130 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
130 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
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NASA SPACELINK BACKGROUND
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NASA Spacelink runs on a Data General ECLIPSE MV-7800 minicomputer located at
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the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
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NASA Spacelink software was developed and donated to NASA by the Data
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General Corporation of Westboro, Massachusetts. The system has a main
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memory of 14 megabytes (14 million characters), disk storage space for 708
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megabytes, and can communicate with eight callers simultaneously at 300,
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1200, or 2400 baud. NASA Spacelink is a dynamic system that will change and
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expand daily. It was made available to the public in February, 1988.
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Initial funding for NASA Spacelink was provided by the Educational Affairs
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Division at NASA Headquarters.The NASA Spacelink data base is maintained
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by the Public Services and Education Branch of the Marshall Space Flight
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Center Public Affairs Office. Operational support is provided by the
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Information Systems Office at the Marshall Center. Information on NASA
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scientific projects and educational programs is provided to NASA Spacelink
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by education specialists at NASA Headquarters and the NASA field centers.
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While NASA understands that people from a wide variety of backgrounds will
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use NASA Spacelink, the system is specifically designed for teachers. The
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More [Y,n]?
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data base is arranged to provide easy access to current and historical
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information on NASA aeronautics and space research. Also included are
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suggested classroom activities that incorporate information on NASA
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projects to teach a number of scientific principles. Unlike bulletin board
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systems, NASA Spacelink does not provide for interaction between callers.
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However it does allow teachers and other callers to leave questions and
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comments for NASA which may be answered by regular mail.
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HOW TO USE NASA SPACELINK
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The communications parameters for accessing NASA Spacelink are:
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300, 1200, or 2400 baud
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8 data bits
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1 stop bit
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No parity bits
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The telephone number for NASA Spacelink is 205-895-0028.
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To use NASA Spacelink, type the number of the menu item most likely to
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contain information of interest, and hit your computer's return, carriage
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return (CR), new line, or enter key. You will find one or more sub-menus
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under each item in the main menu. Continue choosing menu items until the
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More [Y,n]?
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desired information appears.
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For example, if you are a sixth grade teacher and you want to plan a lesson
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around food for astronauts, choose item 9 from the Main Menu (Materials for
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Classroom Use). From the next menu choose item 2 (Living in Space
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Activities, Grades 1-6). From the next menu choose item 2 (Food Lesson
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Plans). Your final menu choice will be item 9 (Grade 6), which will
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provide suggested activities for sixth grade students.
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Every Spacelink menu offers the options of returning to the previous menu
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(item 0) or returning to the Main Menu (item 1).
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When you first logged on to NASA Spacelink, you indicated the number of
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lines your computer monitor will display at one time. NASA Spacelink will
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pause accordingly to allow time to read information that has appeared on
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screen. You may press RETURN whenever you are ready for NASA Spacelink to
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continue.
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If you wish to override the pause feature to allow continuous scrolling,
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type the letter "C" (for Continuous) when text begins to appear. You must
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type the letter "C" every time you want text to scroll continuously. This
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feature will be helpful when you are not reading text, but are saving it to
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disk.
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More [Y,n]?
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If you wish to stop viewing text while it is scrolling, you may type the
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letter "S" (for STOP) and the previous menu will reappear.
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If you want text to pause on demand, type the letter "S" while depressing
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your computer's "Control" key. To resume scrolling, type the letter "Q"
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while depressing your computer's "Control" key.
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If you want to erase a typing mistake, depress your computer's "Control"
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key and type the letter "H" as many times as necessary to remove the error.
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(The "DELETE" key or the left arrow key on many computers will generate
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Ctrl/H.) Please note that your mistake will not disappear from the screen.
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Instead, an underscore character (_) will appear for each character you
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delete. Example: If you type "Appple," you should enter Ctrl/H three
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times to erase the last three letters of the word and then you should type
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"le" again. The corrected word will appear as "Appple___le" on your screen,
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but it will appear as "Apple" in NASA Spacelink's memory.
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In brief, here are the keys you can use to control operation of NASA
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Spacelink:
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----------------------------------------------------------
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Key Effect
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More [Y,n]? q
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Use `Y' for YES or `N' for NO.
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More [Y,n]? xDOYOYOY y
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----------------------------------------------------------
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RETURN Causes text that has paused to resume scrolling
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C Causes text to scroll continuously to end
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S Causes text to stop scrolling and returns
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user to previous menu
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Ctrl/S Causes text to pause
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Ctrl/Q Causes text to resume scrolling after being
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stopped by Ctrl/S
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Ctrl/H Deletes typing mistakes (Your computer's Delete
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key or left arrow key may generate Ctrl/H.)
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----------------------------------------------------------
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====End of Document====
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