@device(imprint10) @make(report) @definefont(Userfont, 1=, 2=, 3=, 4=, 5=, 6=) @modify(CopyrightNotice, Fixed -1 inch, Flushright) @Modify(Titlebox, Fixed 1.5 inches) @Style(Font computermodernroman11) @Style(spacing 1,indent 0) @Style(leftmargin 1.0inch) @Style(Linewidth 6.5inches) @begin(Titlepage) @Begin(Titlebox) @begin(MajorHeading,Flushright,Font Userfont, FaceCode 1, below .2inches) Project Athena Newsletter @end(majorheading) @begin(majorheading,flushright,font userfont, facecode 6,above 0) December 3, 1984 Volume 1, No. 3 @end(Majorheading) @End(Titlebox) @CopyrightNotice(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) @end(titlepage) @newpage @blankspace(5 inches) @begin(Heading,flushleft, font userfont, facecode 6) Editorial Policy @end(heading) @begin(quotation,indent 0) The @i[Project Athena Newsletter] is the official publication of Project Athena, a five-year experiment in the use of computer technology to improve the education of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The @i[Newsletter] prints articles of interest to members of the MIT community who participate, or who are interested, in the Project. These articles present the general purpose, philosophy, technical development, and direction of Project Athena, and specific news items about Project Athena facilities and projects. We encourage article submissions from the community and publish appropriate contributions whenever possible. @end(quotation) @begin(text) @tabset(.3inches) @\If you have any comments or questions on the newsletter-- @end(text) @begin(format) @tabset(1.5 inches, 2.6 inches) @\Contact:@\Will Doherty @\@\Editor @\@\Project Athena Newsletter @\@\MIT E40-426 @\@\Cambridge, MA 02139 @\@\(617)253-1300 @end(format) @newpage @set(page=1) @Begin(MajorHeading,Flushright, below .2inches) Project Athena Newsletter @end(MajorHeading) @begin(majorheading,flushright,font userfont, facecode 4,above 0) December 3, 1984 Volume 1, No. 3 @end(Majorheading) @pageheading(immediate,left "", center "", right "") @Pageheading(left "12/3/84", center "Project Athena Newsletter", right "12/3/84") @pagefooting(odd,Immediate, left "Project Athena Newsletter", center "Volume 1, No. 3", right <@value(page)>) @pagefooting(even,Immediate,left <@value(page)>, center "Volume 1, No. 3", right "Project Athena Newsletter") @Section(Curriculum Development Proposals Due February 1, 1985) The next round of proposals for funding for Athena Curriculum Development projects are due on February 1, 1985. New @i(Guidelines for Proposals) will be available shortly. Contact Connie Donaghey at (25)3-1300 for further information. @Section(Student Center Athena Cluster Opens) @i[Eva Tervo, Operations Coordinator] You may have noticed the recent flurry of activity in the library on the fifth floor of the MIT Student Center. A huge new Athena cluster opened in W20 in November. Containing five new Unix systems, one server machine, over 30 terminals including many of the new large-screen VAXstation 100s (VS100), in five thousand square feet of space, the Student Center cluster is the largest facility Athena will open. The Student Center Committee and the MIT Libraries agreed to donate the space for the cluster to Athena. The machines in the cluster are named after characters in the Larry Niven novel @i(Ringworld). The server machine is @i(ringworld). The user machines are @i(nessus, louiswu, speaker, teela, and prill). This continues to break a short-standing Athena tradition that named Athena machines after characters in Greek mythology. Although four of the original five cluster machines retain their Greek names, we were beginning to run out of ``good'' names like @i(hera) and @i(apollo) and into the obscure and unpronounceable names like @i(mnemosyne) and @i(pasiphae). The Student Information Processing Board used names from @i[The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy] for the EECS and Athena machines in Building 38. We think these new heuristics will provide a fertile and fun ``name space.'' To find the Student Center terminal room--enter the 5th floor library and turn left at the copy machines. The terminal room is open 24 hours a day, except when the Student Center is closed for the holidays. If you obtain an account at the Student Center facility, please be aware that: @begin(itemize, spread 0) You will have to show your MIT student ID at the door. You should not smoke or bring food into the cluster (as for all Athena clusters). @end(itemize) Students will compete for the limited resources available; thus, you should not play games on the only terminal available when others need to do course work. Don't be shy if you need a terminal for course work -- speak up! @Section(Students: Accounts Move To Student Center) @i[Cecilia d'Oliveira, User Services Manager] Project Athena created about 800 accounts this Fall Term for students who were enrolled in subjects using Athena equipment. If you're one of these students you have probably begun to wonder what's going to happen to your Athena account when classes are over. This article provides a general overview of what will happen and what you will need to do. More detailed information will be available in a separate handout that will be in all Athena terminal rooms by December 7, 1984. Athena recently opened a large, new cluster in the Student Center Library (W20--5th floor). All student accounts that were part of Fall courses will be moved to machines at this new cluster. These new Student Center accounts will provide continued access to Athena in the Spring Term, apart from a specific course, for