HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Subject: Chipping in for a Patent Office report
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 02:06:17 GMT


    A few months ago, the Advisory Commission on Patent Law Reform presented
its final report to the Secretary of Commerce.  The report outlines proposed
changes to patent law, such as aligning with global practices, and other
topics.

    The Patent Office is making a machine readable version of the report
available, but they are charging a fee of $60.  I'd be willing to handle
acquiring and posting the machine readable version onto the Internet.  I
can post it and place it at some anonymous-ftp sites.

    However, my interest is not at the $60 level.  Thus if some of the
patent followers on the Internet would be willing to chip in five or ten
bucks along with me, I'd do the rest.

    Also, if this pool effort works, there are a few CDROMs now available
from the patent office for a few hundred bucks each, with tons of patent
information on them, which I also would be willing to help acquire and post
to the net.

    If anyone is interested, in helping, please email to me.

Thanks.

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization

[mod - great idea.. I'll contribute an FTP site in australia and
germany for the report and will contribute $20US if it is needed, (athough I
am unsure of how to transfer is to  you  from Australia without
incurring substantial bank charges...).If anyone from gnu is listening,
perhaps their ftp site at mit would be ideal.
Also, I'm a bit concerned about
copyright problems with making copies and any copyright they may be
claiming.	Perhaps some approach needs to
be made to the USPTO to seek their permission...
Come to think of it, maybe a general approach should be made to come
to some arrangement with the USPTO to make their info available to the
internet generally.. I shall prepare a draft general approach, by christmas,
for discussion on the net...
I think the other CD-roms are also a great idea, but the storage
requirements are likely to be substantial (?)
]
Newsgroups: comp.patents
From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl)
Subject: Re: [REQUEST] Finding details on a specific patent.
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 18:57:43 GMT

In <1992Nov15.004521.7711@cs.su.oz.au> amathur@thunder.EEAP.CWRU.Edu (Alok Mathur) writes:

>I am interested in finding the exact details and scope of a specific
>patent. 

You can get a copy of the patent by sending three dollars and the patent
number to the Patent Office, Washington DC.  No street address needed, 
no Zip code needed.  

>This is actually a patent on a computer algorithm, and I need
>to know how far I am restricted towards making use of it.

Be sure to keep in mind there is a difference between what the patent
discloses and what it claims.  It could disclose three ways of solving
a problem, and claim only one of them... for example.

>Could anyone suggest a quick way of obtaining the details on the
>patent ? 

First, order up a copy of the patent as described above.  There are 
private companies that will do it by fax, too.  But it costs more.
Or get it from microfiche at your local patent depository library
(see previous post.)

>Should I contact the patent owner, or is this information
>accessible from a government office through US Mail (US Patent Office?), 
>or any other source (electronically) ? 

The full text, but not the figures, is available from Lexis (call 
1-800-543-6862).  But it costs more that way and you don't get the 
figures.

>Is there a periodical which
>lists patents issued ?

Yes, the Official Gazette of patents, available by subscription from
the Patent Office (address above).

>[mod- I have recently posted the draft FAQ which has a discussion on
>searching. Additionally see a previous post on automatic searching.
>The FAQ will tell you how to obtain a copy of the patent.
>My apologies for not posting the FAQ on a more regular basis]



Newsgroups: comp.patents
From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Subject: [INFO] New Patent Office Advisory committee
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 02:07:06 GMT


    The Patent Office is forming a new Advisory Committee.  Here's an
announcement for the Committee, which appeared in the October 27, 1992,
issue of the PTO Gazette.

Gregory Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
_____________________________________________________________________________

    In accordance with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act,
5 USC App 2, and the General Services Administration rule on Federal Advisory
Committee Management, 41 CFR part 101-6, and after consultation with GSA, the
Secretary of Commerce has determined that the establishment of the Advisory
Committee for Patents is in the public interest in connection with the
performance of duties imposed on the Department by law.
    The Committee will advise the Patent and Trademark Office on a broad range
of policy and operational matters related to the administration of the Office.
The Committee will consist of at least ten but no more than eighteen members
to be appointed by the Assistant Secretary and Commissioner of Patents and
Trademarks to assure a balanced representation among patent practitioners,
corporate executives, research directors, inventors, the judiciary,
professional patent searchers, information specialists and publishers,
automation experts, consumer groups, entrepreneurs, and educators.
    The Committee will function solely as an advisory body, and in compliance
with provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.  The charter will be
filed under the Act, fifteen days from the date of publication of this notice.
    Interested persons are invited to submit comments regarding establishment
of this Committee to the Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, Washington,
DC, 20231, Attention: Edward R. Kazenske, Room 906, Crystal Park 2;
703-305-8600.

