm willing to delete. Unfortunately 1 or 2 students have individual messages which I want them to keep. What I would like to be able to do, is replace messages of the first type, with- out deleting each one separately, and without erasing the individual messages. ---------- response 1 03/30/76 10.08 michael english In general, the course records message editor is inadequate, as are its limited options. As instructors become more sophisticated they tend to use such auxiliary features more; it would be nice if it was a bit easier to use, per- haps like the PNOTE editor or the proposed student comment editor. ---------- response 2 03/30/76 10.12 fay o Here, here! ---------- response 3 03/30/76 10.27 golden s I suspect that we shall virtually or maybe actually do away with the present message option when the proposed student- instructor communication system is implemented. ---------- response 4 03/30/76 11.47 friedman csa Well, wait a minute: If the present option is removed, please do leave us something comparable in its place: some means of sending at least a one-shot message, either to an individual or to a group, which they MUST see when they sign on. This gets a LOT of use. ---------- response 5 03/30/76 11.59 judy pso IF anything is done, I expect that b sherwood/s will have to do it. I will be sure that he sees these notes when he returns. ---------- response 6 03/31/76 08.17 mont csa Thanks, Judy. ---------- note 186 longqueue 03/30/76 10.37 berger cerlcc 1 hour and 34 minutes after the old deadstart version was loaded, and all binaries destroyed, the condense queue is still 20 long. Are there any reasonable estimates of how long it takes before the condense queues go down to normal length at such a time? ---------- response 1 03/30/76 10.46 a appel uni I agree. Presently, I am sitting at the copier, For the last 15 minutes I have been trying to condense a lesson so I could print some of the displays. I do not have unlimited time. I thought that I could come to the copier, copy my displays for a class, and leave within 20 minutes. I guess this is just a utopian thought . . . ---------- response 2 03/30/76 12.05 judy pso I have observed that a re-load during the day usually takes _at_ _least_ 1 1/2 hours to settle down to normal queues. ---------- response 3 03/30/76 14.04 rader s Correct, Judy. ---------- response 4 03/30/76 14.47 avner s It seems that the queue you encountered was one of the "normal" effects of a crowd of requests for un-binaried lessons that occur at the start of each hour during peak loads. The queue due to the reload was exhausted about 46 minutes after the reload. ---------- note 187 ridi$cls$ 03/30/76 10.43 p cohen med Here is a strange anomaly concerning $cls$. I'm sure you would believe me if I said that 1 $cls$ 60 = 1. If you'd also believe that 1 $cls$ 120 = 1, then you'd be wrong! Actually 1 $cls$ 120 = o04000000000000000000, and 1 $cls$ 124 = 1! Other large big circular left shifts give similar results. Seems to be off by 4 bits every 60, due to a mask- ing problem, I guess. Can it be fixed? --paul ---------- response 1 03/30/76 11.03 white p The hardware in the computer that does the circular left shift uses the bottom 6 bits to determine the amount of the shift. and bit 17 to determine whether to do a circular left shift or an arithmetic right shift. [Bits numbered high bit=59, low bit=0.] I think you have to live with it. ---------- response 2 03/30/76 11.48 friedman csa Better yet, don't use it, since it will surely be different on any different CPU which might eventually be used. ---------- response 3 03/30/76 12.06 judy pso Will stick a comment into AIDS. ---------- note 191 birthday 03/30/76 11.14 s zweig iusn The-I-Know-It-Doesn't-Belong-In-Here-Dep't-But... Yesterday was the 22nd birthday of Karen Ann Quinlan. Happy birthday, Karen. May God love you more than your fellow man seems to. ---------- response 1 03/30/76 12.09 hobbs politics Your right, it doesn't belong here, It belongs in NEWS.. ---------- response 2 03/30/76 17.19 sellers arizona pad ---------- response 3 03/30/76 22.34 broadus css file13 ---------- response 4 03/30/76 22.44 schramm cs317 Perhaps it would be an excellent forum topic.... Anyway, it was an excellent sentiment. I tend to think it belongs in the Lest We Forget Dept. ---------- response 5 03/31/76 18.13 frye mfl HOT NEWS FLASH: The New Jersey Supreme Court today ruled that Karan Quinlan did indeed have the "right to die" -- the historic decision, which overturned a lower court ruling, stated that since Karen would never be able to regain control of herself, and since Mr. Quinlan was her legal guardian, he could (after obtaining agreement by a team of doctors picked if necessary by himself) allow the artificial machines which keep Karen alive to be disconnected. An appeal to the decision has not been mentioned at this time. ---------- note 201 backout 03/30/76 12.37 lombardo ed Why is it when a lineset or charset is on page 3 of a lesson and I BACK out of it I am brought back to page l instead of page 3 where I started? If I delete the lineset or charset I am returned to the correct page it was listed on. dal ---------- response 1 03/30/76 14.28 michael cornell That is because the charset editor and the lineset editor are not in the same lesson as the Block Directory Page, and those lessons are not smart enough to remember which part the char/lineset is in. That means that when they -jumpout- to the lesson with the Block Directory Page, the pointers get reinitialized, and you are in part one. The delete option, on the other hand, is in the same lesson, so the pointers are saved. I imagine that the reason that this is not fixed is that doing so would be rather messy... M↑ˇi↑ˇk↑ˇe O↑ˆl↑ˆt↑ˆz ---------- response 2 03/30/76 15.46 midden s Yes, at one point in time I started to clean all this kind of stuff up. I started with a simple connection to aids saving inspect/change mode. Several days later it finally seemed to work correctly. There just seems to be more things dependant upon everything else than one ever could estimate. Some rainy week maybe I'll try to fix this and other similar things. M.Midden ---------- note 208 back1next1 03/30/76 15.04 bowery comm I notice that in ALL non-TUTOR blocks the entry (options) page has no use for SHIFT BACK or SHIFT NEXT. Could these be made to take one to the last and next block respectivly for consistancy? (I have gotten stuck on a common block page more time than I care to mention) ---------- response 1 03/30/76 15.53 anderer ee This would be VERY nice, and consistant with the rest of the editor. From another one who often gets stuck, dg ---------- response 2 03/30/76 16.02 s zweig iusn Aye,aye! Ʃteve ---------- response 3 03/30/76 17.40 michael cornell I would also appreciate the change of the lineset and leslist displays so that DATA would edit (like the common, micro, and charset displays). This way, it is half of one and half the other. Actually, I would settle for DATA as a "synonym" for NEXT where appropriate. M↑ˇi↑ˇk↑ˇe O↑ˆl↑ˆt↑ˆz ---------- response 4 03/30/76 18.08 s zweig iusn I think fortner/p once mentioned that the charset editor was to be changed so that NEXT would be the edit key. Then all the editors would be similar. However, nothing seems to have been done yet. Here's hopin'!! Ʃteve ---------- response 5 03/30/76 19.48 fortner p For leslists and linesets, you may now press DATA besides NEXT to edit. NEXT1 and BACK1 now active at non-source blocks. Changes will be in effect next system reload.... ---------- response 6 03/30/76 20.23 galcher uimc Thank you very much Brand! ---------- response 7 03/30/76 20.28 s zweig iusn Now _THAT'S_ what you call SERVICE!! Outasight!!Thankxs muchly! Ʃteve ---------- response 8 03/30/76 23.13 mike b cornell Service like this can make your whole day. Thanks very much, Brand! M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 9 03/31/76 05.19 daleske amesrad A change in 5 hours 44 minutes!! Is this some kind of record? Brand you better watch out or you will be getting those changes done before they are requested! Thanks very much! Fritz had completed a version of bigchar that was to have been attached to the charset editor but due to our space crunch here we had to delete the code. (It had been waiting for three months). Anyway, we still have the listing when the time comes... John ---------- response 10 03/31/76 09.57 hinton ssu Thanks from here too. It makes working just that much easier, and every little addition helps ! ndh ---------- response 11 03/31/76 11.16 friedman csa More thanks. We appreciate responses like that! ---------- note 214 awful site 03/30/76 16.52 silver ve Is anyone working on the code for entering course and user types in the course restriction list of lesson "site"? The present entry conventions are pretty awful! John Silver ---------- response 1 03/30/76 21.19 travers mxc As long as we're on the subject: How 'bout a site option to backout all users who do not match the signon restrictions currently in force? This would save a _lot_ of time when classes are scheduled. But I think the current restriction editor is quite adequate. What changes did you have in mind? ---------- response 2 03/31/76 08.37 berger mfl For a start, being able to toggle user types on and off when first entering a course name. Many times I have accidentally pressed the wrong key for a user type, and I have to back out and "change" the entry. ---------- response 3 03/31/76 10.47 silver ve Thanks, Mike. That's the situation that gives me the most grief. Many other features should be added to site, but the ones that are there already should be easier to use. ---------- note 220 tutordis 03/30/76 18.40 clark lawyer I have written a lesson which will enable authors to: 1) store in datasets a large number of displays written in TUTOR using the basic presentation commands, and 2) execute those displays for only a minimum charge of ECS. This is especially useful when trying to write your own router. You may program 100's of index pages and only be charged for about 400 words of ECS. See lesson "tutordis" for details (student mode). Thanks goes to Gary Loitz for the idea. J. Clark Kelso ---------- response 1 03/30/76 23.22 frye mfl I'd like to see your implementation of it. We have used such a method of displaying text, problems, even judging student answers and scoring! The best rationale I can offer is that with a 80+ terminal site, we need to save as much ECS as we can, and this is one way of doing it. Also, there has been some discussion of designing editor/ drivers for use by non-computer teachers, etc. who wish to stick to a basic format and do not desire to learn the intricacies of TUTOR (they didn't have the "20 minutes" re- quired to learn it, I suppose!). Anyone else doing any work in this area? ---------- response 2 03/31/76 05.25 daleske amesrad We are building a -use-able driver/editor that has a few more options than -mrouter- (like 16 topics and access to a general jumpout list if the instructor wishes...) Entry is controlled by an Access Control List much as is used for access control of gnotes. The information is stored in a 64 word record length dataset and is loaded directly into student vars... Common is 322 words and will allow backout of any student in the router. The editor is in a separate lesson so that only the essential minimum ECS usage is charged. John ---------- response 3 03/31/76 07.56 clark lawyer We are doing a great deal of work in this area. It is not specific to routers however. We are in the process of finishing two programs which will allow a prof to come to PLATO, and develop a program without knowing anything about TUTOR. One example of a small series of lessons which will be developed in this manner in a couple of weeks are 2 programs accessed throught lesson "counsel". The counselling program is -use-able so that one program only takes up one part in a lesson. ---------- response 4 03/31/76 10.06 golden s Techniques such as this are useful in some cases (Most of aids runs in such an interpretive mode.) but you have to be warry of the price you pay in added CPU load and disk activity. Lessons