students who obtained accounts this fall. The new accounts will however have much more limited disk space for file storage--500KB blocks instead of 2500KB blocks--so you may not be able to keep some of your files. Who will be affected? Students in the following courses will be affected: 1.00, 1.04, 2.10, 2.671, 2.672, 3.11, 5.33, 6.013, 6.014, 6.022j, 13.00, 13.902, 16.62x. If your course already uses machines in W20 (1.50 and 6.021j), the student accounts for that course will stay where they are but the quotas will be reduced to 500KB blocks. Who will not be affected? Students in courses that used ``generic'' accounts only, as opposed to having individual accounts for each student, will not be affected. This includes: 3.55, 13.10j, 17.803, and 18.440. Individual students in these courses used Athena computers this term but did not receive personal accounts and will therefore not be affected. Also, students who got Athena accounts because they were working for an Athena curriculum development project will not be affected. The process will begin in early December. On November 27, 1984, Athena took a snapshot of all student accounts and passwords (but not the files) that are associated with the Athena-supported courses listed above. We will then make new, duplicate accounts for each of these users on one of the five machines located in the Student Center facility. These accounts should become available on December 5, 1984. There will be a six week period between the time these new accounts are created and the time the old accounts are deleted on January 18, 1985. During this period we expect students to transfer any files that they wish to keep from their old machines and accounts to their new machines and accounts. Athena @b[will not] do this for you. You will be able to transfer your files over the network using the easy, new @b[moveme] command that we will make available or the standard Unix file transfer utilities. On January 18, 1985, all old student accounts from the courses listed above will become inactive and their files will be deleted. Any files you wish to save must be transferred from your old account to your new account by that date. For detailed information on your new account, how to move your files and what to do if you have problems see the handout that will be available in the Athena terminal rooms by December 7, 1984. Student consultants will be available at the Student Center cluster from December 5 through December 20, and from January 10 through January 18, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights from 7-9PM to answer questions. We strongly advise you to move files at the Student Center during these hours. @b[Please note] that all current course account files you do not move to your new account on a Student Center machine will disappear on your original machine on January 18. Enjoy!!! P.S. If this situation creates problems for you (eg. you are taking an incomplete in the course, plan to finish up the work next term and will need access to your current account) please talk to your account administrator. If you don't know who your account administrator is, see your instructor. @Section(Student Center Cluster: Holiday Schedule) @begin(format) @tabset(3inches, 5inches) Monday, December 24, 1984@\Closed at 6pm@\Christmas Eve Tuesday, December 25, 1984@\Closed all day@\Christmas Day Wednesday, December 26, 1984@\Reopens 7am Monday, December 31, 1984@\Closed at 6pm@\New Year's Eve Tuesday, January 1, 1985@\Closed all day@\New Year's Day Wednesday, January 2, 1985@\Reopens at 7am @end(format) @section(IAP 1985: Project Athena Activities) @i[Connie Donaghey, Athena IAP Coordinator, E40-443, (25)3-1300] @begin(format) @b[Project Athena Seminar Series] Tue. and Thu., Jan. 8-29, 3:30-5pm, 34-101 @end(format) Project Athena is a large-scale educational experiment aimed at developing and appraising ways in which convenient access to networked computer workstations can influence the structure and content as well as the teaching and learning associated with the educational programs of the Institute. Speakers will discuss educational software projects now underway at MIT. Contact: Connie Donaghey, E40-443, (25)3-1300. @begin(format) @i[Project Athena Status Report] Prof. Steven Lerman Director of Project Athena Tue., Jan. 8, 3:30pm, 34-101 @i[Computer-Aided Electromagnetic Field Instruction] Prof. James Kirtley Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Thu., Jan. 10, 3:30pm, 34-101 @i[Computer Applications in Transport Phenomena] Prof. Julian Szekely and Prof. Terry Ring Materials Science and Engineering Tue., Jan. 15, 3:30pm, 34-101 @i[Computer-Based Software for Foreign Language Instruction] Dr. Janet Murray School of Humanities and Social Science Thu., Jan. 17, 3:30pm, 34-101 @i[Computer Enhanced Curriculum for Fluid Mechanics] Profs. Earll Murman and Sheila Widnall Aeronautics and Astronautics Tue., Jan. 22, 3:30pm, 34-101 @i[Computer-Based Course in Modeling, Research & Design] Dr. Andrea DiSessa Educational Computing Group Laboratory for Computer Science Thu., Jan. 24, 3:30pm, 34-101 @i[Playing and Analyzing Sequential Prisoner's Dilemmas] Prof. Hayward Alker Political Science Tue., Jan. 29, 3:30pm, 34-101 @end(format) @begin(format) @b[Documenting Your Athena Project] Linda Merims, Athena Documentation Manager Wed., Jan. 23, 10-12am, 34-101 @end(format) This seminar is for people who are developing educational software as part of Project Athena and who know that--somewhere along the line--they will need to document it. The seminar has two main purposes: to provide a kit of