Coming here from other Picospan systems?

Mar 28 10:10 UTC 1994

If you're here after learning Picospan somewhere else, things may be
different.  Commands work differently, or have different names. 
But you don't need a complete Picospan tutorial -- Just the differences.
So try asking here, and maybe someone will have an answer. 

response 2 of 32:

Mar 28 10:20 UTC 1994

Just thought of another thing:  Here, a ^Z will log you off instantly. 
I've had that happen when uploading MS-DOS files into a cat >filename.
Is there a way to turn that off?

response 4 of 32:

Mar 28 13:05 UTC 1994

You can also get wordwrap in vi.  set wrapmargin to the number of spaces
you want from the right margin.  (But it doesn't reformat stuff very well;
you pipe your stuff through the Unix fmt command after you make changes.)

response 6 of 32:

Mar 29 07:00 UTC 1994

I'm new enough to The WELL to not know much history, but I could see
"hide" and "scribble" being less ambiguous than "censor".  And since
posters sometimes hide their own responses (if it's something like a
copy of a 500-line Usenet posting not everybody will want to read) perhaps 
"censor" has unwanted connotations. 

And yes, the WELL text collector does word wrap.  There's also a :f command
that formats text, perhaps by piping it through the Unix formatter. 

I would if some long-time cyberspace members might want to get a WELL account
(possibly shared) both to meet new people and to ask about Picospan history.

At the WELL respond prompt, you can enter a number to see responses in
a topic, like here.  But you can also enter o [number] (for only that
response) and see it even if it's hidden.  So hiding something is a
rather thin veil.  And I don't think scribbled stuff is auto-archived. 
If you scribble something, it's Gone (although you might be able to
retrieve it from backup tapes). 

Hosts can hide and scribble and unhide responses, as can whoever posted
them.  (Host = Fairwitness)  The person who started a topic can freeze or
unfreeze it, as can the host.  But hosts can't freeze linked topics. 

There are three categories of conference:  Public, Listed Private, and
Unlisted Private.  Listed Private conferences have info about who to
ask for entry publicly available.  Unlisted ones are word-of-mouth 
(or ASCII equivalent) only.  

There are also a lot of commands that work from PicoSpan prompts that
may not work here, or may be named differently.  These include a 
name-changing command, and others that don't come to mind but which
didn't seem to work here when I tried them. 

And there are two plan files:  .plan and .netplan    .plan can be read
or fingered from within The WELL only.  You can be fingered from the net
if and only if you have a .netplan file.  Thus if you're willing to let
members see your home phone number but don't want it available worldwide
you can put it in your .plan and leave it out of .netplan. 

Your "real life" can can be changed only by emailing support.  The command
to change you name in all conferences is a different beast. 

Most WELL accounts are paid by credit card.  Few plans show mail addresses
and such publicly.  

One command at any Picospan prompt is bio [id].  This seems to call finger,
but without the need for the ! or option switches.  Another command is u
which lists users logged on.  The number seems to vary from almost a hundred
down to half a dozen. 
(Oops, bio may call who)

response 8 of 32:

Mar 29 07:55 UTC 1994

The WELL seems to have put some work into enhancing the text collector.
I take it it's still line oriented and with a ">" prompt?

The "o [number]" command to see a hidden response is not available
here.  You can achieve the same thing in a more cumbersome way
by typing "set noforget" and then the response number.

Fairwitness and author powers of freezing, and probably retiring,
appear to be the same.  Fairwitnesses can't expurgate or scribble
responses, though -- only the author or the conference administrator
(cfadm) can do that.

The .plan and .netplan thing isn't something to do with Picospan.
Sounds like they've made some changes to "finger".

The other things you mention seem to be configuration differences.
Aliases for Unix commands can be defined in Picospan's global cfonce
file.  Actually, you could make Grex's Picospan look very much
like The WELL's Picospan by defining WELL-like aliases in your
.cfonce file.  You could even even change items to topics.

response 10 of 32:

Mar 29 07:59 UTC 1994

I don't think it would be half bad if we had a line-wrapping text collector
like they added at The WELL. I know how easy it is to do it other ways,
but I think it would be an enhancement not to have to.

response 12 of 32:

Mar 29 21:52 UTC 1994

John, is there a way for me to define my own aliases within picospan
for unix commands?

response 14 of 32:

Mar 30 00:03 UTC 1994

Re #12:  You bet.  Use the syntax

        define <NAME> 9 "unix <COMMAND>"

where you fill in <NAME> and <COMMAND> with the name and command of
your choice.  (The 9 is a "mask" that determines the class of name
you're defining.  9 is for commands that are to work at both the
"Ok" and "Respond or pass" prompts.  Type "help defcommands" for
more info on masks.)

Examples:

        define roster 9 "unix finger"
        define cafe 9 "unix party"
        define gopher 9 "unix telnet gopher.msu.edu"

Aliases defined this way even accept appended arguments; e.g.

        roster @emunix.emich.edu

would show you who's logged in to emunix.

To make aliases permanent, put them in a file named .cfonce, which
should reside either in your home directory or, if you have one,
a subdirectory of your home directory named .cfdir.

response 16 of 32:

Mar 30 05:59 UTC 1994

Because it isn't necessary for everyone, and may be confusing to
someone who is just learning about Unix and subdirectories.  It
also chews up an extra block of space and an extra inode (admittedly,
that isn't a lot of space, but it does add up).

response 18 of 32:

Mar 31 03:51 UTC 1994

Probably they are, with their own editor (or something they rewrote, it
sounds like).  Here you can achieve the same effect with    set edalways
(precise results will vary with what editor you have defined).

response 20 of 32:

May 29 00:05 UTC 1994

Yes, %s in an rsep definition will display the number of lines.  For
more details, type at the Ok prompt:  "help separators" and "help
itemfunc".

I don't know why there's no man page here for Picospan, but the online
help seems to be pretty complete.

response 22 of 32:

Jun 30 08:42 UTC 1994

There was a man page for PicoSpan on the sun-2 - I don't know why it
didn't get here.

response 24 of 32:

Jun 30 14:39 UTC 1994

Re #22:  I don't think there was a man page for PicoSpan on the Sun-2
either.  Do you happen to have a spare one lying around that you could
upload, Marcus?  It'd be real handy to have.