From the user's point of view,
and presents few of the usual impediments
It is hard, however, for the beginner
and how to make the best use
of the facilities available.
The purpose of this introduction
get used to the main ideas of
and start making effective use of it quickly.
You should have a couple of other documents with you
for easy reference as you read this one.
it's often easier to tell you to read about something
than to repeat its contents here.
The other useful document is
A Tutorial Introduction to the
which will tell you how to use the editor
programs, data, documents \(em
has become quite popular,
and there are several major variants
Of course details also change with time.
So although the basic structure of
and how to use it is common to all versions,
there will certainly be a few things
which are different on your system from
We have tried to minimize the problem,
this paper describes Version 7
This paper has five sections:
what to do about mistakes in typing,
Some of this is dependent on which
(phone numbers, for example)
and what terminal you use,
so this section must necessarily be supplemented
Things you need every day to use
generally useful commands;
Preparing manu\%scripts is one of the most common uses
This section contains advice,
extensive instructions on any
is an excellent system for developing programs.
This section talks about some of the tools,
but again is not a tutorial in any of the programming languages
An annotated bibliography of
documents that new users should be aware of.
login name, which you can get from
whoever administers your system.
You also need to know the phone number,
unless your system uses permanently connected terminals.
is capable of dealing with a wide variety of terminals:
Terminet 300's; Execuport, TI and similar
video (CRT) terminals like the HP2640, etc.;
high-priced graphics terminals like the Tektronix 4014;
plotting terminals like those from GSI and DASI;
Teletype in its various forms.
is strongly oriented towards devices with
If your terminal produces only upper case (e.g., model 33 Teletype, some video and portable terminals),
life will be so difficult that you should look for another
Be sure to set the switches appropriately on your device.
Switches that might need to be adjusted include the speed,
full duplex, even parity, and any others
that local wisdom advises.
Establish a connection using whatever
magic is needed for your terminal;
this may involve dialing a telephone call or merely flipping a switch.
If it types garbage, you may be at the wrong speed;
push the ``break'' or ``interrupt'' key a few times, slowly.
If that fails to produce a login message, consult a guru.
the system will not do anything until you type a
If a password is required,
you will be asked for it,
printing will be turned off while you type it.
The culmination of your login efforts is a
a single character that indicates that
is ready to accept commands from you.
The prompt character is usually a
(You may also get a message of the day just before the
prompt character, or a notification that you have mail.)
Once you've seen the prompt character, you can type commands,
You should get back something like
Mon Jan 16 14:17:10 EST 1978
If you think you're being ignored,
Another command you might try is
which tells you everyone who is currently logged in:
The time is when the user logged in;
``ttyxx'' is the system's idea of what terminal
If you make a mistake typing the command name,
and refer to a non-existent command,
Of course, if you inadvertently type the name of some other command,
with more or less mysterious results.
Strange Terminal Behavior
Sometimes you can get into a state
where your terminal acts strangely.
each letter may be typed twice,
may not cause a line feed
or a return to the left margin.
You can often fix this by logging out and logging back in.
Or you can read the description of the command
in section I of the manual.
To get intelligent treatment of
if your terminal doesn't have tabs,
and the system will convert each tab into the right number
If your terminal does have computer-settable tabs,
will set the stops correctly for you.
If you make a typing mistake, and see it before
there are two ways to recover.
erases the last character typed;
in fact successive uses of
the beginning of the line (but not beyond).
So if you type badly, you can correct as you go:
erases all of the characters
on the current input line,
so if the line is irretrievably fouled up, type an
What if you must enter a sharp or at-sign
it loses its erase meaning.
So to enter a sharp or at-sign in something, type
The system will always echo a newline at you after your at-sign,
even if preceded by a backslash.
the at-sign has been recorded.
you have to type two sharps or two at-signs, as in
The backslash is used extensively in
to indicate that the following character is in some way special.
which means that you can type as fast as you want,
even when some command is typing at you.
If you type during output,
your input characters will appear intermixed with the output characters,
but they will be stored away
and interpreted in the correct order.
So you can type several commands one after another without
waiting for the first to finish or even begin.
You can stop most programs by
(perhaps called ``delete'' or ``rubout'' on your terminal).
The ``interrupt'' or ``break'' key found on most terminals
In a few programs, like the text editor,
stops whatever the program is doing but leaves you in that program.
Hanging up the phone will stop most programs.
The easiest way to log out is to hang up the phone.
and let someone else use the terminal you were on.
It is usually not sufficient just to turn off the terminal.
do not use a time-out mechanism, so you'll be
there forever unless you hang up.
When you log in, you may sometimes get the message
provides a postal system so you can
other users of the system.
Your mail will be printed,
most recent message first.
waits for you to say what to do with it.
The two basic responses are
which deletes the message,
(so it will still be there the next time you read your mailbox).
Other responses are described in the manual.
do not process one message at a time,
but are otherwise similar.)
How do you send mail to someone else?
Suppose it is to go to ``joe'' (assuming ``joe'' is someone's login name).
now type in the text of the letter
on as many lines as you like ...
After the last line of the letter
type the character ``control-d'',
that is, hold down ``control'' and type
The ``control-d'' sequence, often called ``EOF'' for end-of-file, is used throughout
to mark the end of input from a terminal,
so you might as well get used to it.
For practice, send mail to yourself.
(This isn't as strange as it might sound \(em
mail to oneself is a handy reminder mechanism.)
There are other ways to send mail \(em
you can send a previously prepared letter,
and you can mail to a number of people all at once.
out of the blue will come a message
Message from joe tty07...
accompanied by a startling beep.
It means that Joe wants to talk to you,
but unless you take explicit action you won't be able to talk back.
This establishes a two-way communication path.
Now whatever Joe types on his terminal will appear on yours
The path is slow, rather like talking to the moon.
(If you are in the middle of something, you have to
get to a state where you can type a command.
Normally, whatever program you are running has to terminate or be terminated.
If you're editing, you can escape temporarily from the editor \(em
read the editor tutorial.)
A protocol is needed to keep what you type from getting
garbled up with what Joe types.
Typically it's like this:
Joe now types his message
(as many lines as he likes).
When he's ready for a reply, he
Now Smith types a reply, also
someone gets tired; he then
signals his intent to quit with
the conversation, each side must
type a ``control-d'' character alone
on a line. (``Delete'' also works.)
When the other person types his ``control-d'',
If you write to someone who isn't logged in,
or who doesn't want to be disturbed,
If the target is logged in but doesn't answer
simply type ``control-d''.
is typically kept on-line.
If you get stuck on something,
and can't find an expert to assist you,
you can print on your terminal some manual section that might help.
This is also useful for getting the most up-to-date
information on a command.
To print a manual section, type
Computer Aided Instruction
system may have available
which provides computer aided instruction on
the file system and basic commands,
it will tell you what to do from there.