Aucbvax.1521 fa.human-nets utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!DERWAY@MIT-ML Thu Jun 4 20:47:34 1981 HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #112 HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Friday, 5 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 112 Today's Topics: Admistrivia - This List & Goodbye, FYI - Personal Work Stations Mailing List, Query Replies - Xerox Star, Communicating via Network - Human Nets topics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 6 June 81, 22:34 EDT From: The Moderator Subject: This list, and so long. Sorry for the lengthy administrivia, but I need to explain a bit further some of my comments in the previous issue. First of all, though I did not realize it, Roger Duffey was doing considerably more topic control than I have been doing. He would suggest to people that a message would be more appropriate on another list, or whatever he felt was the right thing to do. I had been under the impression that the only time I should refuse a message is when it was blatantly unacceptable, like an advertisement, personal insult, etc. Thus, I "invented" the FYI section, for items submitted which were not of direct relevence to any ongoing discussion, but which seemed to be of a fairly broad interest. The problem is that discussions often take off from these starting points, and the discussions would be more appropriate in another forum. For example, with the Left Handed Sugar discussion, SF-Lovers would have been more appropriate, since the overlap between that list and this is quite high, and those on Human-Nets, but not on SF-Lovers are just those that would not be interested in the Left Handed Sugar discussion. Similiarly, the various BBoards may be more appropriate destinations for items of general interest, but not related to telematics, or one of the major sub-areas that have grown in this list. I realized too late that I was opening the door for a meta-discussion, i.e. a discussion on what we should be discussing. I hope it will not interfere with the ongoing discussions too long. This will be the last digest that I will moderate. I leave tomorrow for Los Angeles to work at JPL for the summer. I have truly enjoyed the interaction with all of you, and appreciate all the support, as well as the criticisms, which were always helpful. I hope that I have done an acceptable job with moderating, though I know it was far from ideal. This is definitely an on the job training program, because there simply are no set rules by which one might operate. There will probably be a several day hiatus in the digests, with the new moderator starting early next week. I wish you all a good summer, and look forward to being among you again next fall, (as a contributor/ reader!). Thankyou, Don ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jun 1981 (Tuesday) 1906-EDT From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus) Subject: Announcing Apollo@MIT-AI mailing list. A new list to discuss personal workstations is being formed. The discussion will be centered around the Apollo computer, but not restricted. The hope is to discuss what a personal workstation should be, and review the existing systems available. Currently being discussed are: Xerox Star Perq Apollo Alto If you are interested send mail to APOLLO-REQUEST@MIT-AI. Pass along to anyone also interested. Henry Dreifus ------------------------------ Date: 05/26/81 10:10:43 From: REM@MIT-MC Subject:interesting trivia about the XEROX star Indeed, it makes a difference. If gateways are provided in the standard package of the star, so random people getting them can form larger networks, or even if hardware and software for gateways is provided as a standard pay-extra option, that's good. But if gateways exist only internally at XEROX, and commercial users must start from scratch and design some program to act as an interface, can't even request the XEROX modems and software because they aren't available for release, then each star local-net will be isolated from each other and from the world of true networking (arpanet, tymnet, telenet, et al) for a long time. ------------------------------ Date: 05/27/81 14:51:29 From: DLW@MIT-MC Subject: Xerox STAR Someone just reported that he was told by Xerox salespeople that you can't just buy a single Star; you have to buy a $25K file server and an equally expensive hardcopy device in order to actually do anything. However, it says here in the Seybold Report (v. 10 # 16 27 Apr 81) "Star can operate as a self-contained, stand-along workstation. For an additional cost, you could plug in a Diablo 630 daisy wheel printer and have a super-powerful word processor". Although the Report goes on to explain that in reality, the intended mode of usage of the Star is as a node on a network of many Stars plus some shared resources, it does sound like you can buy just one and still do good things with it. Does anyone know more about what the real story is? I am also very interested in just what the Star provides in the way of interactive, incremental text justification. The Seybold Report article is very informative but still leaves a whole lot of interesting questions in my mind. Does anyone know if the text justification tools in the Star perform automatic chapter-numbering and section-numbering, generation of tables of contents, indexes, and cross-references, and are these things done incrementally or not? Also, when you edit graphics (draw diagrams), do you actually edit them in place in the midst of your text, and do they display that way as you edit them and edit the text? ------------------------------ Date: 05/29/81 00:49:39 From: PHOTOG@MIT-MC Subject: a clarification of xerox star 'trivia' comments in response to a comeback from an mit user I should have defined my terms better, my use of the word 'toy' in describing the gateway link in use at Xerox PARC to access ARPA via a dal-server was a complementary statement. a 'toy' is (to me) a computer machine, program, device, peripheral, operating system, etc. that everyone and their brother/sister would love to have. But, political, economical, and/or marketing considerations may prevent or delay the release