which use very frequent disk accesses may have trouble on this system as our use of disks increases. They are much more likely to run into diffi- culties on other systems which are likely to be running a standard range of computer jobs (with heavy disk use) along with PLATO. ---------- response 5 03/31/76 11.14 keith s matha CDC has begun development of a Computer Managed Instruction (CMI) system which at some point in the future will allow non-computer oriented instructors to construct tests which may include graphs and graphics. ---------- response 6 03/31/76 14.01 frye mfl We are aware of the disk accessing problem; with efficient use of storage and disk space, we can minimize the ¬$ of accesses required. Has there been any more recent discus- sion of "system limits" since the set of Sysnotes back in 1974? Some guidelines based on the expected load for this system, total file space, CPU power (the added CPU's men- tioned in that "limits" note have [so far] failed to mater- ialize) would be appreciated. The thought of decreasing the amount of ECS we use at this huge site is too enticing to pass up... G. David Frye ---------- response 7 04/01/76 14.55 silver ve I am currently replacing a help sequence in a separate lesson with one using dataset access, housed in the parent lesson. I THINK I come out ahead on disc accesses; it would be nice indeed to know what the limits are under these circumstances. ---------- note 223 alm full 03/30/76 20.15 alan m nuc At what point (percentagewise) does the 'almost full' sign come on in a group note file? ---------- response 1 03/30/76 23.05 warner iu It comes on when there's only 1 block left for note texts. I believe it also comes on when a directory is almost full, but has _anyone_ had a full gnotes directory yet? ---------- note 226 term aids 03/30/76 20.34 s zweig iusn It's-Not-Really-Important-But Dep't.... Just noticed that you may no longer do a TERM 'aids' from notes anymore. Is this a result of the change in the editors, and can/will this be fixed?? ---------- response 1 03/30/76 21.43 gilpin peer This anachronism has been removed. Shift-STOP followed by: A will do what you want. And it is even easier than TERM "aids". ---------- response 2 03/31/76 14.07 bowery comm Many cute terms suggested have little functional value since the wide variety of function keys offered allows fast access to billions of things with just a few key presses. ---------- note 231 woodard? 03/30/76 23.03 turetzky econp Does anyone know how I can contact woodard? I'd appreciate if someone could tell me his course so that I could send him a pnote. Thanks. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 18.29 carter comm Scott Woodard works for the Coordinated Science Lab. Call them if this is who you are interested in. ---------- note 241 line error 03/31/76 08.35 nagel vu Have any other remote sites noticed a great increase in the number of line errors in the last couple of weeks?????? We seem to be getting much more than our share of errors........I will be willing to share them with anyone. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 08.41 berger mfl During the rain earlier this weekthe number of line errors at this (microwave) site increased greatly. ---------- response 2 03/31/76 08.51 avner s I hope someone at your site is reporting line error problems in "repair"--that is the approved way to get the attention of the people who are responsible for following up on such hassles. ---------- note 243 gnote 03/31/76 08.41 stull med Groupnote files only allow for dating of the original note, but not for dating of responses. Was this capability by design? It is extremely difficult to follow an ongoing discussion in this medium when the only indication of a new response is the incrementing of a number. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 10.14 travers mxc ¬↑ˆ¬↑ˆ¬↑ˆ ________¬I≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤¬↑ˆ________≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤¬↑ˇ¬I¬↑ˇ¬↑ˇ¬↑ˇR≤[R Responses are dated. I take it you want the last response date to show on the index page. This would make it much slower to plot and is not that useful. After all, it's usually enough to see that a new response has been made. (Of course, if you don't have a good memory for response ¬$s....) ---------- response 2 03/31/76 10.20 woolley p This has been discussed several times before and the idea has been stored in my brain. If a way turns up to do it, I will. ---------- response 3 03/31/76 10.30 meers wright Suggestion: Have the last response's date be shown upon request. Request being pressing a key such as -DATA-. Shades of pad...... ---------- response 4 03/31/76 10.46 michael english Yes, this is a serious problem for continuing discussions. And although GNOTES was not specifically designed for such purposes, its elegance and obvious advantages make it ideal. If this can be resolved it would be greatly appreciated. If you've even got 3 bits/entry free, Dave, you could give a message saying: writec age=7¬,A week or mor old¬,¬0z, age¬1 days old ---------- note 254 coursename 03/31/76 10.55 meers wright As long as dashes, periods, commas, etc. are not allowed as part of course names, could they be ignored on the course page similiar to the way capitals are bumpshifted? ---------- response 1 03/31/76 11.15 friedman csa Spaces, too. Seems like a good idea, useful especially for beginning Plato users. I wish I had a nickle for every time I've had to explain "cs105al", not "CS 105 AL" to a student. ---------- response 2 03/31/76 13.40 meers wright Spaces are ignored already, so cs105al and CS 105 AL and even C s 1 0 5 a L are synonomous. If a student here wants to bother spacing and/or capitalizing, we let him since it doesnt matter anyway. ---------- response 3 03/31/76 16.08 friedman csa Whoops! Sorry, I didn't know that. ---------- note 258 system err 03/31/76 11.31 dave matha From 10:55 am til 10:57 am today, many (if not all) of the courses and datasets in our account "did not exist". Typing the account name in "accounts" got the message acc3 account file not found call a systems person After 10:57, everything was ok. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 11.56 resch nursing I would imagine that the disc on which the courses resided was temporily unavailable, (My course also did not exist) Paul Resch ---------- response 2 03/31/76 11.57 stone pfw The disk pack containing your files was temporarily disconnected at that time I would assume.. Most likely, 10: of all the files on the system didn't exist during that time either. It happens occasionally, it is nothing serious. Scott Stone ---------- response 3 03/31/76 12.16 klass m This is documented in lesson "crash"... ---------- response 4 03/31/76 13.53 fay o You are right: it is in "crash". At this time we still do not know what the problem was that caused the disk to "turn itself off". ---------- response 5 04/02/76 12.02 rader s An error return from some disk activity caused the system to think that there had been a write error to the disk pack. This would mean something serious is wrong--so the software turned the disk pack off. The condition appears to have been spurious, and we do not yet know how it arises. The pack was turned on again after the condition was checked. ---------- note 265 label out 03/31/76 14.04 bowery comm A minor point: The output for -labelx- and -labely- could be sped up significantly by doing all lines and then all characters. (or vis versa) ---------- response 1 03/31/76 14.46 tenczar s yes, we already have this on our work list...thanks ---------- response 2 04/01/76 11.41 shirer s More speed for you...less speed for the processor which must go through a loop twice...but then thats what processors are for...to save person time! ---------- note 268 post-arrow 03/31/76 14.26 kane phys unit one do two write test unit two arrow 1010 It appears that in this example the regular post-arrow state is now terminted by encountering the end of unit two so that "test" is never written. This isn't the way it used to work, and it's causing problems in lessons that have worked for several years. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 15.43 hinton ssu AIDS says in more than one place that attached units which include ¬6's MUST have -endarrow-. I don't know how long it has been this way, but Bruce Sherwood's Tutor book says it clearly--I know it has been that way since Feb. 1975, at least. ndh ---------- response 2 03/31/76 18.44 blomme s There was a recent change in this area as a first attempt to clear up some peculiarities. Units that contain arrows which are joined used to be able to "unjoin" before the arrow had been satisfied. Thus you could find that commands which followed the -do- of a unit that had an arrow would be executed TWICE--once as regular commands following the matching of an answer and a second time after the answer was correct. This mystic doing of things in previous units before completing the current arrow seems of extremely doubtful use and almost certainly very confusing. If you put an ok command after the arrow in your example, then the writing is done as soon as an answer is given--but not before (which seems reasonable). Please contact me if you want to discuss this further or have more complete examples to show where problems arise. ---------- note 269 roots 03/31/76 14.29 temmerman com does anyone know if there is a plato program that will compute the roots of a complicated arithmetic series? I am doing something for a class on internal rates of return, and such a program would be helpful. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 15.44 bennett phys Check the index in lesson "calc". The second page has a root finder for f(x)=0. ---------- note 271 getmark 03/31/76 14.47 dave fuller uimc Thinak you, Paul Tenczar, for -getmark-. The added control over man's destiny in judging should prove to be invaluable. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 15.44 hinton ssu Amen. ndh ---------- note 272 wrongplace 03/31/76 14.55 d zweig iu With the following code, Why are the -labely-ed numbers about 0.4 (you'll understand this when you run it) lower than would be expected? unit grapher next grapher origin 32,176 axes 448,228 scalex 1975,1929 scaley 10 labelx 5 labely 2,1 I thought at first that it might be that the -labelx-ed numbers might be crowding them over and down, but after '*'ing the -labelx- out, it made no difference... ---------- response 1 03/31/76 18.08 ruane ll382 It seems to have something to do with the fact that your origin is so close to the left margin (32,176), because when I took the same code and moved to origin to (50,176), it worked perfectly. (And by the way, the graphing simulation in Aids does things even stranger with the original code!) ---------- response 2 04/01/76 11.46 shirer s This has been mentioned before, and I thought had been put into aids. The -label- stuff does a leftspace by the width of the largest label expected to place the labely's on the screen. If your axis is so close to the left screen margin that it backspaces past zero, then the auto writing formatter puts it down on the next line. If you don't like this, you can either a) move your origin to the right a bit b) put on your own labels The choices made by -label- are compromises which seem to suit most people but cannot fit every possible artistic choice of every author. ---------- response 3 04/01/76 12.46 d zweig iu Thanks for the info, Don. ---------- note 273 hurray! 