INTRO, A Gentle Introduction to TOPS-20 The goal of this series of introductory guides is to ease users with prior CP/M, DOS, Unix, Linux, or other OS experience, into the basic usage of a TOPS-20 system. The writer of these guides is not an expert, and does not expect you to become one from reading these guides. The methods herein are very simple and basic. For those who would prefer to learn more in-depth, comprehensive, or historical concepts, manuals for the TOPS-20 system are available, such as the Command Manual and Operator Manual. See 'HELP INTRO' for further suggestions. PRESSING ? FOR HELP If you have questions, it pays to use the "?" key. ? is interpreted immediately in exec, so that pressing it will give you immediate assistance. Try pressing ? at the @ prompt, or right after typeing a command. You will be returned to a prompt to complete your command, after the help is provided. Example output: @? Command, one of the following: ACCESS ADVISE APPEND ARCHIVE ASSIGN ATTACH BACKSPACE BLANK BREAK BUILD CANCEL CD CLOSE COMPILE CONNECT ... (output truncated for this guide, try it out for the full list) or system program name @info ? one of the following: ADDRESS-BREAK ALERTS ARCHIVE-STATUS AVAILABLE BATCH-REQUESTS CLUSTER COLUMNS COMMAND-LEVEL DECNET ... (output truncated for this guide) GETTING YOUR FOOTING You ought to know "where you are" at all times. After logging in, begin by finding out your location in the file structure with "info dir" (short for INFORMATION DIRECTORY). This will give you valuable information about the folder that you are "connected" to presently: @info dir Name TOPS20: Working disk storage page limit 500 Permanent disk storage page limit 500 ... (output truncated for this guide) Next, get a feeling for the "pages" described here, by seeing how many pages are in use on the system with "info disk", which will return something like: @info disk TOPS20: 0 Pages assigned 500 Working pages, 500 Permanent pages allowed 82710 Pages free on TOPS20:, 133666 pages used. Compare files you find later and the pages they take. Now that you know where you are, have a look at the files in your current connected folder with "dir" and "vdir." @dir TOPS20: HELP.TXT.1 LOGIN.CMD.1 MAIL.CPY.1;T .TXT.1;P @vdir TOPS20: HELP.TXT.1;P777700 1 11(7) 31-Jan-2019 21:12:38 BOB LOGIN.CMD.1;P777700 1 383(7) 31-Jan-2019 21:10:39 BOB MAIL.CPY.1;P770000;T 1 14(7) 31-Jan-2019 21:11:13 BOB .TXT.1;P770000;P 1 345(7) 31-Jan-2019 21:12:27 BOB Total of 4 pages in 4 files It's nice to be able to browse, so let's have a look at some other files and directories using the "dir" command (note some additional syntax.) @dir TOPS20: 5221BM.MEM.1 ACJ.MEM.1 ACTGEN.DOC.1 ... (output truncated for this guide) @dir *.exe TOPS20: AR..1 CHGRP.EXE.1 CHMOD.EXE.1 ... (output truncated for this guide) @dir sys:*.exe TOPS20: ACJ.EXE.158 ACJDEC.EXE.1 ACJLOG.EXE.1 ... (output truncated for this guide) Finally, you should know where the system is picking up the programs that you type in on the command line, so test out "info logic sys" or "INFORMATION LOGIAL-NAMES-SYSTEM" @info logic sys ACCOUNT: => TOPS20: BLI: => SYS: BS: => TOPS20: ... (output truncated for this guide) CONTINUE LEARNING If you desire, you may continue learning basics of TOPS-20 by reading in the following INTRO files: INTRO.HLP This quickstart INTRO1.HLP Getting help, filesystem basics, etc INTRO2.HLP INTRO3.HLP INTRO-TIPS.HLP Additional quick tips INTRO-CMDS.HLP UNIX command comparison chart INTRO-EXAMPLES.HLP All command examples from INTRO*.HLP You may TYPE any of these files directly, or use 'HELP INTRO2' to access the next intro file in the set. ---> FOR NEXT INTRO, TYPE 'HELP INTRO2'