FAMULUS: A Personal Information System User's Manual (For IBM System Users)

Authors

Robert L. Bolin, University of Nebraska--LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

8-1984

Comments

Baldwin Data Analysis Center
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
August 1, 1984

Abstract

This manual explains how to use the FAMULUS program package in a computing environment where most text is input through terminals and most files are stored on disks. I adapted it from a manual prepared in 1969, and I have gotten some ideas and examples from three other manuals. The main change I made was to recommend using an interactive editor program to prepare and perfect the FAMULUS records.

The original manual described this mode of operation:

1. Preparing records on punched cards.

2. Creating a master file on tape by using the FAMULUS program called EDIT.

3. Editing records or adding new ones to the tape master file created in Step 2 by using the FAMULUS program EDIT.

I advocate:

1. Preparing records in an input file (on disk files) by using an interactive editor program.

2. Creating a FAMULUS master file, on disk or tape, by using the FAMULUS program called EDIT.

3. Editing or adding new records to the input file prepared in Step 1.

4. Using the FAMULUS EDIT program to replace the master file. This step is a repeat of Step 2.

Since the FAMULUS master file is never edited--only replaced--that mode of operation eliminates the need to use the editing capabilities of the FAMULUS EDIT program. Therefore, I eliminated the sections on the editing capabilities of EDIT from this manual. See Chapter 2, PREPARING AN INPUT FILE, for a description of the use of an interactive editor program to create an input file.

FAMULUS was developed in the late 1960s by the Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station of the US Forest Service. The background of FAMULUS is explained in the foreword to the original manual:

FAMULUS was conceived by Theodor B. Yerke, Station Librarian, as a personal documentation system for research scientists. The system provides extreme individual freedom to structure and update information files maintained by individuals. Interchange and merger of files between individuals or groups is also easily accomplished.