Newsgroups: comp.patents
From: martelli@cadlab.sublink.org (Alex Martelli)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: VI??? GROSS!
Date: 16 Nov 92 08:20:02 GMT
Organization: CAD.LAB S.p.A., Bologna, Italia

brandy@tramp.Colorado.EDU (BRANDAUER CARL M) writes:

:wolff@inf.fu-berlin.de (Thomas Wolff) writes:
:
:....... it is not even capable of performing one of the most elementary 
:>text editing tasks: marking an arbitrary (!) block of text and by some 
:>means copying or moving it to another place.
:
:Nonsense!  Put the cursor on the first character of the arbitrary text
:block and do a yank using a regular expression target.  Everything up
:to but not including the regular expression can be duplicated anywhere
:you like, even in another file if named buffers are used.  All this works
:with delete as well if the intent is to move the block.

Yes, or, more generally, go to the first character you want, type ma,
go to the last chaacter you want, type mz, and now typing: "a`ay`z
will yank this arbitrary block into named-buffer a, or "a`ad`z will
delete the same block into named-buffer a; placing the cursor anywhere
and typing: "ap, or "aP, will place the named-buffer contents after,
resp. before, the cursor.  There are defects of course, for example
no visual feedback of the marking or the yanking, but I really don't
understand where Wolff's assertion about vi's presumed inability to
mark arbitrary textblocks can come.  Maybe a misunderstanding between
the 'a and `a movement-commands, where the former is line oriented
while the latter is text-stream oriented?
-- 
Email: martelli@cadlab.sublink.org                   Phone: ++39 (51) 6130360
CAD.LAB s.p.a., v. Ronzani 7/29, Casalecchio, Italia   Fax: ++39 (51) 6130294
From: agauld@gssec.bt.co.uk (Alan Gauld)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: history of ed, ex, vi
Date: 23 Nov 92 14:16:32 GMT
Distribution: comp.editors
Organization: BT Glasgow Engineering Centre, Scotland.

In article <1992Nov19.175207.15505@julian.uwo.ca>, creider@taptet.sscl.uwo.ca (Chet A. Creider) writes:
> Can anyone tell me a little of the history of ex?
According to my "Unix for Users" book vi and ex appeared at the same time by
the same people (Bill Joy et al.)  I thus assume they were developed at the
same time...

> Are there editing tasks which one can do in ed that one can't do in ex, or
> vice versa.  
The ed fan will say No. There is usually a *way* of doing it in ed but its a 
different way.
Realistically there are somethings which are a LOT easier in ex.
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
A.J. Gauld				EMail: 	  agauld@gssec.bt.co.uk
BT, Glasgow Engineering Centre,         Phone:    +44 41 553 2140
229 George Street, Glasgow, UK          PostCode: G1 1BZ
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.editors
From: Dean.Roth <Dean.Roth@mixcom.mixcom.com>
Subject: Re: JOE 1.0.3
Organization: Milwaukee Internet Xchange BBS, Milwaukee, WI U.S.A.
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 14:19:00 GMT

In <BxyA0w.JIu@world.std.com> jhallen@world.std.com (Joseph H Allen) writes:

>With version 1.0.3 I think Joe's Own Editor is beta tested enough so that it 
>will be useable.  I fixed some minor bugs involving the windows, the modifed 
>flag, word wrap, and braindead termcap entries (it turns out that 'al' and 


Terrific! But has anyone figured out how to compile it under SCO UNIX (3.2.2)?

The mods I made to the old joe, shown below, to get it to compile,
still leave compile-time errors in the new joe.

In ttyxenix.c:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stream.h>
#include <sys/ptem.h>

(ttyposix.c does not compile either.)

Dean
Newsgroups: comp.editors
From: buboo@alf.uib.no (Ove Ruben R Olsen)
Subject: Re: Arbitrary text blocks (Was: VI??? GROSS!)
Organization: University of Bergen, Norway
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 16:23:16 GMT

Jeff Wang writes:

> Gee..this is starting to sound like the "Why I like vi" thread again.