of the desirable item. How long have people been drooling over smalltalk waitng for Xerox to either license it or dnate it to the public domain? How long have we waited for UNIX to hit the micro market? (A feat technologically feasible many moons ago....) Finally, the comment about stars was a bit of humor. I am assamed that you think I am not aware that the star / ethernet is a local area network (rather than a star or master/slave network) also, to answer a query, the actual interface to the ethernet is usually accomplished by a dedicated controller. A new company, founded by the Zeus and Father of ethernet, Mr. Metcalf, is making a black box interface for ethernet. The name of the company is 3com, and they are out to give all ethernet's PCM vendors the tools they need. Of curse, they (curse may be a freudian slip) are planning their own servers, etc. the really big ethernet issue is, when and/or if, will xerox publish or comit to higher levels of interface standards that allow brand a prnters to make sense out of brand b spool files. I.E. ethernet currently defnes low-level electrical and packet frame interfaces but none of the higher levels such as those of the 'Open Systems Architecture' model for inter-connecting different computers . --spiv-- ------------------------------ Date: 03 Jun 1981 1122-PDT From: Jorge Phillips Subject: administrivia Although I am personally not interested in chemistry discussions over the net I disagree with the moderator's recent displeasure with message content. Even if we have shifted away from discussing human networks, we are getting a first hand EXPERIENCE of what they are through this mailing list. No amount of ``a priori'' theorizing of their nature has as much explanatory power as personal experience. By observing what happens when connectivity is provided to a large mass of people in which they can FREELY voice their ideas, doubts, and opinions, a lot of insight is obtained into very important issues of mass intercommunication. The fact that such disimilar topics as antimatter, left-handed sugar, the telephone network, etc. have been discussed in our own instance of a human network says a lot about its nature and the interests and nature of its members and should not be considered as detracting from the quality of the discussion. Rather than censoring messages, I propose that this mailing list support free speech and encourage lots of different topics. When a topic gets out of hand (like for example left-handed sugar and related chemistry) the people involved in its discussion should form a new subnetwork (which of course in our primitive version of a human network takes the form of a new mailing list). All further discussion on the topic will go through the newly created communication path. The decision of when a topic is getting out of hand should be a consensual decision among the members of the particular network, to be enforced by the moderator. The people interested in the topic can then decide the best way to discuss their own interests, and manage their discussion. I would like to see HUMAN-NETS adopt this policy. A human network is a springboard for human interaction and thus for human action. Lets view it as such and keep repression and censorship at a minimum. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jun 1981 at 1636-PDT Subject: Topics for Discussion From: zaumen.tscb at Sri-Unix With regard to the Moderator's editorial comment about irrelevant discussion topics, I would like to suggest that if a topic appears in a large number of messages, one automatically assumes that that topic is of interest. Ideally, human-nets should have an index or table of contents so that readers can look only at what interests them. Since most of us (including me) do not have the software to support such a structure, perhaps we should break human-nets up into a series of related mailing lists with a common table of contents replicated in each list (so one can decide which of the sublists to read). Alternatively, one of the sublists could be a table of contents. Presumably, each human-nets reader would receive all the sublists at once. Perhaps the subject field in the sublist would contain the specific subject area. Thus, one could easily delete the sublist containing all the comments on left-handed sugar or whatever as desired. Sublists could be added or dropped as interests changed without altering the human-nets mailing list. Any thoughts on the best way to implement this (or which of the many conceivable variations is best)? Bill ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jun 1981 0750-PDT Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #111 From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow I'd like to register my feeling on the matter that i found the Left Handed sugar discussion very interesting and the fact that if it wasn't mentioned in HUMAN-NETs i would have missed it. hence, i thank you for letting it go over HUMAN-NETS, and hope things like it in the future will be permitted as well. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jun 1981 19:46:17-PDT From: ARPAVAX.ghb at Berkeley Subject: I agree with Don. Don's comment about some of the messages that have been showing up in human-nets echoes my feelings. Some of the messages seen recently seem to have the tone of showing off the author's knowledge of some topic. Many topics have been beaten to death, and yet one still sees letters on the subject. I understand the desire to get our two cents in (that's what I am doing right now), but we all have to keep the purpose of these mailing lists in mind. Just thought I would give Don some moral support. -george Bray PS. Someone somewhere on the net has been trying to send me something for about the last week. What-ever it is, the protocol has confused our old network server, and all I have recieved for the last week is 776 (so far; they come every 20 minutes) Sender Aborted Connection messages. If someone reading this has tried to send me mail and I haven't replied, it's only the Ing70 getting confused. ------------------------------ End of HUMAN-NETS Digest ************************ ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.