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Annotation of 43BSD/contrib/notes/doc/1, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1: .sp |1i
        !             2: .ls 1
        !             3: .ch "Introduction"
        !             4: .wh 0 hh
        !             5: 
        !             6:        Notesfiles support computer managed discussion
        !             7: forums.  Discussions can have many different purposes and scopes: the
        !             8: notesfile system has been designed to be flexible enough to handle differing
        !             9: requirements.
        !            10: 
        !            11:        Each notesfile discusses a single
        !            12: topic.
        !            13: The depth of discussion within a notesfile is ideally held constant.
        !            14: While some users may require a general discussion of personal workstations,
        !            15: a different group may desire detailed discussions about the I/O bus
        !            16: structure of the WICAT 68000 (a particular workstation).  These discussions
        !            17: might well be separated into two different notesfiles.
        !            18: 
        !            19:        Each notesfile contains a list of logically
        !            20: independent notes (called base notes).
        !            21: A note is a block of text with a comment or question intended to be seen by members
        !            22: of the notesfile community.  The note display shows the text,
        !            23: its creation time, its title, the notesfile's title,
        !            24: the author's name (some notesfiles allow anonymous notes), the number of ``responses'',
        !            25: and optionally a ``director message''.
        !            26: Each base note can have a number of ``responses'': replies, retorts, further
        !            27: comments, criticism, or related questions concerning the base note.
        !            28: Thus, a notesfile contains an ordered list of ordered lists.  This arrangement
        !            29: has historically been more convenient than other proposals (e.g., trees
        !            30: were studied on the PLATO (trademark of CDC) system).
        !            31: 
        !            32:        The concept of a notesfile was originally implemented at
        !            33: the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,
        !            34: on the PLATO system (trademark of Control
        !            35: Data Corporation). 
        !            36: The UNIX (trademark of Western Electric) 
        !            37: notesfile system
        !            38: includes these ideas with
        !            39: adaptations
        !            40: and enhancements
        !            41: made possible by the UNIX environment.
        !            42: 
        !            43:        The UNIX notesfile system was
        !            44: designed and
        !            45: implemented by Ray Essick at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
        !            46: It provides users with the abilities to
        !            47: read notes and responses, write notes and responses, forward note text to
        !            48: other users (via mail) or other notesfiles, save note text in their own files,
        !            49: and sequence through a set of notesfiles seeing just new text.
        !            50: Each notesfile has a set of ``directors'' who manage the notesfile:
        !            51: they delete old notes, compress the file when needed, grant and restrict
        !            52: access to the notesfile, and set different notesfile parameters (e.g.,
        !            53: title, ``director message'', policy note, whether notes' authors can be
        !            54: anonymous).
        !            55: Some notesfiles contain correspondence from other computers.
        !            56: Like the UNIX ``USENET'', notes and responses are exchanged (often over phone lines)
        !            57: with remote machines.
        !            58: The notesfile system provides automatic exchange and updating of notes in an
        !            59: arbitrarily connected network.
        !            60: 
        !            61:        This document details the use of notesfiles from invocation through
        !            62: intersystem notes exchanges.  The last chapter summarizes the entire set of
        !            63: commands for easy reference.
        !            64: An appendix contains detailed checklists for the
        !            65: installation of a notesfile system.

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