03/31/76 15.00 guerra uimc GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY: Today, I pressed shift-back instead of shift-data to enter my change code, without stopping to think about it -- for the first time. ---------- response 1 03/31/76 15.03 marty smith mtc how did you do it!?! i mean, have you been taking any special TM classes? Dream therapy? Psychoanalysis?? Please! Let us know the secret! Others will pay through the nose for the answer. ---------- response 2 03/31/76 15.09 bowery comm Practice. ---------- response 3 03/31/76 15.40 galcher uimatha Maybe there actually is something to the phrase: " force a person to do something enough times and he will learn." ---------- response 4 03/31/76 15.43 marty smith mtc wanna bet? ---------- response 5 03/31/76 15.44 hinton ssu I guess it's time to change the keypress ! ---------- response 6 03/31/76 16.27 artman uimatha Re: response 3 I thought it was: "Force a person to do something enough times, and he will submit" eric artman ---------- response 7 03/31/76 16.44 dave fuller uimc Isn't there something about rats in mazes that applies to this? I thought the human animal had gone beyond these permanent attachments. ---------- response 8 03/31/76 20.19 jones mcl I'm sure it must have something to do with engrams or something. ---------- response 9 04/01/76 14.32 broadus css try lesson mouse ---------- response 10 04/02/76 22.56 luke cornell I think it goes: "If you push something hard enough, it will fall over." (Fudd's First Law of Indignation) ---------- note 276 lo,ooo? 03/31/76 15.23 warner iu How many people on PLATO are finding the following code necessary in order to keep their students from whining and giving up on numeric answers? arrow put l=1 put o=0 ansv Might it be to someone's advantage to program a specs elone,ozero that would perform this kind of conversion without author frustration or student agony? ---------- response 1 03/31/76 15.50 steve cornell fascinating idea...i like it. Steve Lionel ---------- response 2 03/31/76 17.32 mike b cornell Hmmm.... Seems simple enough to instruct your stu- dents (via a handout or one of the excellent introductions to the keyset which are available) that 0¬=o, and 1¬=l. There are infinitely many more important things for the system programmers to do. M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 3 03/31/76 18.26 stehle iu A fantastic idea. Our journalism students, conditioned by old-fashioned typerwriters that use paper, would appreciate it greatly, I'm sure. ---------- response 4 03/31/76 18.55 david cerlcc Use iarrow to execute the -put-s. ---------- response 5 03/31/76 19.05 berger mfl I don't understand why people can't get used to the idea of separate numeric and alpha keys. It took me all of about 5 minutes, if that long... ---------- response 6 03/31/76 19.27 sellers arizona Only two lines of code needed to do the puts. Why the need for the specs? ---------- response 7 03/31/76 20.55 daleske amesrad This problem has something to do with the "engrams" of the previous note. Perhaps your students should try to learn differently. One way would be to include this particular problem in the intro to plato... John ---------- response 8 04/01/76 05.11 blomme s By the way, one of the reasons that the number 0 was put at the far left on the top row was because that serves to separate it from the letter o. Despite this and our best efforts to produce characters that are different in appearance (the numbers are two dots higher than lower case letters and 1 dot shorter than upper case letters amongst other things). it is apparently still a fact that students manage to confuse them. ---------- response 9 04/01/76 07.51 nagel vu Sounds like a good idea. That will give us 5 1iters for ansu units not 5 liters or possibly. 01 moles instead of .01 moles. ---------- response 10 04/01/76 14.35 broadus css .ol moles ---------- response 11 04/01/76 15.43 gilpin peer On the first few arrows, look for the wrong responses and provide corrective feedback. ---------- response 12 04/01/76 21.21 parrello mfl There is a new system feature coming soon that will allow one to make 'l' equivalent to 'i' and 'o' equivalent to 'o' for the entire lesson automatically. ---------- note 277 leslist 03/31/76 15.24 elston rhrc I believe we brought this up before a long time ago but since we could still use it I was wondering if a leslist could be used directly in the -dataset- command. This would be very helpful to use in changing from developmental to production systems. I assume the format would be dataset ,RW,code where N is an expression for the leslist position. Of course, it would also be advantageous to use a leslist in -micro-, -charset-, -lineset-, and -common- commands. Although, if the single tag form of these commands were made available then these would probably suffice. 2c≤/ ---------- response 1 03/31/76 15.45 david hebrew That would seem a logical thing to do. By the way, you might like to think about the implications of: leslist , list E. ---------- response 2 03/31/76 15.51 bowery comm Of course during condese you would run into problems with -common-. ---------- response 3 03/31/76 21.33 elston rhrc Of course, I left out mention of the -leslist- command itself. If we have real repeatable -leslist- commands then a -leslist , xxx- is not unreasonable. As for the -common- command, I threw it in because of the second part about single tag commands, although executable -common-s (if we had access to them) should also be -leslist-able. 2c≤/ ---------- note 278 ifthen 03/31/76 15.35 benveniste css Notesfile 'ifthen' is almost full. If the file is not to be re-initialized, could it remain as a read only file for a while? There are some ideas there that I would like to see recorded. ---------- note 288 comm-sourc 03/31/76 16.07 bowery comm When one converts from common to source, it would be convenient to be placed in the block with the source. ---------- note 294 test dfile 03/31/76 18.03 l haken uni Is there a test datafile (like newdset for datasets)?? If so, what is its name? thanx ---------- response 1 03/31/76 19.07 berger mfl And how about a test course to attach it to? ---------- note 298 common 03/31/76 18.27 tricorn hebrew Is there some stange interaction between having common returned to disk, aborting common, and lessons not being able to change common? Is the common editor looking at the disk or the ecs version? Why doesn't it know that my common is, say, only two words long (when editting it, not inspecting it) until a lesson has accessed it? It thinks that it is all of 322 words long until I use it at some point outside the editor. Or is it that some; lesson which refers to it condenses? Δ ---------- response 1 04/03/76 16.17 white p 1) Yes, there are interactions between the various options... but not "strange" interactions if you understand what is going on. 2) The common editor knows how to edit the common on disk or in ECS. You get a different choice page for each type of editing. 3) If the common is not in ECS, it doesn't know how long the lesson thinks the common is... just how long it is on disk. I think you should get someone to explain to you how common works and what all the options do. ---------- note 306 les dataf 03/31/76 20.00 stewart arizona From the -It would be nice- dept. How about allowing an author to connect some type of a datafile to a specific lesson. This way an author could collect data on his lesson's performance no matter what course ran the lesson. In particular, it would be nice to record whenever an execution error occured. Some possible ways of adding this feature, would be 1) on the lesson page, be able to specify a datafile to be used by this lesson. 2) Create a new type of block, such as a 'data' block. This could then be loaded by a lesson with a 'datafile' command similar to the common command. I am sure that they are many other ways of doing this, but I would like to know the feasibility of this idea. How about it sys. progs. Bruce Stewart ---------- response 1 03/31/76 22.53 michael cornell Well, that would be nice for smaller remote sites (like us, stewart) where the ratio of authors to students is relatively high. However, at the U of I, most authors work in close conjunction with the people who are eventu- ally going to use the lesson. and can get better feedback on what goes into datafiles from their lessons. I guess that in this area, majority rules. M↑ˇi↑ˇk↑ˇe O↑ˆl↑ˆt↑ˆz ---------- response 2 04/01/76 10.27 moneil a uicc I think the option should be there. The major use of datafiles here is in the debuging of lessons. ---------- response 3 04/01/76 10.39 john risken cdcc Such an option will be a necessary feature for 'published' lessons where those responsible for lesson maintenance will most certainly not be those who actually use the lesson. ---------- response 4 04/01/76 11.30 chabay chem There is a problem (ethical and legal) with allowing people other than real course instructors to collect data which identifies specific students. I think it is very undesirable to allow authors unconditional access to such data (and all of our present data records do identify students by name.) In the past, I've found instructors at other institutions to be very cooperative in allowing me to have access to data on my lessons generated by their students, when I explained that the students' names would not be displayed in any way. In addition, in trying to interpret such data, I have found it important to know HOW the lessons were used- the students' background, whether their use of PLATO was optional or required, time limits on use, etc. Execution errors are a possible exception - but allowing a student to dump data into two different datafiles is very hard! ---------- response 5 04/01/76 15.38 artman uimatha I'm not sure that I understand. What is the difference if I get some of the datafile dumps from students who are not in a course in my control, or if I use an 8050 word common and just rack up all sorts of data on students? What could go into a datafile that is potentially harmful to the student, that could not also be formatted in a possibly different form and put in common? Maybe with foot-in-mouth, eric artman ---------- response 6 04/01/76 20.34 michael english The point seems to be that it shouldn't be made so easy to do, since it can obviously be done anyway..... ---------- response 7 04/02/76 11.55 judy pso Risken certainly has a good point about "published" lessons. Occasional execution errors are inevitable, and it is essential to be able to "trap" them and make that information available. It is often easier to de-bug if you know that Sally Jones was 3-deep in a help sequence, etc, etc., but the mere FACT that an execution error occured in a given unit is often enough information. I am very aware of this right now, since I just added "score" to 20 lessons (not mine) at the request of users and the author. Such additions are very susceptible to dumb typos; there is no way for me to get feedback on execution errors except by p-notes. Not very satisfactory. ---------- note 309 SD bug 03/31/76 21.16 snellen medneta Just discovered a bug in the new SD. When drawing an arc, one receives the instruction, "mark a center point with an O" after the first endpoint has been entered; that is fine so far. However, it is often very desirable to get an up- date on the position of the cursor by pressing NEXT in order to be sure that the center point and the second endpoint are precisely positioned; unfortunately, when one does this, SD seems to forget where the first endpoint was located so it is very difficult to precisely position the end and mid- points of the arc. This is critical in the lesson I am writing so it would be much appreciated if this problem could be corrected. --JES ---------- response 1 03/31/76 21.26 midden s Strange indeed! I had hoped to make NEXT be equivalent to "O" or "B" for this case. Do you think that NEXT should remain to update the screen location? "f" and "g" are always still available... Or should the function of NEXT be put back as it was for creation of circles? ---------- response 2 03/31/76 21.44 dave fuller uimc Perhaps the space bar... ---------- response 3 03/31/76 22.11 snellen medneta Hmmmm. I had forgotten that f and g also update the position of the cursor; so long as that is available, I see no reason why the NEXT key can't be used as you had planned, Midden. Thanks much, --JES ---------- response 4 04/01/76 08.47 don emerick mtc Just a casual suggestion: when using the SD option to draw an arc, almost always I'd prefer to enter the other endpoint of the arc prior to entering the "point in between". Secondly, a lot of the time I'd like to try out several "points in between", while retaining the two endpoints