short, practical tools for documentation, and to find out what documentation help you want from Athena. Specific topics include: documenting the internal workings of your programs for programmer maintenance; putting online help in your system; how to make a man page; and what ought to be in a document for the users of the system. Contact: Linda Merims, E40-431, (25)3-1368. @section(Consultant's Corner: When You Run Out of File Space) @i(Win Treese, Student Consultant Staff) Did you ever get the message: @blankspace(1line) @center( @b[WARNING - too many files (/mit)]) Or: @center(@b[WARNING: disc quota (/mit) exceeded]) @blankspace(1line) Both of these messages warn users about limits on the disk storage available to them. Magnetic disks provide file storage on Athena machines. Since many people share Project Athena machines, users must have a @i(quota), or portion, of the total disk space they can use. To find out what your quota is, type @b[quota]. You should see something like this: @begin(ProgramExample, font userfont, facecode 5) @tabset(.25inches,.75inches,1.5inches,2inches,2.5inches,3.25inches,3.75inches, 4.5inches,5inches) % quota disc quotas for student (uid 460): @\Filsys@\current@\@=quota@\@=limit@\#warns@\files@\@=quota@\@=limit@\#warns @\@=/mit@\@=907@\@=2500@\@=3000@\@\@=172@\@=600@\@=800 @end(ProgramExample) @blankspace(1line) The quota system limits two things: the number of disk blocks you may use and the number of files you may have at a given time. The first column of the example above shows the file system partition your account accesses, in this case @b[/mit]. In the second column, you find the number of disk blocks your files occupy. A disk block is a unit of storage on a system disk; in this version of UNIX, it is 1024 bytes. Under the first @b[quota] column is the ``soft'' limit on the number of disk blocks you can have. If you try to use more and exceed the ``soft'' limit, you will get the message: @blankspace(1line) @center(@b[WARNING: disc quota (/mit) exceeded]) @blankspace(1line) You may continue to work, but you should try to remove some of your files to get under your quota before you logout. The next column, the first @b[limit] column, is the ``hard'' limit, the maximum number of disk blocks you can use. If you try to create more files at this point, you will get the message: @blankspace(1line) @center(@b[DISC LIMIT REACHED (/mit) - WRITE FAILED]) @blankspace(1line) The program trying to write a file will be unable to do so and you may find yourself stuck in the program having lost some of your work. Essentially, the difference between the hard and soft limits gives you some space to use temporarily while you are logged in, but you should restrict yourself to the soft limit by the time you log out. The next set of numbers in the example gives information about the number of files you may have. Under the @b[files] column is the number of files you have. The columns @b[quota] and @b[limit] give soft and hard limits, respectively, on the number of files you may have, just like the soft and hard limits of your disk quota. If you exceed the soft limit, you will see: @center{@b[WARNING - too many files (/mit)]} @blankspace(1line) and you should get rid of some of your files before you log out. If you exceed the hard limit, you will see: @blankspace(1line) @center{@b[FILE LIMIT REACHED - CREATE FAILED (/mit)]} @blankspace(1line) and you may lose work and find yourself stuck. NOTE: If one of these errors occurs while you are using @b[emacs], the message: @blankspace(1line) @Center(@b[?Display size too big for terminal type "filename"]) @blankspace(1line) will appear at the top of the display. Admittedly, this error message is not very informative. You can do several things to correct the problem if you get one of these messages. Usually, you can delete some really large files that you don't need to keep around. Files you may want to delete include: @begin(itemize, spread 0) @i(core), a copy of the memory made when certain errors occur Your deleted mail messages, located in your @b[~/Mail] directory, acquire a @b[#] symbol when you @b(rmm) them. For example, @i(2) becomes @i(#2) when you type: @center(@b[rmm 2]) The system purges the @b[#] files periodically, but you can delete them yourself (@b[rm #2] while in your @b[~/Mail] directory) if you need the space. @end(itemize) It's always a good idea to do an @b(ls -l) to look for any really large files. For example, @blankspace(1line) @begin(ProgramExample, font userfont, facecode 5) @tabset(1 inch,2inch,3 inch,4.5inch) %ls -l total 2086 -rw-r--r--@\1 student@\2121728@\Nov 5 17:08@\core -rw-rw-rw-@\1 student@\2148@\Nov 5 16:57@\corner1.mss -rw-rw-rw-@\1 student@\1702@\Nov 5 16:52@\corner1.mss~ -rw-rw-rw-@\1 student@\0@\Nov 5 17:08@\log -rw-rw-rw-@\1 student@\324@\Nov 5 16:18@\quotalog -rwxrwxrwx@\1 student@\5120@\Nov 5 17:08@\test* @=File@\@=Owner@\@=Size in@\@=Date@\@=Filename @=Protection@\@\@=Bytes@\@=Written @end(ProgramExample) @blankspace(1line) This listing shows that the file @i(core) is very large, taking up 2121728 bytes. It also shows the file @i(corner1.mss~), which is a backup file created by EMACS. If you are finished editing a particular file, you can remove the files ending in @b[~] to gain some space. If you have a legitimate need for more disk space, even after you clean up the extra files in your directory, you may want to contact your Account Administrator to increase your quota. @section(The Project Athena Staff) @i[Linda Merims, Documentation Specialist, and Will Doherty, Newsletter Editor] One year ago, Project Athena had no