Let's not do that. For those interesed fetch

vi.love.Z           A colletions of "Why do you love vi ?" from comp.editors.

from one of the VI/EX archives around the world.

Wherer those archive are, check out my posting yesterday.

\Ruben
-- 
        Ove Ruben R Olsen a Gnarfer and VI user. EMAIL: ruben@uib.no. 
     Maintaining the EX/VI-archive and a couple of the Comp.Editors FAQs.
    People that are ignorant tend to live a frustrated life, at least when 
     it comes to editing - But I do belive this is a general rule in life
From: pete@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: Anyone use SAM?
Date: 19 Nov 92 13:16:41 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

Stephen J Bevan (bevan@cs.man.ac.uk) wrote:
: In article <722004268.18766@minster.york.ac.uk> pete@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
:    : A prime example is knowing
:    : something about the indentation of languages.  I write a fair amount
:    : of Scheme and I find it tough going in sam.
:    
:    But the redirection mechanism inside sam allows you to pipe
:    arbitrary blocks of text through Unix pipelines -- write a scheme
:    indentation tool, select your block of Lisp and then use the ``|''
:    command in the command window to pipe it through the formatter...
: 
: This is obviously _a_ solution, it is just not the one I'm used to.
: I'm still used to the editor indenting on the fly.   As I wrote, maybe
: I've been spoilt and just need to adjust the sam way of thinking.

Hmmm. Having indentation _built in_ to your editor is something I'm always
a bit wary of -- for example, I've yet to find a C mode in an editor which I
think works sensibly; and when it comes to C++.... The alternatives are
either to write some humongous GNUemacs-type functions to do it, or write a
small, neat external tool which handles the job and is re-usable anywhere. I
prefer the latter, but respect those who can tolerate the former.

Pete
--
*Peter Fenelon -- Research Associate -- Software Safety Assessment Procedures*
Dept. of Computer Science, University of York, York, Y01 5DD (+44/0)904 433388
EMAIL: pete@minster.york.ac.uk `There's no room for enigmas in built up areas'
Xref: sparky comp.editors:2776 comp.os.linux:16902 alt.religion.emacs:460
From: soh@tmp_ip_003.trl.OZ.AU (Soh Kam Hung)
Subject: Re: VI??? GROSS!
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 22:58:39 GMT

lachlan@dmp.csiro.au (Lachlan Cranswick) writes:

>The fact that vi is powerfull is part of the problem with new users
>of UNIX. They need something simple that is easy to learn.
>VI is not in this category.

Vi's editing expressiveness (hey, I've coined a new phrase!) has
nothing to do with ease of learning.  That's more of a user interface
issue.

Vi is simple to learn, but there aren't many good tutorials or teachers
for it.  New users --- usually those with a personal computer
background --- expect to have immediate feedback when they use a text
editor.  For example, they expect be able move the cursor using the
``arrow'' keys, and have the characters they type echoed on terminal.
Once they understand the three major modes in vi, and a bit of history
regarding vi, things make much more sense.

Regards,

--
Soh Kam Hung, Network Management Research,     | h.soh@trl.oz.au  
TRL, POB 249 Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia | +61 3 253 6638
Newsgroups: comp.editors,comp.unix.questions
From: kashyap@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Vinay Kashyap)
Subject: where no vi has gone before...? (CORRECTION)
Summary: questions on vi use (correction to Q.3)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Astronomy and Astrophysics
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 23:12:46 GMT

I had posted a list of questions on vi, and Tuomas Lukka pointed out
that question 3 didn't make sense:

>3. Is there a way to prepend or append characters to macros without
>   (a) introducing newlines between the additions, &/or
>   (b) writing to the file and deleting to a named buffer
It should have read as follows (I apologize for the error):

3. Is there a way to prepend or append characters to BUFFERS without
   (a) introducing newlines between additions (yanking to an uppercase
   buffer appends to text already in the buffer, but on a new line) &/or
   (b) writing to the file and deleting to the named buffer (in other
   words, are there ways to put characters in named buffers other than
   yanking/deleting text)?