in order to create the arc with the curvature actually desired. Can the routine be changed to accomodate this desire - do others have major objections to this proposal? s/ NOAH ---------- response 5 04/01/76 05.58 michael english I like it. ---------- response 6 04/01/76 09.19 silver ve Also -- I concluded that the modes used in SD and that used in SS (similar to that suggested here) are both desireable, under some conditions. I think the SD method should be the default, with the SS option available when needed. Since one does get to thinking about how to draw the circles while in the midst of drawing them, I would like to keep O as the only key for establishing a point while in partial circle mode. One tends to forget the functions of other keys under such conditions, and whatever functions they have should be innocuous. ---------- response 7 04/01/76 14.21 friedman csa A given key should always perform the same function with respect to the cursor. Thus, f, g, NEXT, and so on should have exactly the same effect on the cursor, whether one is in the arc routine, or whatever. Otherwise, the number of different conventions to remember is just too much! ---------- response 8 04/01/76 15.42 midden s Alright, Dr, Friedman, thats what was in the back of my head... The other method of creating arcs... hummm ... ---------- response 9 04/01/76 19.45 iezek ames One more vote for the other method of creating arcs. There are times when this would be extremely useful. mark iezek ---------- note 314 middle les 03/31/76 22.46 fisher conn Wasn't it set up awhile ago so that you could stick a common or charset blockin the middle of the lesson? I tried tonight, and no luck... fishswine ---------- response 1 04/01/76 01.49 blomme s I'm pretty sure this still works; it is likely that you used the copy block option rather than the create option--and that unfortunately has not yet been changed to let the special block types be put in at the place you specify rather than at the end of the file. ---------- note 316 smart term 03/31/76 23.25 jones mcl Have looked in AIDS under publications and in lesson articles with no luck so: Has anything been published by Stifle or Johnson about the 'PLATO IV' terminal or about the various 'intelligent' terminals? The possibility of such things is important to my thesis, and I need to give a reference. ---------- response 1 04/01/76 00.04 hinton ssu You'll find bib data on 3 articles by Stifle on the IV terminal in lesson "articles", block 4-f..... ndh ---------- response 2 04/01/76 12.21 jones mcl Sorry, I meant the 'PLATO V' terminal. ---------- response 3 04/02/76 16.48 tebby pso A report on the PLATO V terminal is just now going through the review committee preparatory to being published as a CERL X Report. ---------- note 321 title 04/01/76 08.15 gee ames AVAILABLE NOW FOR AWHILE: Giant letter for prints To do this for your prints, go into your own lesson and create a common block of 322 words. example: set up lesson synth1 as your -used- lesson unit letter common yourless, com, 322 use title Then convert the common to source and you have it! (It should generate all the alpha letters as of now.) please leave a p-note to gee/ames for any problems. ---------- response 1 04/01/76 09.34 fay o A gentle reminder: if you have any instructions at all in the first block of your print regarding where it is to be filed, the operator is only going to pay attention to the first such instruction. (From time to time, folks add a new instruction AFTER an old one...the result is that the print is filed according to the older instruction, which appears first.) ---------- note 326 Super sys 04/01/76 09.30 silver ve Hats off the folks in charge of hardware and software! The reliability of the system during February and March was really fine. Thanks for such a good Spring. ---------- response 1 04/01/76 15.58 puterbaugh cs317 I agree ≤. A job well done! TˇL ˆP↑ˆuterbaugh ---------- note 328 repairplea 04/01/76 10.16 krebs cs196 The 'baseball ' game is excellent but the schedule is messed up so scheduled games can no longer be played. Can some author fix the game please????? so scheduled games can be played and the season which is 91; complete can be completed. ---------- response 1 04/01/76 10.43 hinton ssu In the interest of realism, the authors of the game have no doubt introduced a player strike, which is being held at the same time as an owner lock-out. ndh ---------- response 2 04/01/76 15.09 mike b cornell I hate to be the one to say it, but does this belong in Public Notes? Is it of real general interest? I hate baseball, personally. M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 3 04/01/76 16.05 puterbaugh medneta I agree with Mike. There is a groupnotes file entitled 'gamenotes'. It can be accessed either through the author page or the notes page. It would not only help unclutter the public notes file by using 'groupnotes' but you would get a faster response also. ˆTLˇP↑ˇuterbaugh ---------- response 4 04/02/76 08.11 fay o Ignore it and it will go away. ---------- note 331 clock fast 04/01/76 10.30 gaede ed Plato's clock seems to be a bit fast. 1 minute and 18 seconds to be exact. Am I correct, or is my watch wrong? Is the plato clock generally correct, or is the time it gives only approximately correct? I had assumed for a long time that since in the editor the time is given to the exact second, the clock would be depended on. How about this? ---------- response 1 04/01/76 10.36 fay o The clock is set by manual entry at the time the system is loaded in the morning. Factors mediating its accuracy are: a) The accuracy of the wall clock used as reference in the machine room; and b) The ability of the operator to tell time. Popular rumor has it that one day we will have a hardware clock which will be both accurate and automatic. ---------- response 2 04/01/76 11.42 rodby amesrad I was also under the impression that the accuracy of the clock was only as good as the main cpu clock, which, while good enough for the cpu, is not absolutely accurate. ---------- response 3 04/01/76 11.56 alan hebrew The clock is really rather accurate but it tells relative and not absolute time. This is sufficient for keeping track of when blocks were lasted editted and the likes. ---------- response 4 04/01/76 13.58 fumento pso To sum things up: The clock is precise, but not that accurate. ---------- response 5 04/01/76 16.42 hall m The hardware is finished for the system clock and has been installed for several months . It is awaiting the software to be written...put that in your clock and smoke it ---------- response 6 04/02/76 09.38 roper siu In the meantime, maybe somebody has $20 for one of the DeskCube radios that is locked onto WWV in Fort Collins? At least the time should be accurate that way. Quetzal ---------- note 335 read Kreb 04/01/76 10.46 krebs cs196 moonwar beatz miohelin anyday love bong scrapings Watchfu of moonwar addiction(.500) ---------- response 1 04/01/76 10.55 michael english Such rantings in PUBLIC NOTES do not foster the cause of already assailed game authors. Please save it for GNOTE file "gamenotes", Krebs. ---------- response 2 04/02/76 22.20 a wong ed317 Somehow I feel that this is the result of a ripped-off signon... ---------- note 337 modules 04/01/76 10.55 errol kka One of our instructors set up an index module with criteria set for completing the module. When the students finished this they had trouble returning to this module once they went on to another one which had no special criteria for completion. (After completing the module, they pressed NEXT to look at other index modules, but upon trying to get back to the module which they had completed, they were unable to do so even though the previous index module was set up to allow them to go to it when pressing NEXT.) ---------- response 1 04/01/76 11.01 nagel vu Look at the progression of modules.... Possibly that is set wrong. This can be set up so that the student presses -NEXT- for the next module....(doesn't have to be the next one in the module sequence) and -BACK- for the previous module......(can be any one of the existing modules, even the last one.) ---------- response 2 04/01/76 11.14 errol kka Progressions are correct. ---------- note 345 'Rose' 04/01/76 12.18 churches iu ↓↓ Can someone tell me who wrote lesson Rose? I don't see any name on it. ---------- response 1 04/01/76 12.43 berger mfl Danny Sleator wrote the lesson: danny of research ---------- note 349 *need maze 04/01/76 12.48 schweitzer cs196 I need some mazes, and someone told me that there was someone trying to get rid of about 20 or so, some time ago. Can anyone tell me who it was? ---------- response 1 04/01/76 15.12 stone pfw What kind of mazes do you mean? I might be able to help. Scott Stone ---------- note 350 record sta 04/01/76 13.43 errol kka How can you change the mode of a record after it has been created? (e.g., if you want to change student to multiple) ---------- response 1 04/01/76 14.08 alan hebrew Destroy the record and recreate it. The very useful option of changing a record type was removed when the new records editor was unveiled because it was the concensus of opinion of some group that course directors cannot be trusted and that every night they go and change record names of authors so that they can read other's notes. ---------- response 2 04/01/76 15.02 dave fuller uimc As a matter of fact, there have been several documented cases of course directors doing this un- thinkable act. I applaud the systems staff for coming to grips with the problem. ---------- response 3 04/01/76 15.11 mike b cornell Ditto. M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 4 04/01/76 15.21 mailman ustaf Yes, but wouldn't it have been reasonable to still allow conversion from student to multiple record types and back, as they can't receive notes? Or is this a presage of the student comments (and replies?) feature. ---------- response 5 04/02/76 08.17 kimble ustaf And how about the one-way option to change student records to author records? Doesn't seem that that would compromise pnote security. ---------- response 6 04/02/76 08.34 michael english What is the advantage of this except a few extra keypresses? ---------- response 7 04/02/76 13.02 kimble ustaf Not having to destroy and then create a record allows the whole exchange to take place on-line, without having to leave an open password for a while, or having to contact the person off-line to pre-arrange a new password. In short, what could be done in seconds with complete security if (limited) record-type changing were allowed could take days to completely resolve otherwise, given the need for off-line communications. ---------- note 363 ibm sys/32 04/01/76 15.37 tricorn hebrew Does anyone have any information on the IBM System/32? I would like to know what it's instruction set is (including encoding details), what happens on interrupts and all those things that make it possible to write cross-assemblers and programs for the thing...I've tried IBM, but the only one there who knows anything usually isn't around the place...eventually I'll reach him, but in the meantime, anyone out there know anything? Δ ---------- response 1 04/01/76 15.44 k mast p IBM Who? ---------- response 2 04/01/76 17.39 tricorn hebrew It is a small company that produces cheap but expensive computers...they also put out typewriters and other miscellaneous office equipment. If any one knows anything about System/32 (one of their larger computers, I believe) or even has heard of the company, please respond... I need to know where the gear shift is located! Δ ---------- response 3 04/02/76 15.32 alan hebrew Out of your forehead perhaps? Or was that a unicorn, one of DEC's wonders? ---------- response 4 04/02/76 17.54 tricorn hebrew Unicorns from DEC?? I knew they had a DAEMON, but what's this about unicorns? Well, I just want to thank all the people who took so much of their time to impart their knowledge...at least I got some replies, which is more than my previous note (3/31 'common') got...is it true that no one on this system really knows what's actually happening inside? I can understand not knowing about a small obscure company like IBM, but.... Δ ---------- response 5 04/03/76 20.47 gary cornell System 32 is probably, barring the portable 5100 computer, IBM's smallest machine. It is intended almost solely for use by small business firms and contains an integral disk drive, keyboard, and line printer. In keeping with the concept of never giving the user credit for any more intelligence than it takes to mail checks to their corporate headquarters, IBM has made it next to impossible to program the 32 in any kind of machine language, or indeed, in anything other than the microinterpreted business language that the 32 uses. Perhaps you are thinking of the IBM system 3 or the 5100 desk computer instead, although neither of them fills the minicomputer bill. As far as I know, IBM still hasn't come up with anything resembling a minicomputer. Virtualman ≤≤≤$≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤≤. ---------- note 368 jumpchk? 