director, no offices, no faculty curriculum development projects proposed (much less funded), only one computer, and a few employees. Athena's early course was charted by a collection of faculty committees. Jim Bruce, MIT's Director of Information Systems, was our acting director. He brought together a small staff to translate the direction of these committees into a concrete plan of action. Doug Wilson, captured from the Joint Computer Facility, was ``Systems and Operations.'' With the help of one staff programmer (Mike Gretzinger) and one student programmer (Jim Fulton), he built and equipped the first few Athena clusters. Cecilia d'Oliveira began as Assistant to the Director. She handled all the non-technical aspects of getting the project off the ground: How do we start course development projects? What will we do for staff? And for software? Beth Anderson planned user support. Ed Balkovich of Digital Equipment Corporation and Rip Parmelee of IBM represented their companies in the planning process. There was one Unix ``wizard'' in residence, a systems programmer from DEC. Project Athena now has over thirty full-time staff from MIT, Digital, IBM, Codex, and Bolt, Beranek, and Newman. Our administrative offices are located in Building E40 on the east side of campus. We have six clusters open, with some 45 Digital VAX/750's and over 100 IBM PC's in use. Over fifty faculty curriculum development projects are underway. This fall the first one thousand MIT students are taking courses that teach with the aid of Athena resources. Project Athena staff members now divide their work hours between administrative activities, user services, software development, and operations. Project Athena Director Steve Lerman, a professor of Civil Engineering at MIT, guides the administration of the project, assisted by Associate Director Rip Parmelee from IBM and Associate Director Ed Balkovich from Digital. Jim Bruce served as head of the Athena Administration/Operations Committee and now actively confronts management issues related to the administration, operations, and networking of the project. Professor Jerry Saltzer of the Laboratory for Computer Science has just joined Athena as Technical Director. Cecilia d'Oliveira heads the User Services group that provides consulting and documentation services for Athena users and curriculum development projects. Within ``User Services,'' Beth Anderson coordinates a dedicated team of some 25 student consultants, crowned with owl-insignia caps, who provide on-the-spot help in the terminal rooms. Applications consultant Ed Moriarty devotes his technical expertise to current courses, while application consultants Mark Levine and Jennifer Pinkus work with the development projects. Linda Merims organizes the documentation of the Project. Doug Wilson is Athena's Manager of System Development, heading a team of system programmers, employed by Digital (4 programmers), IBM (4 programmers), Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (1 programmer), and MIT staff members Mike Gretzinger, Ron Newman, and Joachim Martillo. Project Athena is in the process of recruiting a permanent Manager of Operations, but in the meantime, Doug Wilson acts as Manager of Operations in addition to his system development position. He directs Operations Coordinator Eva Tervo, System Programmers Dave Grubbs, Bertha Hoskins, and Barbara Pease, and User Accounts Administrator Connie Correia. Digital Field Service personnel aid in installation and service of Digital equipment. Fifteen student operators help Eva Tervo with operations tasks, like machine installation and maintenance, that range over the entire campus. The Information Systems group of MIT provides the services of Jeff Schiller, Manager of the Campus Computer Network, and Dennis Baron, Manager of Data Communications. Technician Larry Peatfield works on the Campus Computer Network and other data communications tasks affiliated with the project. The Campus Computer Network provides data communications between the individual Project Athena Clusters. Codex, a subsidiary of Motorola Corporation, has donated the services of a manager of the Codex Networking Group, along with two Systems Programmers who work on developing networking software for the Campus Computer Network. Administrative Secretary Connie Donaghey and Secretaries Beverly Pottinger and Mary O'Reilly provide important additional administrative support for the staff and committees of the Project. @Section(New System in January--Many Changes) @i(Linda Merims, Documentation Specialist) During the first week of January, Project Athena will release a new version of its system to user machines. This release will contain several major new software systems, upgrades to some existing packages, and many minor improvements. This January release of the Athena system will not be built by the usual Unix ``snapshot copy'' of a running system method. Instead, the system will be built from scratch by recompiling the operating system and utilities from a known set of source code files. This ensures that we will be able to reproduce this running version of the system at a later date, should this be required. The policy we have adopted for this and future releases is to maintain upwards compatibility with previous versions of the Athena system to the greatest extent feasible. This policy will be held to particularly in instances where a significant segment of the user population might be adversely affected by a change. The provisions for upwards compatibility include keeping old versions of some programs on the system