Vinay (kashyap@oddjob.uchicago.edu)
From: davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu ("John E. Davis")
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: Comments on Brief ( and Crisp )
Date: 20 Nov 92 20:36:32 GMT
Reply-To: davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu  (John E. Davis)
Organization: "Dept. of Physics, The Ohio State University"

In article <1992Nov20.175319.16955@ee.ubc.ca> markm@ee.ubc.ca (mark milligan)
writes: 

   I fell in love with brief the first time I used it. My favorite feature
   is the collum cut and paste, this is a feature I have not found on any
   other dos editor. I find the block cut and paste functions to be
   extremely simple and efficent. These are both features I use a lot and
   the simple keystrokes make editing a joy instead of a chore.

I am sure there must be many DOS editors which support rectangles.  My editor,
JED, has:

      copy_rect    : copies rectangle to rectangle buffer but does not delete
      insert_rect  : inserts rectangle from rectangle buffer at point
      kill_rect    : deletes a rectangle but puts a copy in the rectangle buf
      blank_rect   : overwrites a rectangle at point with blanks
      open_rect    : inserts a blank rectangle at point

      

      
      
--
     _____________
#___/John E. Davis\_________________________________________________________
#
# internet: davis@amy.tch.harvard.edu
#   bitnet: davis@ohstpy
#   office: 617-735-6746
#
Newsgroups: comp.editors
From: soh@tmp_ip_003.trl.OZ.AU (Soh Kam Hung)
Subject: Re: An Unusual question....
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 23:05:55 GMT

msluyter@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Michael Sluyter) writes:

>Here's a question which may not belong in this group, but I wasn't sure where
>else to post it.  It's a typing question.  Not being a formally trainded 
>typist, I was wondering if anyone out there used their third finger on 'r'.
>Normally I use my index finger, but the 'rt' combination is so frequent that
>at times it seems easier to use the third finger on 'r' and then the index
>on 't'.  Is there an "officially sanctioned" method?  Once again, my
>apologies if there was a better place to post this question.  

There is no ``officiallly sanctioned'' method for typing.  Just do what
you feel is comfortable.  I didn't learn typing formally, but picked it
up as time passed.  I divide the keyboard into two halves bordered by
``5TGB'' and ``6YHN'', place my fingers on the ``ASDF'' and ``JKL;''
keys, use my thumbs for the space bar, and my little fingers for the
modifier keys.

Read the comp.human-factors newsgroup for more discussion about typing.

Regards,

--
Soh Kam Hung, Network Management Research,     | h.soh@trl.oz.au  
TRL, POB 249 Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia | +61 3 253 6638
Newsgroups: comp.editors
From: david@datamark.co.nz (David Rowland)
Subject: Re: Arbitrary text blocks (Was: VI??? GROSS!)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 20:58:08 GMT
Organization: Datamark International Ltd.

In article <1992Nov17.145011.24541@Princeton.EDU> bvaughan@sheps.Princeton.EDU (Barbara Vaughan) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.221338.42264@datamark.co.nz> david@datamark.co.nz (David Rowland) writes:
>>
>>I agree. I though vi was used for editing programs and text files.  If
>>any one is looking for something which allows selecting rectangle
>>blocks and columns, shouldn't they be using a word processor or a
>>spread sheet???  
>>
>
>Back in the days when I mostly worked with MSDOS and had a good editor
>that handled rectangular blocks easily, I used to use it to prepare data
>so I COULD read it into a spreadsheet or word processor.  For instance, if
>I have a file  of formatted data:
>
>123456789
>987654321
>
>I can use my editor to insert a column of blanks in front of each field so
>it can be read into a spreadsheet program:
>
>12 34 56 78 9
>98 76 54 32 1
>

A simple QBasic program will do this job nicely now-a-days.

>Or if I have some ugly SPSS CROSSTAB output, where cells are separated by
>dashes, plus signs and vertical bars:
>
>   1 | 23 |
>-----+----+
>     |    |
>   3 | 45 +
>-----+----+
>
>I can get rid of those  vertical bar columns in a jiffy with a good
>editor, so that I can do the rest of the job of making a nice document in
>WordPerfect. 
>

Wouldn't a simple replace "|" with "" do the job???


>I also found this feature useful when writing programs.  Let's say I have
>a section of code I decide to make conditional, so I want to indent it to
>make an "if.. then.." block.  I just insert a column of blanks in front of
>that section of code.
>

Are you saying you don't format the code as you write it???  Most
editors come with automatic indentation anyway.

