NASA SPACELINK BACKGROUND

NASA SPACELINK BACKGROUND

NASA Spacelink runs on a Data General ECLIPSE MV-7800 minicomputer located at
the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
NASA Spacelink software was developed and donated to NASA by the Data
General Corporation of Westboro, Massachusetts.  The system has a main
memory of 14 megabytes (14 million characters), disk storage space for 708
megabytes, and can communicate with eight callers simultaneously at 300,
1200, or 2400 baud.  NASA Spacelink is a dynamic system that will change and
expand daily.  It was made available to the public in February, 1988.

Initial funding for NASA Spacelink was provided by the Educational Affairs
Division at NASA Headquarters.The NASA Spacelink data base is maintained
by the Public Services and Education Branch of the Marshall Space Flight
Center Public Affairs Office.  Operational support is provided by the
Information Systems Office at the Marshall Center.  Information on NASA
scientific projects and educational programs is provided to NASA Spacelink
by education specialists at NASA Headquarters and the NASA field centers.

While NASA understands that people from a wide variety of backgrounds will
use NASA Spacelink, the system is specifically designed for teachers.  The
data base is arranged to provide easy access to current and historical
information on NASA aeronautics and space research.  Also included are
suggested classroom activities that incorporate information on NASA
projects to teach a number of scientific principles.  Unlike bulletin board
systems, NASA Spacelink does not provide for interaction between callers.
However it does allow teachers and other callers to leave questions and
comments for NASA which may be answered by regular mail.


HOW TO USE NASA SPACELINK

The communications parameters for accessing NASA Spacelink are:
300, 1200, or 2400 baud
8 data bits
1 stop bit
No parity bits

The telephone number for NASA Spacelink is 205-895-0028.

To use NASA Spacelink, type the number of the menu item most likely to
contain information of interest, and hit your computer's return, carriage
return (CR), new line, or enter key.   You will find one or more sub-menus
under each item in the main menu.  Continue choosing menu items until the
desired information appears.

For example, if you are a sixth grade teacher and you want to plan a lesson
around food for astronauts, choose item 9 from the Main Menu (Materials for
Classroom Use).  From the next menu choose item 2 (Living in Space
Activities, Grades 1-6).  From the next menu choose item 2 (Food Lesson
Plans).  Your final menu choice will be item 9 (Grade 6), which will
provide suggested activities for sixth grade students.

Every Spacelink menu offers the options of returning to the previous menu
(item 0) or returning to the Main Menu (item 1).

When you first logged on to NASA Spacelink, you indicated the number of
lines your computer monitor will display at one time.  NASA Spacelink will
pause accordingly to allow time to read information that has appeared on
screen.  You may press RETURN whenever you are ready for NASA Spacelink to
continue.

If you wish to override the pause feature to allow continuous scrolling,
type the letter "C" (for Continuous) when text begins to appear.  You must
type the letter "C" every time you want text to scroll continuously. This
feature will be helpful when you are not reading text, but are saving it to
disk.

If you wish to stop viewing text while it is scrolling, you may type the
letter "S" (for STOP) and the previous menu will reappear.

If you want text to pause on demand, type the letter "S" while depressing
your computer's "Control" key.  To resume scrolling, type the letter "Q"
while depressing your computer's "Control" key.

If you want to erase a typing mistake, depress your computer's "Control"
key and type the letter "H" as many times as necessary to remove the error.
(The "DELETE" key or the left arrow key on many computers will generate
Ctrl/H.)  Please note that your mistake will not disappear from the screen.
Instead, an underscore character (_) will appear for each character you
delete.  Example:  If you type "Appple," you should enter Ctrl/H three
times to erase the last three letters of the word and then you should type
"le" again.  The corrected word will appear as "Appple___le" on your screen,
but it will appear as "Apple" in NASA Spacelink's memory.

In brief, here are the keys you can use to control operation of NASA
Spacelink:

----------------------------------------------------------
Key  Effect
----------------------------------------------------------

RETURN  Causes text that has paused to resume scrolling

C  Causes text to scroll continuously to end

S  Causes text to stop scrolling and returns
  user to previous menu

Ctrl/S  Causes text to pause

Ctrl/Q  Causes text to resume scrolling after being
  stopped by Ctrl/S

Ctrl/H    Deletes typing mistakes (Your computer's Delete
  key or left arrow key may generate Ctrl/H.)

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