whenever possible. Our policy to maintain upwards compatibility will be enforced even more strictly in future releases. Because this is the first release in which the entire system will be in a known state, we intend to treat it as our base system. Even in this release, we have tried to minimize any incompatibilities with earlier code. This article will describe the new software, its new features, and such incompatibilities as do exist. If you are responsible for a software package used in a course and find that your code no longer works after the January release, please call the Athena Service Hotline at (25)3-1410 and let us know. @subsection(Schedule) We plan to release the new system during the first week and a half of January. Athena now has some forty-five machines, with thirty-five of them located in the five user clusters. Because there are so many machines, the release will not occur at the same time on all systems. Instead, the release will be made as a kind of ``rolling blackout'' from cluster to cluster. The ``blackout'' is scheduled to begin on January 2, 1985, and last until about January 10. The planned order of conversion for the clusters is W20 (Student Center), 66, 38, 1 (includes 4 and 6), and 11. You can tell that your cluster is being done because there will be a sign on the terminal cluster door. If you dial-in, your machine will not answer. We expect, in the best case, that each cluster will be out of service for about one day, from about 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. If we encounter difficulties, the cluster may be down longer. This is more likely to occur in the first clusters we convert than in the later ones. You can tell that the new system has been installed because the banner you get at after logging in will say something like ``Athena Unix #2-something'' instead of the ``Athena Unix #0-something'' or ``#1-something'' it displays now. If you have problems with the new system or its applications software, tell the student consultant on duty. If no consultant is available, call (25)3-1410. @subsection(Caveat) As of this @i(Newsletter's) deadline, not all of the features mentioned in this article had completed final testing. Some may be found wanting and will be withdrawn before the actual release. The January issue of the @i(Newsletter) will report any such last-minute deletions. @subsection(Hanging Up Will Log You Out) The system will now automatically log you out if you hang up your phone when dialing in to Athena. This will solve a major problem we have had with dial-ups, namely people hanging up without logging out because they assume (or perhaps just fervently hope) that they will be logged out automatically. They aren't. Instead, people who dial-in later frequently find they have acquired somebody else's leftover terminal session. The system will now also force a hang-up signal upon logout. This will solve another, subtler problem wherein people logout but their modems keep the phone connection to Athena, tying up lines unnecessarily. You must still explicitly logout of hardwired terminal sessions. Turning off a hardwired terminal will still NOT log you out. @subsection[Flow Control (CTRL-S) Comes Back On] Project Athena turned off flow control on its network when we installed the Login Server in September. (The ``Login Server'' is the program that asks you what machine you want to talk to on both dial-ups and terminal cluster terminals and then connects you to it through the network.) Slow links in a computer network--such as graphics terminals and people trying to read screens--use flow control to help regulate the rate at which the fast links in the network send them data. Usually, the control-S character is used to pause output, and the control-Q character is used to start it up again. On VT100-type terminals, the NO SCROLL key can perform the same function. We turned off flow control because the Emacs text editor uses CTRL-S as its search command. The ambiguous situation could arise that a person sitting in the Emacs editor would type CTRL-S to search for a character string, and the network would intercept the CTRL-S before it got to Emacs, interpret it as ``turn off output'' and the person would find that his/her terminal seemed to have gone dead for no apparent reason. To avoid this, Athena told its network to ignore all CTRL-S, CTRL-Q flow control commands. This caused a different set of problems. Graphics terminals that need flow control would garble their graphic output if used over the network. People who had been transferring files between Athena and their micros found the process no longer worked reliably. People sitting at terminals typing CTRL-S/CTRL-Q or NO SCROLL would find that, although it appeared to be working, they were actually losing large chunks of data out of the middle of their files. Flow control would only work if the terminal a person was using was actually hardwired to the machine he/she was logged into. We have fixed this problem now, removing the possibility of ambiguity. When the new system goes up in January, flow control will come back on. In the meantime, if flow control is vital to your application, as it is for all graphics, you should always use a terminal whose Login Server banner shows it is hardwired to the system you actually want to use. @subsection(CTRL-S, Emacs, and VT125, PRO350, VT240, and VT241 Graphics Terminals) Although Athena has fixed the general problem ``who gets the CTRL-S'' between Emacs and flow control for January, a related problem will @p(always) remain for graphics terminals. Graphics terminals