trolfs@vax1.tcd.ie (Tommy) (09/23/89)
hello : Introduction and update to OLIS
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W E L C O M E
T O
** O L I S **
The On-Line Information Service
For
Forth Programmers
OLIS, short for On-Line Information Service, is a home grown mail
server for information on Forth. At the moment it has only a few files
and a very simple requesting procedure. Hopefully, as people use OLIS,
the information available will grow and better features added. This
files describes the reasons behind OLIS and what OLIS hopes to achieve,
plus other miscellaneous information.
* The Aim
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The primary aim of OLIS is to provide novices and intermediate Forthers
with easy access to information which will aid their explorations in to
Forth and the Forth community.
: Questions ." What's a good book for learning Forth?"
." What Forth's are available for my computer?"
." Forth?, what's Forth when it's at home?"
." Sounds interesting, but what's it used for?"
." What OOF books or papers are there available?"
." What all this about Forth chips?"
." FIG? What's food got to do with things?" ;
: Answer ." Simple, ask OLIS" ;
Finding out about Forth is not an easy task. This is due, mainly, to
the fact that it is hard to get information on Forth. It's not that
there isn't any information to be had, because there is, it's just that
it's hard to find. OLIS tries to address this problem by concentrating
information in to one place and making it readilly available to whoever
needs it.
* How OLIS Works
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See the Help file.
* The Source of OLIS's Information
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Of coarse, OLIS gets its information any way it can. The important thing
is that if YOU have any information, or come across anything relevent
that will benefit others, then PLEASE remember to pass it on to me at
"TROLFS@vax1.tcd.ie".
* Current Stage Of Development
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OLIS, at the moment, lives in my account at "TROLFS@vax1.tcd.ie" and is
very much a home grown affair. Incoming requests are not serviced as
they arrive, but are done all together in one big batch, every 24
hours. Hopefully this will change so that requests get serviced
individually.
* Future Developments Planed
----------------------------
Whether or not OLIS is will have a long and useful life depends on a
lot of things, the main one of which being whether or not I'll have
an account for next year. Having said that, I am working on some
improvements. They are:
i. More detail in the Contents file, giving better descriptions
of files, eg. file size, last time updated etc....
ii. Indexing files by topics.
Well that's all for the moment. When I get enough time, I will write
more complete Hello and Help files. For now, just mail me if you have
any queries or ideas.
- Tommy (OLIS Developer/Janitor)
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--
Tommy E-mail: trolfs@vax1.tcd.ie
// Amiga 500.
\\// What's your's called? $P-)
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"Love your country but never trust its government."
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