>There are other ways of doing all these things, but if you've ever used an
>editor that handles column blocks easily and quickly, believe me, you'll
>find lots of uses for the feature.  Kedit recognized column blocks, line
>blocks and "sentence blocks", and once blocked, you could copy, move,
>delete, or fill with a character.
>
>Barbara Vaughan

The main point of the argument is that when you are editing a program
or data files, you require the block movement of entire lines.  As for
formatting code, I find the best time to do this is as the code is
being entered.  If more code is added that makes the code unreadable
where indentation is concerned, there are a lot of code formatting
programs around to do this.

Cheers.
-- 
| David Rowland       | The British are using New Zealanders.  They must |
| Datamark Intl Ltd   | really mean business !                           |
| Wellington          |      -  General Rommel During Northern African   |
| NEW ZEALAND         |         Campaign WWII.                           |
Newsgroups: comp.editors
From: cheevers@wolf.cs.wisc.edu (John Cheevers)
Subject: Re: VI - finding lines longer than 80 characters
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison -- Computer Sciences Dept.
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 21:20:00 GMT

In article <#nz10s#@rpi.edu> night@acm.rpi.edu writes:
>
>BTW, is there a way to easily re-execute the last ex command in vi?
>-- 
>Trip Martin
>night@acm.rpi.edu

The "&" key will execute the last substitute command.  Strangely, it only 
does it once - If your last command was

	:s/recieve/receive/g

Then hitting "&" executes

	:s/recieve/receive	(without the "g")

John Cheevers
cheevers@cs.wisc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.editors,comp.os.linux,alt.religion.emacs
From: jhallen@world.std.com (Joseph H Allen)
Subject: Re: JOE 1.0.0 IS FINALLY DONE
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 08:37:14 GMT

In article <Bxty5C.CL1@world.std.com> jhallen@world.std.com (Joseph H Allen) writes:
>The rewrite of Joe's Own Editor is finally done.  JOE Version 1.0.0 is here!

>I'll post again as soon as I know where it is exactly :-)

Get joe by anonymous ftp from 'world.std.com', file 'src/editors/joe.tar.Z'

Be sure that joe comes up with version 1.0.1.  There were a few minor bugs I 
had to fix.
-- 
/*  jhallen@world.std.com */     /* Amazing */            /* Joseph H. Allen */
int a[1817];main(z,p,q,r){for(p=80;q+p-80;p-=2*a[p])for(z=9;z--;)q=3&(r=time(0)
+r*57)/7,q=q?q-1?q-2?1-p%79?-1:0:p%79-77?1:0:p<1659?79:0:p>158?-79:0,q?!a[p+q*2
]?a[p+=a[p+=q]=q]=q:0:0;for(;q++-1817;)printf(q%79?"%c":"%c\n"," #"[!a[q-1]]);}
Newsgroups: comp.editors
From: wright@staff.tc.umn.edu (Mark Wright)
Subject: Re: Brief (Borland editor)
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 23:29:05 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.172128.23199@cs.ucla.edu> wales@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales) writes:
>Any comments (good or bad) regarding Borland's programming editor,
>Brief?
>
>I recently got an offer in the mail to buy Brief at a discount, but
>before taking it, I'd like to hear what others on the net have to say.
>
>(I use mainly VI right now, BTW.  On my 386 at home, I use Elvis.)
>

	If you are a VI user, you will hate brief.  It just doesn't provide
enough challenge.  Sure, it's every bit as powerful as VI (if not more so),
but editing is done through unsatisfyingly simple commands, and not
incomprehensible strings of ascii garbage.  And anyone who has mastered the
arcane world of VI macros would scoff at the C-like macro language used by
Brief loving wimps.  Plus, with brief's keyword completion, language keywords
can be completed with as few as two keystrokes - a sure way to lose the typing
skills you've worked so hard to develop.  Multiple, resizeable windows,
compilation and error reports without leaving the editor, a real Undo function -
hey, it's for sissies.

	Seriously, Brief is probably the best editor around.  I'm suprised that
with a PD unix Brief available (I think it's called Crisp) anyone is still using
VI.  Unlike VI it's complexities only show up when you're doing complex things.
It can even handle text rectangles.  All in all, I can't really think of much
that I _don't_ like about Brief.  If you can get a good deal, and you've got the
money, get it now!
>-- 
>Rich Wales <wales@CS.UCLA.EDU> // UCLA Computer Science Department
>3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, CA 90024-1596 // +1 (310) 825-5683


-- 
Mark Wright
wright@epx.cis.umn.edu
Newsgroups: comp.editors