tend to like to grab CTRL-S's themselves and interpet them as ``stop sending output to the screen.'' This causes additional confusion when using Emacs on an Athena Graphics terminal. (VAXstation 100's do not have this problem.) When using Emacs on a VT125, PRO350, VT240, or VT241 terminal set-up for graphics, follow these tips: @itemize[ NEVER enter CTRL-S while in Emacs. If you do, your terminal will seem to have gone dead. Emacs has equivalents for all its commands that contain CTRL-S and CTRL-Q characters. These were published in the chart on page 5 of the November 84 Athena @i(Newsletter). We will also paste these charts on all graphics terminals. If you do enter CTRL-S while in Emacs and your terminal seems go dead, try to start it up again with CTRL-Q. This will almost always work on PRO350, VT240, and VT241 terminals. Sometimes it will not work on VT125 terminals. If a VT125 seems to have gone dead, try SET-UP RESET. If that doesn't work, you will probably have to kill your Unix session from another terminal. ] @subsection(The Electronic Laboratory Notebook: RS/1) The January release will include RS/1, a major new software package. RS/1 is a powerful, integrated system for data management and analysis developed by BBN Research Systems. It is basically an electronic laboratory notebook designed to meet the information-handling needs of research scientists, engineers, and students of these disciplines. Based on a simple English-like command language, RS/1 enables you to enter data into two-dimensional tables, and then visualize this data easily in graphs, perform a variety of statistical tests, and create models of complex systems. Users can extend and tailor the RS/1 system with RPL, the PL/1-like Research Programming Language that comes with it. RS/1 has an extensive online help facility. RS/1 is documented in a three-volume User's Guide. Reference copies of this @i(Users Guide) will be available in all the Athena terminal cluster manual racks. The @i(Guide) will also be available for sale at the IS Publications Office in 11-209 toward the end of December. The three-volume set (not sold individually) will cost about $50. RS/1 also has an easy pocket reference card that sells for about 50 cents. RS/1 is part of the donation BBN has made to Project Athena. If you have questions about RS/1, call Jennifer Pinkus as (25)3-1530. @subsection(New Version of Emacs) We will install a new version (162.45z) of the CCA Emacs text editor, replacing the current 162.41z version. The following is a list of the major new features and changes: @itemize[ This new version has one significant incompatibility with the old Emacs. People who have created their own @i[.emacs_keys] or @i(.emacs_vars) files are the only people truly affected. All of the old Emacs functions that were also bound to keystrokes began their names with ^R (up-arrow R), for example, ^R Forward Character. The reason for this is an obscure historical artifact dating back to the origins of Emacs that can be summed up by saying, ``It seemed like a good idea at the time.'' CCA has removed the ^R from the names of @i(all) Emacs functions. The only people who will really notice this are people who have created their own custom key bindings in an @i[.emacs_keys] or @i(.emacs_vars) file. Those files will no longer work. You must remove the ^R prefaces from all of your key binding definitions for the new Emacs. The new Emacs supports file version numbers. This feature is controlled by a new variable, File Versions @i(n), where @i(n) is the number of back versions of a file to keep. By default, @i(n) is 0, i.e., file version numbers are turned off by default. (The ~ backup version is still always kept.) Emacs now has automatic file name completion. This means that, when you enter a filename in response to a prompt (for example, CTRL-C I Insert File:), you don't need to type the whole name of the file. Instead, you can just type a few letters then the ESCape key, and Emacs will find the file that matches your pattern. C Mode has been changed to make it easier to modify the way Emacs automatically indents your C programs. See the C Indent variable documentation. You no longer have to type CTRL-U to preface a numeric argument to a command. Auto Arg Mode (off by default) will take any number you type that is followed by an Emacs command and interpret it as a numeric argument. For example, 45 CTRL-F will move forward 45 characters. You used to have to type CTRL-U 45 CTRL-F. Again, Auto Arg Mode is off by default. Read the documentation on Auto Arg Mode in the new Emacs manual described below for more information on how Emacs handles ambiguous cases. Emacs now starts up somewhat faster, and scrolls to new pages considerably faster. @multiple{ The new Emacs includes a @i(test) version of the Elisp extension language. Elisp is an interpretive programming language, a subset of Common Lisp, that lets you write Lisp programs that manipulate files of text. The functions that you call are the familiar Emacs commands. It is like getting a programming language with a very rich, powerful set of subroutines for manipulating character data. The usual application of this is to program your own Emacs super-commands instead of using the more clumsy keyboard macro technique. However, Elisp can be used as a general text file programming tool. Because it is in a @i(test) phase, Elisp is not normally accessible. If you want to help us test Elisp, contact Joachim Martillo at (25)3-5264. } ] There are other, minor changes. The new, updated Emacs manual will be for sale in the IS Publications