04/01/76 15.48 halvorsen pcp What _exactly_ does -inhibit jumpchk- do? I gather from aids that a -jumpout- will drop through to the next statement if there is less than 1500 words available. If there is not enough ECS for the lesson, it will return to the router will errtype=3. Does -inhibit jumpchk- inhibit the checking for the necessary 1500 words and always take the jumpout? If so, if there is not 1500 words available, will it return with a errtype=3? Also, if I have an -inhibit jumpchk- in effect before a -jumpout-, is there any possibility of the executor dropping through to the next statement? ---------- response 1 04/01/76 16.21 friedman csa 1) -inhibit jumpchk- does inhibit the checking for the necessary 1500 words, and always takes the jumpout. 2) If there are not 1500 words available, it will return to the router with errtype=3. 3) There is then no possibility of the executor dropping through to the next command. ---------- response 2 04/01/76 20.07 white p 2) if there is not enough ECS for the lesson, the student returns to the router with errtype=3. (not just 1500 words) Also, the jumpchk is currently for 1000 words. If you are the only one in the lesson you are leaving, it takes that amount of ECS into account. It should, if the lesson you are going to is already in ECS, check for that amount of ECS rather than 1000, but that hasn't been put in yet. It does not do the jumpchk if the new lesson is ready credited to your site, or if it is reserved for your site. ---------- response 3 04/02/76 11.00 friedman csa Sorry about (2), I didn't say what I meant. ---------- note 371 Alt8080? 04/01/76 16.07 jschwaiger park does anyone have any micro-computer equipment they'd like to sell? i am planning to buy an Altair 8080, and if you think you might have any software such as memory,printer, disk system, etc...please contact me. signed: the SCHWAIG (jschwaiger/park) ---------- response 1 04/01/76 16.31 lieber m Wait... before you buy an Altair 8800 take a good look at the IMSAI 8080. I have built two Altairs and have not been too thrilled by the quality. An IMSAI 8080 has just arrived in our lab. The documentation is very good, it comes with the INTEL Users Guide, unlike the Altair. IMSAI will also give BASIC to any purchaser their machine for the cost of the paper tape. Look at group notes file 'micronotes'. There are many discussions of several different systems. dick ---------- response 2 04/01/76 17.42 szolyga mcl I have an interface that connects a Plato terminal to the Altair 8800. At the Plato terminal end, the interface plugs into the Plato terminal modem card slot and requires NO modifications to the Plato terminal. On the Altair end, the interface is built on a Processor Technology wire-wrap board and plugs into the Altair bus. I have an up to date wire list of the board, so duplicating it would require 2 days of wire-wrapping. The board and sockets cost $60. The TTL circuits for the interface cost perhaps $40 assuming you buy from a discount house.($1.25 for a SN74194) The interface will drive a standard Plato terminal upto twice the rate Plato drives it. Tom Szolyga PS. I also have software to make the interface look like an ASCII terminal. ---------- response 3 04/02/76 15.35 alan hebrew Talk to Al Mcneil (al9000/german) about his altair machine. I think he threw his away just recently and bought the Imsai machine. From what I have seen of mits' designs, I wouldn't touch one. ---------- note 372 backout? 04/01/76 16.13 resch nursing In the 'wouldn't it be nice dept.': Doesn't it make sense to set *backout* to 0 when an ecs bounce occurs? It IS a system backout, and it is not set. I could use this very much, and I feel that many others could also benefit from this. It would also make it consistent. Please? Paul Resch ---------- response 1 04/01/76 16.16 halvorsen pcp It is set to 0 if the student presses shift-stop. I think you want it set to non-zero if dumped out of ecs which indicates a system backout. I think it would be very consistent. ---------- response 2 04/01/76 16.26 resch nursing Right, sorry about that. I meant set to something other than 0. Thanks, Paul Resch ---------- response 3 04/02/76 13.38 judy pso The only time a student can get "bounced" for ECS is when attempting to do a -jumpout- with insufficient ECS. In that case you have errtype=3 available to use. The system word "backout" is for cases over which you have no control. A -jumpout- is done on purpose...you _do_ have control over that; the two things should not be mixed up by changing "backout". ---------- response 4 04/02/76 14.28 curly iu Students are not the ONLY user type in question. curly≤≤≤≤≤¬↑ˇ↑ˆ↑ˆ↑ˆcurly ---------- response 5 04/02/76 17.41 koning csstaff No, but they are the only usertype for which this information is really important. It would be helpful, though, if *backout* could be set for site, instructor, etc. backouts. ---------- note 379 clock II 04/01/76 16.55 hall m In response to the note ¬$331 , clock fast, the hardware for the system clock is finished. It was installed several months ago ≤ in fact, and is awaiting the software. As soon as that is written it will become operational. SO LET IT BE WRITTEN, SO LET IT BE DONE... The happy medium ---------- response 1 04/02/76 12.30 rader s It is my understanding that the software was also written several months ago--but the person involved has not had a chance to get back to the project. ---------- response 2 04/02/76 14.58 hartman m you are trying to tell us the software doesnt work yet? ---------- response 3 04/02/76 18.52 parrello uimatha In the beginning there was the hardware man. And he said, "Let there be a device." And there was a device. But the device would not run. So he gave it to the software man, who waved his hand across the device and said, "Let there be a program." And there was a program. But the device would still not run. And the hardware man cried out to the heavens, saying "Cannot these software men get anything right without botching it on the first fifteen tries?" And the software man uttered a curse upon the hardware man, saying "It would be a hell of a lot easier if your stupid machine didn't require such absurd signals!" And there was a great hue and cry across the land, and much screaming and drawing of blood in the machine room that night. ---------- response 4 04/02/76 19.13 sellers arizona Thus was the beginning and the end of the first auto-date device. ---------- note 380 plato 3 04/01/76 17.04 williams ed I am looking for some very technical information on the PLATO III system. Anyone that can be of assistance, please contact me via personal notes. Thank-you, steve williams ---------- response 1 04/02/76 08.01 avner s There are lots of people around who are experts on PLATO III but they are swamped with work so I would guess that few would volunteer aid without knowing what is wanted. Perhaps a list of explicit questions would get a better response. ---------- response 2 04/02/76 11.39 williams ed I am looking for some detailed information on character generating systems. I have found that P III used the storage tube type of character production. I am interested in a low cost means of character generation for a vidio terminal that will be used in conjunction with a small computer and amateur radio. thank you, steve williams ---------- response 3 04/02/76 12.25 carter comm What was done for PLATO III is not very relevant now. Semiconductor memory is cheap enough now to use for the refresh memory. Examining a decade-old device is rarely the best approach to engineering design. Store your characters in PROM; refresh the display from 4 (or if you wait 16k) RAM. ---------- response 4 04/02/76 12.57 berger mfl I suggest you take your discussion of this subject to "micronotes" where we discuss such things regularly. Storage tubes are still used in video terminals, but that may not be ideal for your particular purpose. ---------- note 383 HELP 04/01/76 17.55 rma unl how does one get the animation affect while writing notes? AT ---------- response 1 04/01/76 18.37 mike b cornell Animation in system notes is strongly frowned upon. This is because it will eventually be possible to print notes, and the invisible characters which control the ani- mation effects (backspaces, halfspaces, etc.) make for pretty unreadable prints. Furthermore, the features which permit screen ani- mation in notes are unannounced and, therefore, unsupported by the system. That means that they could change tomorrow, and your pretty little animation would end up looking pretty silly. Having said all that, a good discussion of screen animation using the keyset can be found in "discuss1". M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 2 04/01/76 21.51 michael cornell Did you notice that little "animation" in his monogram? M↑ˇi↑ˇk↑ˇe O↑ˆl↑ˆt↑ˆz (on a print mine looks a bit like H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N) ---------- response 3 04/02/76 16.57 lawrance medokla1 Speaking from experience, one could get his ears pinned to the wall for animating in a notefile. But do see "discuss1" and try to restrain yourself. David ---------- note 384 -ans- 04/01/76 18.18 sherman mcl The following code worked fine until today: unit yuk join arrow join ans endarrow ˆ.≤.≤ˇ. unit arrow arrow 1010 * unit ans ans write good! answer blah * The -ans- command does not work anymore. It appears that the problem stems from the joined arrow unit because if the -arrow 1010- is simply substituted for the -join arrow-, it works fine. L. Sherman ---------- response 1 04/01/76 19.15 dyer meduser Take a look at Public Note 268 (post arrow)... Jerry ---------- response 2 04/02/76 11.43 friedman csa Putting a -jkey- into unit "ans", right after the -unit- command, gets the same effect: the -jkey- is ignored. I imagine a -long-, -write-, or anything else would be ignored, also. Careful testing with TERM step shows that, after executing the -arrow- command in unit "arrow", regular state execution continues past the -arrow- (as it should), but only until the end of the -join-ed unit; then instead of "unjoining", it stops to await a response. This seems to be the essence of the change.↓ I have some real programs which could be seriously effected by such subtle changes in this area. The example given in this note seems to me to be an abbreviated version of a perfectly valid and useful construct. ---------- response 3 04/02/76 21.13 blomme s Unfortunately as I noted earlier, the current structure also has a very large number of problems and some peculiar possibilities which can cause commands following the join/do of a unit containing an arrow to be done more than once. It is unfortunate that the beginnings of work in this area got carried on to the prime time version without proper notification; the "old" way will be restored some time soon until this area can be examined and fixed completely and adequate warning and explanation provided. The essence of the proposed change is that return ("un-doing" or "un-joining") from a unit that contains an arrow will occur only once: after the arrow has been satisfied--i.e., the question answered correctly. This will mean that any unit containing an arrow will have to have the associated judging in that unit or ones joined from it--and not in ones prior to it. ---------- note 393 please fix 04/01/76 22.23 koning csstaff I have a course that has two records in it with two directory entries apiece. I reported the error to Dave Frankel, but would appreciate if a system programmer could correct the course directory. Course is: cs101pk Records with double entries: (bug,bug2) and (aza,azz) In the process two real records got their directory entry deleted which the only real damage. Thanks. ---------- response 1 04/02/76 00.02 blomme s The duplicate entries have been removed and the two "missing" students should now have their records properly restored. ---------- response 2 04/02/76 00.24 koning csstaff Thanks much! ---------- note 398 repair rpt 04/02/76 08.13 ragins wright Lesson= repair. If terminal has been reported already, the program tells you so and provides 3 options: 1. press LAB to see earlier reports. 