The 'ltin' Program

Typing 'ltin' at the prompt will bring up skynet's own user conferencing system. This is a group of discussion areas where skynet's users can read other peoples ideas and opinions on many different subjects and add some of their own. These topics are not just computer related, but also include music, hobbies, films and TV, jokes and other areas where skynet's users can exchange ideas and ask for and receive help.

When you run ltin first, no groups are subscribed to so you won't see anything. Press "y" to yank in all the available groups and then subscribe to all the groups by pressing "s". To unsubscribe from a group at a later date, press "u".

After that you should see a screen like this one:

Group Selection (news.csn.ul.ie 22) h=help 1 control 2 junk 3 23 skynet.soc.comp General Computer Society stuff 4 132 skynet.general General skynet stuff 5 53 skynet.news.newgroups Suggestions for new groups 6 1 skynet.test.mod Moderated Test group 7 46 skynet.lists.ie-professional The IE-Professional Newsletter 8 97 skynet.quotes Quotes from people on skynet 9 43 skynet.help Help for new users 10 7 skynet.rave Skynet rave newsgroup 11 233 skynet.website Skynets Website dicsussion group 12 543 skynet.tech Techie stuff questions / queries 13 175 skynet.roast.pissog Well if you have to ask ... 14 896 skynet.poo Well Poo ... 15 312 skynet.music General music discussion 16 7 skynet.lists.lotd Laugh of the Day mailing list =set current to n, TAB=next unread, /=search pattern, c)atchup, g)oto, j=line down, k=line up, h)elp, m)ove, q)uit, r=toggle all/unread, s)ubscribe, S)ub pattern, u)nsubscribe, U)nsub pattern, y)ank in/out

The first column is the group number. The second column is the number of unread posts in that group. ltin hasn't been cleaned out in a while to there is postings from the last three years there.

Hit the 'A' key and a highlight bar will appear, and use the arrow keys to move up and down to select the newsgroup you wish to read. Then use the right arrow key and a screen like the one below will appear:

skynet.tech (13T 46A 0K 0H) h=help 1 2 filter-rules wanted Damien Mc Kenna 2 3 american videos Caolan McNamara 3 6 fortune JJ Sheehy 4 Atari ST fs Stephen Mulcahy [s 5 5 fips for ext2fs Norm 6 2 vi JJ Sheehy 7 EISA Robert Early (Cons 8 13 standard output in X Final Year Project 9 2 Excel Data Format Stephen Mulcahy [s 10 2 sound under linux Norm 11 5 random sig generators Caolan McNamara 12 2 RAM types Stephen Mulcahy [s 13 2 RedHat 4.0 Ivan Griffin =set current to n, TAB=next unread, /=search pattern, ^K)ill/select, a)uthor search, c)atchup, j=line down, k=line up, K=mark read, l)ist thread, |=pipe, m)ail, o=print, q)uit, r=toggle all/unread, s)ave, t)ag, w=post *** End of Articles ***

As there is many postings that are so old they are useless, you can press shift+k to mark the whole thread read. Many new users just mark all the first postings as read because the postings are so ancient.

Otherwise move the highlight bar over the article you want to read, hit the right arrow again and the article will be displayed on the screen like this:

Mon, 04 Nov 1996 08:01:15 skynet.soc.comp Thread 1 of 1 Lines 23 Internet Meeting.... No responses pagan@skynet.csn.ul.ie John Buswell (sysadm) at Skynet UL Computer Society Anyone thats interested the Limerick IOL Usergroup has been renamed by Paul O'Mara to LINUS. You no longer require to be a IOL user. Paul says it's normally a few drinks and stuff while discussing general internet stuff etc.. Anyone interested they're next meeting is on this Wednesday (6th Nov) in the Glenworth Hotel at 8:30pm. If you can't make it they have their meetings on the first wednesday of each month in the Glenworth Hotel at 8:30pm. Its free.. but you have to pay for your own drink! :) For further info email: omara here on skynet. =set current to n, TAB=next unread, /=search pattern, ^K)ill/select, a)uthor search, B)ody search, c)atchup, f)ollowup, K=mark read, |=pipe, m)ail, o=print, q)uit, r)eply mail, s)ave, t)ag, w=post --More--(89%) [930/1037]

At any one time, all the available commands are shown in the panel at the botom of the screen, i.e. hit 'w' to add a comment, 's' to save the article to a file in your account, and 'q' to quit. At any time, you can use the left and right, up and down arrows to go to different newsgroups and read different articles.

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