Office by early January. Because eliminating ^R changed virtually every page in the manual, CCA will @i(not) publish update packets for old manuals. Your old Emacs manuals are still mostly accurate if you remember to ignore the ^Rs. @subsection(New Version of Scribe) We will release Scribe Version 4 as the default version of Scribe, replacing Version 3C. The current version 3C will be retained in a special "old" directory for a limited period of time. There are many significant changes in the new Scribe, including one incompatibility that will affect all Scribe users. Incompatibilities @itemize[ The new Scribe has a bug in the way it handles file names. (The bug has been reported to Unilogic, but will not likely be fixed before June, 1985.) You can no longer give your Scribe input files simple filenames such as @i(myfile). If you do, Scribe will look for a file called @i(myfile.mss). It will not look for a file called just @i(myfile). Not finding a file with the @i[.mss] file type Scribe will give an ``Input file myfile not found'' error message. On the other hand, if you give your input file any name that does contain a . (dot), and you give Scribe its full name, such as @i(hi.there), Scribe will find the file. The simplest way to deal with all of this is to always name your Scribe input files the .mss file type. @multiple{ We will change the default Scribe output device. The default output device type has been ``line printer,'' producing output files with file type .lpt, suitable for printing on a line printer. This normally works all right on both the LN01 laser printer and the LA26 impact printer. It works--until you try to change the right margin in an @i(@@style) command. Suddenly, instead of the text being narrower and leaving a wider right margin, you find the text running all the way off the page. What you didn't realize is that Scribe assumes a line printer is loaded with 132-column wide computer output paper. Your ``wider'' right margin is now some five inches off the edge of the page. For this reason, and because of other complaints about the way .lpt files print on our laser printers, we have decided to change the default output device to @@device(ln01). This will produce files with a file extension .ln0. (Alas, although the device is known colloquially is an ``el en oh one'' that @i(is) a zero.) The LN01 is no great improvement over .lpt. There are still no super nor subscripts, no boldface, nor fonts. The device does allow some space at the top of the page before the page number, and has somewhat more pleasing default margins. } Any user-written .mak files that include an @i{@@Libraryfile(math.lib)} line must be changed. @i(math.lib) has been renamed @i(common.lib). The @i(@@file) command is obsolete. Replace it in any .mss files with @i(@@include). There have been numerous minor changes to the Scribe database, each having a small effect on the way some documents will appear. ] New Features Unfortunately, the two major new features in Scribe Version 4 are not too useful to Athena users because we do not have a fully-functional laser printer that can take advantage of them. The new features are: @itemize[ A much-improved, much-expanded facility for typesetting mathematical equations. See Chapter 11 of the Scribe manual discussed below. A facility, @@picture, for including graphics in the midst of text. This only works on Santec S-700, Imagen Imprint-10 8/300 and 5/480, Xerox 9700 and 8700, Lasergrafix 1200, and DEC GIGI Color Graphics output devices. There are none of these devices within the Athena environment, but there might be elsewhere. Only certain file formats are supported. ] Documentation The complete Scribe Version 4 @i(Release Notes), including a thick list of changes to the Scribe database, will be placed in the Athena terminal cluster manual racks next to the new Scribe Version 4 @i(User Manual) for the sake of Scribe aficionados who want to know the gory details. The IS Publications Office in 11-209 has been selling Scribe Version 4 @i(User Manuals) since September. Unilogic has not yet published Version 4 editions of its Scribe @i(Pocket Reference) and @i(Database Administrators Guide). Unilogic Ltd. itself is offering a unique deal for people with Scribe Version 3 manuals (with the monk on the front) who want to upgrade to Version 4 manuals. If you send your old Scribe Version 3 manual @b(plus $5) to: @display[ Unilogic, Ltd. 160 North Craig Street Pittsburgh, PA 15213 ] they will send you a new Scribe Version 4 manual. Since the new manual normally costs about $20, you will be saving some $15. Scribe Version 3C We will keep the old Scribe Version 3C program and database available for a limited period of time. This is so that people who discover that Scribe Version 4 changes something significant, serious, and undesirable about the way their documents are processed will be able to retreat to 3C if they have to. The old Scribe 3C will be kept in a directory called @i(/usr/athena/old/scribe). To access the old version, type: @example{hera% /usr/athena/old/scribe/scribe } You can also include @i(/usr/athena/old/scribe) in your PATH variable by editing the "setenv PATH" line in your @i(.login) file. Unless serious problems develop with Version 4, we will keep 3C available for only a limited period of time, perhaps as short as three months. Scribe is very large and takes up a lot of disk space; two Scribes are worse. All users should try the new Scribe. Report problems to the student consultant on duty. If no consultant is available, call (25)3-1410. @subsection(New Version of Franz Lisp) A new