2. press BACK to exit. 3. press NEXT to submit another report. Since these options appear without erasing the previous page, they are easy to miss . . . especially since the 'NEXT' option is taken so readily by pressing the 'next' key a second time. I suggest that the 'submit another report' option be associated with a key other than 'next' to reduce un- necessary duplicate reports. ---------- response 1 04/02/76 08.23 fay o A definite possibility for improvement. ---------- response 2 04/02/76 15.33 avner s Thanks for the suggestion. Key HELP now must be pressed to submit a new report and key NEXT is ignored if a duplicate exists.. Al Avner ---------- note 403 lock sub 04/02/76 10.57 nagel vu Is there an easy way to check a student's reply for the presence of locking sub or locking super anywhere in the response????? ---------- response 1 04/02/76 11.16 bowery comm arrow wherever ok calc cnt1‎jcount judge continue putd ,↑ˆ,.↑ˆ, $$ lock sup ¬D period loc sup↑ˇ↑ˇ * ok calc lsups‎jcount-cnt1 $$ number of locking sups judge rejudge $$ everything is as it was ---------- note 414 engnotes 04/02/76 13.10 michael english + + + A N N O U N C E M E N T + + + FILE engnotes USERS everyone A new GNOTE notesfile has been created by the Community College Engligh Group for the purpose of providing an open forum to all PLATO authors and instructors involved in the production and use of English lessons. All individ- uals concerned with English, literature, GED reading, or remedial language arts skills at the high school or college level are encouraged to participate. Gary R. Michael Community College English ---------- note 417 Decwriter 04/02/76 14.12 silver ve Has anyone tried to interface a Decwriter II with Plato? ---------- note 418 -term-nest 04/02/76 14.24 bowery comm Keeping in mind the precident of the -compute- pointer I would like to suggest making it possible to commit part of one's storage (s.b.?) variables to keeping track of nested units -term-ed to (and maybe -do-ne). The idea of this being that when one wants to use a -term- one might meet with a definition of that -term- that is in turn using a term to be -term-ed... etc..etc.. ad inf.. After getting to a low enough level of abstraction in definition the student could just press BACK to go to the last level from which he could keep -term-ing till that level was clear at which time he would press BACK again...etc..etc..ad inf.. In subjects where concepts are well structured it is conceivable that the whole lesson could be written in -term-s of its title! I may simulate this anyway for "library" with the -jumpout- command but I would rather not. ---------- response 1 04/05/76 12.35 judy pso I don't think "pointer" is comparable to your suggestion. "pointer" just contains information which says.... at CM location XXX there is information tagged by the identifier YYY. (XXX and YYY are both stuffed into pointer) There is no nesting or anything of that sort implied. Either location XXX matches the identifier YYY, in which case the compute proceeds directly; or else XXX does not match YYY, in which case the code listed in the compute is re-compiled and then the compute is done. ---------- response 2 04/05/76 14.59 bowery comm The similarity I was refering to was intrinsic in the term you used: "pointer". Both the -compute- pointer and the "stack" used to keep track of nested unit computations are "pointer"s to locations not normally accessable to users. ---------- note 431 charset 04/02/76 18.54 lawrance medokla1 Whenever one goes to AIDS from the editor, then returns and condenses the lesson, the charset has to be reloaded even though it's still in the terminal. Any way around this? David ---------- response 1 04/02/76 19.22 frye mfl Where did you go in AIDS? Some sections use special characters that have to be loaded -- when this happens, the system must reload the previous charset again, since it doesn't know which characters were destroyed. G. David ---------- response 2 04/05/76 12.39 judy pso Once-upon-a-time, I was careful to use characters for AIDS from the wierd part of the charset... like FONT ↑≡↑≠ etc... so that when you returned to your own lesson you would probably not notice that the characters in the terminal had been changed. However, now that we have automatic loading of character sets any change causes the charset to reload. I think that is what you are seeing.... not a change in AIDS, but rather a change in the way the editor is handling the charsets. ---------- note 433 'P'note 04/02/76 19.22 tricorn hebrew Why is option 'P' not allowed in archive notes? It's not as if you were responding to the note in the archive file itself, or that you wanted to send the note at the time the archive was created (At 3 PM : Try calling him before noon today and you should reach him) Δ ---------- response 1 04/03/76 10.32 woolley p If you're in an archive file, it requires that pnotes remember more information so that it can return you to the right place. This may get done some day, but for the first implementation of the option it wasn't considered important enough to go to the extra trouble. ---------- note 435 monitoring 04/02/76 20.36 michael english It would be handy for consulting work if the monitoree could reverse the direction of the master/slave link by pressing SHIFT/LAB. Calling back is such a pain. ---------- response 1 04/02/76 21.10 novak politics Yes, that would be nice.... ---------- response 2 04/02/76 22.10 koning csstaff Don't you mean the monit_or_? ---------- response 3 04/02/76 23.40 frankel p Yes, that would be nice. Yes, that has been considered. No, that is not at all easy to do. Maybe someday. ---------- response 4 04/03/76 16.35 galcher uimc Not to mention that this would take away another function key from normal use... ---------- response 5 04/03/76 18.07 michael english I did mean the monitor, and it thus takes no key away from normal use. But if its too hard, ah well. ---------- response 6 04/04/76 01.08 daleske amesrad The monitoree could initiate the transformation (and should be the one to do so) while -talk-ing to the monitor by pressing LAB1. There is no present function associated with that particular key in that particular state (which would be the normal/logical place to implement this func- tion from) John ---------- response 7 04/05/76 01.22 rodby amesrad John, If the monitoree could initiate the transformation, then any person who wanted to monitor another person could simply term -talk- them and press LAB1 twice. This is clearly a situation to be avoided. I move that when (if?) this is implemented, that the monitor should have to initiate the transformation. Mike ---------- response 8 04/05/76 14.14 sellers arizona As for being done.....is it really that hard? In the distant past I accidently got in a mode with a monitor in which we were monitoring each other and both in control. Every time one of us changed a display it would update the display to last change even tho we were wondering around in different lessons. This indicates to me that most of the machinery is there except for properly setting some flags. Am I right? ---------- response 9 04/05/76 16.44 rader s No. It is hard. A bug is not a feature... It has to be controllable! ---------- note 438 the Q 04/02/76 22.01 a appel uni Suggestion for condense queue: At present (correct me if I am wrong) position in queue (for authors) is a function of total condensor usage per author as compared with others in the queue. How about having it dependent on (total condensor usage)/((time in queue)+.1) (The .1 is to eliminate 1/0 if that is a problem) That way, if one was really desparate to condense, one could wait around in the queue until enough time had elapsed so that one's priority would be higher. Time in queue would be reset upon each entry into the queue ---------- response 1 04/03/76 04.35 j thiher amesrad Such a "priority aging" system would be a welcome improvement. jim ---------- response 2 04/03/76 05.23 blomme s Remember it is not your total condensing time, but your ratio of condensing time to time on the system. If you are expecting lots of service--whether via large jobs every so often or small jobs very often--then your priority is worse than someone less demanding on the average. I don't think I see how it is "fairer" if you are promoted in the queue just because you have been waiting longer than others this particular condense attempt. If we can afford the time to make such a distinction, this would be an appropriate "tie-breaker" mechanism to decide amongst people with the same priority otherwise. ---------- response 3 04/03/76 23.33 fries ee I agree with the origonal comment, with a slight modification. The 'time in' factor should not be the only determination of the order in the Q, but should become a factor if a person has been waiting for a while, becomming more important the longer he waits. After going in and finding: 2 of 2, then 6 of 6, then 1 of 1, then 8 of 8,.... (well, you've probably been there) one tends to give up. If it's too hard to include ok, but I do think that it's good idea. EˇE I might be wrong (it's getting late), but the more I look at that suggested function it seems backwards. ---------- response 4 04/05/76 10.21 schreiner csa Queue or list? Knuth DID define a queue as a first-in-first-out machine. When graduating to PLATO the mechanism started to rapidly randomize. ---------- note 441 char-error 04/02/76 22.23 ducky espo I was trying to look at someone's charset from inspect mode, and I was instructed to report a charset error here. lesson=magic block=rus3 error word=000000006000030000000 ---------- note 449 library 04/03/76 10.57 a appel uni Many of the routines in lesson "library" (excuse me, I should have used single quotes) seem to be outdated by new system features. Congratulations to the system people for all these new features. Now what are you going to do about 'library'? ---------- response 1 04/03/76 14.46 k mast p I suggest you specify those routines which are outdated, (and why) in a note to group notes file 'psonotes'. I'm sure it will get (almost) immediate attention there. ---------- response 2 04/04/76 17.15 stone pfw These routines are written by the general user, not necessarily by system staff.. Scott Stone ---------- response 3 04/06/76 09.05 judy pso You're right... new system features have outdated some of the library routines. On the other hand, some of the library routines are similay, but not exactly like new systems features. ---------- note 450 bufferfull 04/03/76 11.49 kaufman uimc The name buffer for autosignons is full. Would a systems programmer please fix this. Joe Kaufman ---------- note 451 SCAnote 04/03/76 12.50 scott playdo SCAnote well, it's getting pretty rugged out there. The former Boar king ‎‎, having lost all power through insanity is just going wild≤( (perhaps like a mad boar). If this keeps up, there may be no sttopping him.....keghvin ---------- response 1 04/03/76 14.47 k mast p Sigh. ---------- response 2 04/03/76 16.06 railing iu There is a notefile for S.C.A.(Society for Creative Anochronisms) in "tvornottes". It is reachable by students through another lesson accessable to students through "sample". For further information about this route or the notefile it self, contact railing/iu. The notefile is open to ALL users. Malkin ---------- note 452 loaded var 04/03/76 14.41 clark lawyer Is there a system variable which shows how much common or storage is being loaded at a specific time in a lesson? This would be a very handy feature when trying to do any manipulations with loaded common or storage. (transfr,block,find,search, etc...) ---------- response 1 04/03/76 15.56 frye mfl Nope. Not a bad idea, though. Of course, you can always keep track of it yourself.... G. David ---------- response 2 04/03/76 16.00 clark lawyer True...But that becomes a real pain and I had thought that since it must be stored somewhere for the system to use it (right??) that it would be easy to give authors access to the number. ---------- response 3 04/03/76 17.02 k mast p Its not that much of a pain, just have a unit: unit stoload(wk1,wk2,slen) stoload nc(wk1),wk2,slen that is -do-ne instead of a stoload. ---------- note 465 io/stoload 04/04/76 11.48 michael english Question: stoload nc1,place1,length1 datain place1;s,1;records stoload nc1,place2,length2 Will the first -stoload- still be in effect for even one timeslice after the -datain-, thus overwriting ¬)place1¬), or will the second -stoload- be seen and control thr first timeslice after the -datain-? I'm asking rather than testing it because I want to know if the result will be the same if an autobreak comes between the -datain- and the second -stoload-. ---------- response 1 04/04/76 12.03 white p stoload nc1,place1,length1 $$ place1=word number datain place1;s,1;records $$ place1=record number stoload nc1,place2,length2 I don't know what you mean by "overwriting place1". The first stoload will remain in effect until the second stoload. Autobreak should not affect the results of the above operations. Are you clear on what you are asking? ---------- response 2 04/04/76 12.37 michael english You're right, Larry. My brain is fuzzy today. ---------- note 466 apology 04/04/76 11.55 krebs cs196 Sorry for the notes that were made from my signon I have changed my password, and am in the process of finding the person that used it and abused it. My deepest regrets to all those that read the previous notes made by "me" It will not happen again. perry krebs ---------- note 470 queue 04/04/76 14.44 t weaver peer Something strange with the condenser queue. Two signons waiting for the same lesson, one got it first and the second one waited in the line for another minute at least. (I gave up after awhile). ---------- response 1 04/05/76 10.38 chabay chem Was the second one a -stop1- condense? If so, you'll stay in the queue (and recondense the lesson, eventually.) ---------- note 471 lost keys 04/04/76 15.11 fay o With only 250 or so users on the system today, I have been losing a very large number of keys. Key response is VERY sluggish. Is this related to the non-ptime version of PLATO, or what? ---------- response 1 04/05/76 02.23 daleske amesrad You and others in Shambananna should better be able to answer this question than I, but I do seem to remember a previously similar question which was answered to the effect that during non-prime time many background jobs would/could be running concurrently with -plato- and the other programs supporting the PLATO system. A tentative answer John ---------- response 2 04/05/76 08.28 avner s If my interpretation of the system statistics is correct, about 60: of the CPU was being used by two background jobs at that time (such are the disadvantages of working during non-prime time). Al ---------- note 474 charreedit 04/04/76 20.27 luke cornell Is there a way to convert -char- commands to a charset block to re-edit the character? Luke ---------- response 1 04/04/76 20.35 clark lawyer Yes...Create the charset block and edit it...then check out option 7...it allows you to copy from char commands in a block in the same lesson ---------- note 476 author opt 04/04/76 21.54 mckeown com It would be nice to be able to turn off (or on) all of the author or instructor options with one keypress rather than having to go through all the pages. Is this possible? ---------- response 1 04/05/76 09.33 weible german It would also be very helpful to be able to all options on each page either ON or OFF. I usually want to turn page four entirely off for my instructors. David Weible ---------- response 2 04/06/76 09.10 judy pso The turn-er-off-er (b sherwood/s) will return soon. I will be make sure that he sees your comments. ---------- note 477 search 04/04/76 22.38 novak com Would it be possible to put a "search" option in notefiles, so that you could look for notes/responses written by a particular author? I have just spent 20 minutes going through archives looking for a note written by a certain person, and wasn't able to find it. Perhaps this need not be available on he current set of Public Notes, but perhaps just as you can no longer reply to a note in the archives, you could search them looking for material written by a specific person. Thanks, Chris ---------- response 1 04/05/76 13.23 k mast p Hopefully the new printing notesfiles routines will make it a little easier to find old notes. As for an efficient means of categorizing notes, perhaps someone for a masters thesis can design an acceptable algorythm. ---------- response 2 04/05/76 13.41 jones mcl algorithm! (from someone who made this mistake one time too many) ---------- note 480 hip-hip-hu 04/05/76 03.00 daleske amesrad While the new options in the editor (U for -use-d lesson change and specification of the number of initial display lines and those upon space) may seem trivial, it is these kind of extra features that continue to uphold PLATO as the best CAI system! It still has the most educationally oriented commands and strives to give the author a maximum of control with ease of use! The in- clusion of the -seed- command further supports this fact that while many others have previously had the seeding capability, PLATO strives to support the most useable features of other systems while having features that none others can support! Many Cheers to the software and hardware folks for a fine system! John ---------- response 1 04/05/76 08.38 avner s Your unsolicited testimonial will be recorded for posterity (and the National Science Foundation!). The development of PLATO probably benefits most from negative comments (correcting wrong things is harder than recognizing things that are obviously right ) but it is always nice to hear positive comments from time to time. Hooray for all users! ---------- response 2 04/05/76 09.02 hinton ssu We don't say this sort of thing as often as we should, so 3 cheers and a tiger ! (whatever a "tiger" may be) ≤≤≤≤≤≤≤ndh ---------- response 3 04/05/76 17.22 marquart ee tiger = ferocious feline beast (and thanks a lot, systems-type-people) ---------- note 481 css notes 04/05/76 05.28 davidson css Would people in course css please delete their p-notes? There is currently no room at all for new ones. Thank you. ---------- note 482 p-notes 04/05/76 08.23 struven t csstaff When a course's personal note file is full and one tries to write them a note...one gets the message 'there is no more room in the course note file...etc' _regardless_ of whether or not the person recieving the note has his notes option turned on or off. Wouldn't it be more consistent to send the message 'note option is off' along with any message the author might have left when he turned it off? ---------- response 1 04/05/76 13.18 k mast p Yes, this is a known problem and will be fixed. (It isnt trivial to reverse the checks, however.) Thanks for bringing it to my attention once again. ---------- note 485 records 04/05/76 08.44 harkrader o From the 'wouldn't it be loverly' dept: In the new course editor, how about putting the inspect options before the change options? That way the key sequence isn't totally changed when one goes back and forth between change and inspect only. Example: to get to the list of people running in inspect one presses '2' then 'c'; while in edit mode, '2' then 'f'. Yes, I know that if some options were turned off for a person, the options would still be screwed around, but he will never see what he's missing, thus no adjustments need be made. Well, just thinking... ---------- note 489 sm-text 04/05/76 09.39 churches iu I am trying to use SM for writing text, using the justification feature. Two problems: * It apparently does not recognize half spaces or half backspaces. This would be very useful to have when you have a long word that is only a letter or two too long for the line. * It would be very useful to be kept up to date on the amount of space left in the block. It's extremely anoying to be suddenly thrown out of what you are doing, with no warning. Even just some consolation at this point would be useful. ---------- response 1 04/05/76 11.51 churches iu I (with Silas Warner's help) just found the source of some of the aggrevation.... I was using the MICRO key instead of the access key and I was using half backspaces. No, no ! ---------- response 2 04/05/76 22.07 mike b cornell Nevertheless, I too have wished for the ability to keep track of the amount of space used/left in SD. Could this be added? M¬ ike≤≤≤≤٧B ---------- note 492 edit micro 04/05/76 11.05 celia pso There is now an editing micro in lesson "micros". It is Bruce Parrello's "editmicro". Thanks to all whose comments helped us decide on this one. ---------- response 1 04/05/76 12.57 resch nursing Thanks to all involved. It makes it much easier. Paul Resch ---------- response 2 04/05/76 14.00 sellers arizona Will there be any documentation of the characters in the micro? Wouldn't be such a pain except for the obtuseness of the present micro-editor. Could always experiment, but a lookup table in aids or somewhere would save a little time for a lot of people. ---------- response 3 04/05/76 15.46 celia pso Yes, it is a pain. Will give it some thought. ---------- response 4 04/05/76 18.26 sellers arizona When is the new micro-editor going to be installed? This would solve the problem. ---------- response 5 04/05/76 21.56 parrello uimatha For now, you can use the listing of the microtable contents in the blocks named "editmicro*" of lesson "scribbling". ---------- response 6 04/06/76 02.19 sellers arizona Thanks! ---------- note 496 Tennessee 04/05/76 12.47 stratton pfw Does anyone out there know how many authors there are at the university of Tennessee in Memphis? If there is someone who does know could you please send their names to stratton/pfw or respond here. thank you very much.......... ******** Johnny Quest ******** ---------- response 1 04/05/76 13.22 tebby pso Answered in pnote. ---------- note 501 editor U 04/05/76 13.29 michael english Rather than the ability to change the -use- lesson by pressing U on the block directory page, I'd much rather be able to jump directly to editing the -use-d lesson. Possible? Via some other key, perhaps? ---------- response 1 04/05/76 14.28 silver ve GREAT idea! ---------- response 2 04/05/76 20.08 alan hebrew Any reason why "u" can't change the use information and "U" edit the used lesson? 