version, Opus 38.91, of the Franz Lisp compiler and interpreter will replace the existing version 38.79. This version of Franz has two new functions that will make it much easier to edit your Lisp programs. The two functions are @i(emacs) and @i(emacsl). As with the existing @i(vi) function, when you enter either of these functions while in the Lisp interpreter, you will immediately be transferred to the Emacs editor. With @i(emacs), you will simply start an Emacs session without any ``current'' file. When you exit Emacs, you return to Lisp. If you enter @i(emacsl), you will come up in Emacs with your current Lisp file in the main buffer. Changes to the file will be read back into the Lisp environment. @Subsection(New Version of Penplot with QPICTR) Penplot will now support the QPICTR routine that lets you draw annotated two-dimensional graphs in one simple call. This implementation of QPICTR differs slightly from the Joint Computer Facility version of QPICTR. Penplot will now support graphics on the new VAXstation 100 (VS100) bit-mapped graphics terminals. Also, Penplot has a new routine called TERMINAL that acts as a generic output device, causing Penplot to automatically detect the type of terminal that you are on when you compile a program. Lastly, we have fixed some bugs that prevented you from using all of the different line textures that are available. We are preparing a new edition of the @i(Athena Guide to Using the Penplot Graphics Library) that will explain these new features. @subSECTION(Small Changes to @i(mh) Mail System) A new mechanism, an @i(.mh_suppress) file in your home directory, will filter out the message header lines you specify when you view your mail with the @i(show, next,) or @i(prev) commands. Type @I(man mh_suppress) on the new system to find out about it. The @i(repl) (reply) command has a new option pair, @i(-ccall/-noccall) that regulates whether everyone who has been Cc'd (copied) will @i(automatically) be Cc'd when you reply to a message. The default will be @i(-noccall), i.e., by default, only the people on the To: line of a message will receive copies of your reply unless you explicitly ask that everybody else receive copies. This is to prevent a situation where, because you were copied on the original message, you receive each and every reply to that message, no matter how trivial and occasionally personal, because the replying party forgot to delete you from the message header. You can now tell the @i(inc) command to @i(-noupdate) your current message when you incorporate new mail. (This actually works already, it is just undocumented.) The @i(pick) command has a new option (@i(-rmm)) that will delete the messages it finds from folders. This is off by default. The @i(folder) and @i(folders) commands can now manipulate and display subfolders. You refer to subfolders like Unix subdirectories. For example, @i(+emacs/new) means subfolder @i(new) of folder @i(emacs). @subsection(New @i(clear) Command) A new version of the @i[clear(1)] command makes it possible to selectively clear just the text or graphics portion of a screen. @i(clear) also clears remote terminals of a different terminal type. @subsection(New Spelling-Checker Program) We will install @i(ispell), a new interactive spelling correction program. @i(Ispell) interactively asks you about spelling anomalies it finds in your files, instead of just listing out words the way the existing @i(spell) program does. @i(Ispell) also allows you to create your own private spelling dictionary to cope with your idioglossary. See the man page for @i(ispell) on the new system. @subsection(SPMS Removed) We will remove the SPMS (Software Project Management System) from the system. We evaluated this utility and found it only marginally useful while generating significant system overhead. The commands that make up SPMS that will be removed are: @i(chproject, mkmf, mkproject, pcp, pd, pdiff, pexec, pfind, pgrep, phelp, plog, pman, pmkdir, pmv, ppd, prmdir, ptest, pwp, and rmproject). If this decision will cause you trouble, contact Mark Levine at (25)3-1528. @subsection(/usr File Partition Standardized) This change need not concern most users. Athena will be changing the way it distributes its software to user machines. User software (those programs whose names you can enter as ``commands'') usually resides under the @i(/usr) branch of the file system tree. When we wished to release a new program (perhaps a bug fix to the Fortran compiler, for example), a programmer would simply copy that new file to all the user machines. But because this was a manual process, because there might be several programmers using different clusters as testbeds, and because there are so many machines, it was very easy for the user machines to get ``out of phase.'' Sometimes it is impossible to tell what versions of what software are running on any given system. Athena will use a new utility @i(rdist) that will periodically check each user machine's @i(/usr) file partition. Using an Athena machine in the E40 building specifically designated to be the ``standard system'' as its guide, it will discover what software a user machine is missing and copy it over, what non-standard versions are running and copy over standard versions, and remove files that don't belong on the @i(/usr) partition. @section(Newsletter Deadlines) @b[The deadline for submission of articles and article ideas for the January 7, 1985 issue is 5pm on Wednesday, December 12.] @b[The deadline for submission of articles and article ideas for the February 4, 1985 issue is 5pm on Monday, January 14.]