1 problem, though, would be getting back to editting the lesson that you U'd from. ---------- note 503 block 0 04/05/76 13.45 michael english The -block- command currently causes no execution error if the length argument is zero. Can this be relied upon, or is it subject to change? ---------- response 1 04/05/76 14.03 sellers arizona I would think that a zero length block transfer would be functionally useful for generality when one uses a variable length block transfer. ---------- response 2 04/05/76 14.41 wickham unidel I have code dependent upon the fact that -block- can have a value of zero for the var. tag, so I for one would like to see it remain the same. Chas. ---------- response 3 04/05/76 14.49 bowery comm One could, in fact, argue that -block- should accept negative lengths. block n10,n20,-10 etc.. ---------- response 4 04/05/76 22.17 rader s A block transfer of zero length will always do nothing-- I like it too! ---------- response 5 04/06/76 00.48 blomme s Yes, I think we have fairly consistently tried to make lengths and counts of zero simply cause commands to be skipped over (cf. also do and doto!) ---------- note 506 who did it 04/05/76 14.12 temp phar Why doesn't someone fix up the editor so that you can get the author information (from the DATA page) even if the inspect is restricted. Sometimes I have had to look for quite a while to find the author of a lesson when I wanted to talk to him. It would be nice if the name of the author would come up on the 'Type the security code' page so that people could find him if he did not sign his lesson(or had riged it so that it did not run). Just an idea. Greg Corson ---------- response 1 04/05/76 14.23 travers mxc I agree; this should be done soon. How about pressing DATA1 on the password page to see the lesson info? If there is some qualm about showing everything (though I can't imagine why) showing the last author would at least give a name to contact. ---------- response 2 04/05/76 14.31 d zweig iu Wow...what a New and Execiting Idea!!! ---------- response 3 04/05/76 17.31 j thiher amesrad New no, but pleasing yes. At least the author's (perhaps the last editor) name should be shown. How else can one find out who to send the p-note to in order to get access? Of course if yo wanted to wait until the next business day and Tebby was in you can, but sometimes that isn't such a good idea. jim ---------- response 4 04/05/76 23.59 mike b cornell Tebby is very efficient in these matters. This question was argued extensively several months ago (I was too lazy to look the dates up). I believe the consensus was (among the users) that a flag to show the DATA information from the security code page was a good idea. The systems responses indicated that there were many higher priorities. I can't see that the situation has changed, although with all these little changes to the editor lately.... M¬ ike≤≤≤≤٧B ---------- response 5 04/05/76 09.20 berger mfl Keep in mind that there was discussion about this 2 years ago, and user response favored making the data page available in inspect only. Even if it is a low priority thing, it has been over two years! ---------- response 6 04/06/76 10.47 boas unidel I would like to know the author without always having to contact tebby or some systems people. It should be accessable. Sometimes 'authors' and 'phonebook' is helpful, but if there sign-on is not listed there..... .... lots of luck! E↑٧B ---------- response 7 04/06/76 14.47 broadus css try term operator day or night ---------- note 514 stored whr 04/05/76 15.00 ruane ll382 Just wondering ... Where did the space needed for the special editing features come from? Block a hasn't gotten any shorter! ---------- response 1 04/05/76 15.03 michael english It did too, almost a year ago. ---------- response 2 04/06/76 00.01 mike b cornell If those people program (and plan) as efficiently as we all should, they probably set aside some words at that time, knowing that they would need them when someone got around to making the additions to the editor. M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- note 516 prints err 04/05/76 15.35 koning csstaff There is a bug in the print request routine... When I asked for the status of a print on a signon which was not the one I used to request it, the print status routine would simply sit (apparently in an infinite loop) rather than telling me I had no requests. It worked correctly for another file. Perhaps it is related to the fact that the files were "now being printed" and the one that did not work may have been the first one in the list. ---------- response 1 04/05/76 15.53 fay o Thanks for the report. We are trying to track down this possible error. ---------- note 517 SM just 04/05/76 15.40 bowery comm Could the justify option in SM be made to have a default right margin that is half as wide as the left margin? ---------- response 1 04/05/76 17.10 michael cornell Gee, I was going to suggest default margins for SD on the special options page! I always use the same ones, and it's a pain to reset them every time... M↑ˇi↑ˇk↑ˇe O↑ˆl↑ˆt↑ˆz ---------- response 2 04/05/76 17.41 travers mxc How about: DATA1 in text mode to set your right margin so you are centered in the screen. and: Save the old margin between text entries. ---------- response 3 04/05/76 18.30 midden s Bowery's idea is nice, and will be done. The last suggestion before this note, has been done, but hasn't been copied into edit yet due to some other things which would make the help pages obsolete; and the help pages are being worked on (by someone else) too... M.Midden ---------- note 524 disappear 04/05/76 17.40 rick hebrew As was promised a few months ago, lesson "olinechar" will disappear in a few days. Anyone still -use-ing this lesson would be well-advised to switch over to the system-provided lineset capability. ---------- note 530 find 04/05/76 20.29 frye mfl A reasonable extension for the -find- command, and one which has been discussed briefly in the past, is the capability of -find-ing an object which is not necessarily "=" to the de- sired target. For example, one might wish to -find- a var- iable which is "¬=" to 0, or a value that is "¬<" to a certain specified value. I would like to propose the following for- mat for such a command: findr object,relation,start,length,return[,increment,mask] where object, start, length, etc. are the same as in the current implementation of -find-. The "relation" field could be a comparison operator, such as =, <, or ¬=; OR it could be an integer constant or variable with a value to specify the type of match, like: relation: 0 => "="↓ 1 => "¬="↓ 2 => "<" and so forth... ↓(continued) ---------- response 1 04/05/76 20.42 frye mfl All of the relational operators could, I suppose, be in- cluded in this list, even $and$ and $or$... I personally would find this command useful in 1) table searches for "undesired" entries 2) ranking of students by score, name, or class where the size of the table or data base can get very large. There are no doubt even better places to use this! This seems to be a not-too-difficult and reasonable extension of the current capabilities of the system -find-. Any takers? G. David Frye ---------- response 2 04/05/76 20.54 michael cornell Indeed! Please see Public Note ¬$531 of 2/27/76. I believe the response was generally favorable. Please notice the syntax, which does not require a new command name. I do like the idea of allowing integer tags to se- lect which relational operator to use...however, I believe that the way the -find- command is currently implemented (directly into machine code) would make this rather diffi- cult. Some of the "hard-wired" operators, such as ¬=,<,and > would require the change of a mere few bits in the generated code! M↑ˇi↑ˇk↑ˇe↑ˇ (beat-em-to-the-punch) ↑ˆO↑ˆl↑ˆt↑ˆz ---------- response 3 04/05/76 21.10 frye mfl Translated into machine code? Huh? There is a "find" routine, which is executed when the les- son executor encounters a "find" command. As Mr. Tenczar put it, a certain Mr. "Findjob" (subroutine) is called with all the necessary parameters. A little glib, but true. Anyway, the extension would, I suppose, require only a branch to the correct entry in a table of possible tests, yes? ---------- response 4 04/05/76 21.14 michael cornell Sign...it all comes of not being in Urbana to hear lovely seminars... ---------- response 5 04/05/76 22.21 blomme s ALL commands can be viewed as subroutines which are called with the arguments specified in the tag. In the case of the calc command, all the lines involved in the calc are actually compiled into machine code and the command is executed by jumping into this compiled code. ---------- response 6 04/06/76 00.06 mike b cornell We seem to be digressing. I liked the idea when Mike (the other one) suggested it, and I like it now. Is there any hope for this suggestion? (By the way, lest we forget, the -findall- command should be converted too.) M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 7 04/06/76 00.45 blomme s Yes, such things seem interesting and worthwhile. I'd guess that they might get looked at in a year or two, considering the more pressing system problems and the fact that no one on the system staff that I know of has any specially high interest in doing it as a spare time project. ---------- response 8 04/06/76 09.22 judy pso The soon-to-be-announced -sort- command should help greatly with Parello's (2) request...sorting into lists by score, class, name, etc. Andersen was not going to announce -sort- until we got the AIDS write-up done, but I _think_ it is "releasable" now. ---------- response 9 04/06/76 15.02 sellers arizona -sort-??!! WOW!!! ---------- note 534 P-Notes 04/05/76 21.14 cole langlab I have just noticed a minor problem in p-notes concerning the save option. While I was reading my notes I decided to save one of them and put it in my lesson. I pressed SHIFT-'S' and then back. At the next note I also pressed SHIFT-'S', then it told me that if I wanted to store this note I would kill the stuff I had already saved, so I IS'd the saved note(¬$1) into my lesson and returned to reading my notes. I then went to the other note I had wanted to save previously and pressed SHIFT-'S'. I then recieved a notice telling me I would kill the stuff I presently had in if I saved this note, yet when I tried to insert this stuff in my lesson there was no result. Thanks, Dov Cole ---------- response 1 04/05/76 22.16 midden s If you SHIFT-STOP out of pnotes, you will lose the save buffer. Is this is cause of your problems? ---------- response 2 04/06/76 09.24 judy pso Are there any other reasons besides shift-STOP for losing one's "save buffer" in notes? I'm frequently bugged by losing mine! ---------- response 3 04/06/76 11.09 j thiher amesrad Is there any chance of being able to "A"ppend to your save buffer in notes similar to the A option in the editor? It is a real pain to transfer several notes especially when your notesfile in almost full and you have to wait for the exploding letter to erase. jim ---------- response 4 04/06/76 12.04 k mast p Judy, I know of no way off-hand to lose the save buffer. (And there shouldnt be, STOP1 will be fixed eventually.) ---------- response 5 04/06/76 12.35 mike b cornell The Append option has been suggested before, by me among others. The answer then was that the save buffer for notes is so small that it could not even save two notes if they were both long. Until this problem can be corrected the append option would not be very useful. M¬ ike≤≤≤≤ˇB ---------- response 6 04/06/76 15.57 kimble ustaf Except to save 2 (or more) not so long notes. ---------- note 539 commoncode 04/05/76 22.17 d zweig iu I'm in lesson B in a common block and I want to copy common from lesson A. Which codes must match in order to be able to do this? I tried making A ¬+ B's COMMON codes the same and it didn7t work (incidently, that threw me back to INSPECT MODE in the lesson since CHANGE ¬= COMMON codes). I then made B's COMMON code the same as A's CHANGE code. What finally worked,(the room got steamed up quickly, so things weren't too clear) was to make CHANGE(A)=CHANGE(B) ¬+ COMMON(A)=COMMON(B) What we really need is to be able to enter a CODE while in the common editor. ---------- response 1 04/06/76 09.28 berger mfl If you enter the common editor by editting the block you want to copy TO, I believe all of the following are correct: You may copy if the change, inspect, or common codewords on the lesson that you are copying from are blank. You may copy if the change code of the lesson to be copied from matches the change code of the lesson you are copying to. You may copy if the common code on the other lesson matches the common code on the lesson that you are copying to. ---------- response 2 04/06/76 10.11 marty smith mtc still, i feel that an option to enter the common/change code is needed. ---------- response 3 04/06/76 11.50 snellen medneta I believe you also can copy a common if your security code matches the inspect code of the lesson which contains the desired common. --JES *** end of notes ***