INTRODUCTORY ("README") FILE FOR NICHOLAS JOHNSON DIRECTORY Date: May 27, 1993; Last revision: March 26, 1996 Site of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility /njohnson Directory Directory Address from WWW: http://www.sunnyside.com As an anonymous ftp: snyside.sunnyside.com/pub/njohnson Nicholas Johnson Internet address: 1035393@mcimail.com INTRODUCTION. If you are reading this, you know how to get here from your World Wide Web browser, or do an anonymous ftp on the Internet, know that you have reached the site of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, and (if using ftp) how to move around in a Unix directory tree. What you may not know is the purpose and contents of this particular directory. EXPERIMENTAL BEGINNINGS. This directory was, frankly, begun as an experiment, made possible through the cooperation of the CPSR's Al Whaley and former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson. It was begun May 27, 1993. It was the principals' intention to use this directory to make available online, for anonymous ftp (and later a Home Page on the World Wide Web), selected writings of Nicholas Johnson and to see how much use would be made of them. The usage has been such that the project has been continued, and texts have been slowly added over time. SELECTION. There are over 1000 items from which selection could be made (including books, chapters in others' books, articles, FCC opinions, Congressional testimony, speeches, and so forth). The choices of texts to be uploaded have been dictated largely by what is relatively current (and thus already in electronic form). As time has permitted, a few older items have been scanned and entered. (At the present time, in addition to this entry (readme.txt), the "contents" file (contents.txt), the current bio (njresume.txt), and the bibliography files (biblio[01-05].txt), there is 1 entry from 1995, 9 from 1994, 7 from 1993, 3 from 1992, 1 from 1991, 1 from 1988, 5 from 1986, 4 from 1985, 1 from 1984, 4 from 1983, 9 from 1982, and one each from 1979, 1970 and 1952. In addition, the 1972 Bantam paperback book, Test Pattern for Living, is here in its entirety, in 11 files.) CATEGORIES OF MATERIAL. The categories (contained in sub-directories of this directory) are currently: biblio (portions of the current version of what ultimately will become a comprehensive lifetime bibliography, broken into (currently five) files of manageable size), columns (selections from the 1982-1986 nationally syndicated column, "Communications Watch"), massmedia (broadcasting and other mass media policy), ntt ("The New Tech Times" television series; one sample script), oped (various opinion pieces appearing on newspaper "op ed" pages), personal (biographical, photo and related information), politics (political commentary, proposals), pubhealth (University of Iowa Institute for Health, Behavior and Environmental Policy; public health; health enhancement and disease prevention), telecomm (telecommunications policy commentary), and tpflbook (the 11 files containing the entirety of the Bantam paperback book, Test Pattern for Living). CONTENTS. A "table of contents" (with the filename contents.txt) contains a list of sub-directories, filenames, the titles of the documents each contains, date of writing or publication, and a brief description. Within the categories listed there (that is, within the sub-directory listings) the files are listed alphabetically by filename. Obviously, you will probably find it a time saver to start with the contents.txt file -- although you are perfectly free to browse through the texts directly if you wish. FORMAT. (a) ASCII format. Most of the files in this directory have been stored as ASCII DOS text files. If you are getting to them from the Web that is the way they will appear on your screen, or be stored on computer if you download them. They are designated with the ".txt" extension. (When and if text files are formatted in ways that require it they will be stored as binary files and have the extension ".bin".) If you are getting to them with an ftp transfer, as you no doubt know, prior to entering the Unix ftp "get [filename]" command, you can choose to receive a file either as an ASCII text file (the default if you do nothing), or enter the command for "binary" transmission. (b) Eight-character file names. As a convenience for those transferring files into DOS machines limited to filenames of eight characters (followed by three-character extensions), the limits of that convention have been followed here (even though not imposed by Unix, and even though filenames can be changed easily during transfers). (c) Italics. The convention of _underscoring_ (with one underscoring character at the beginning and end of the affected material) has been used to indicate italics or underscoring in the original. (In some texts, the italics and underlining have simply been removed.) (d) Printing and screen appearance. [1] No page numbers have been indicated. [2] Hard returns in text can be removed with most word processors' search/replace command. (First replace all double hard returns (paragraph indicators) with a place holder (such as ##); then replace all hard returns with a space; then replace all place holders with two hard returns.) This is designed to ease your process of preparing documents for printing in your own favorite word processor and format should you wish to do so. [3] Of course, you may well also have the option of bringing the files into your word processor with the hard returns automatically removed (as in WordPerfect: "ASCII Text CR/LF to SRt (DOS)"). [4] The columns' paragraphs did begin with a tab; in ASCII that becomes five spaces. Thus, a simple replace command can change them back into either tabs or double spaces between paragraphs with no indentation. [5] Texts were prepared in WordPerfect for Windows 5.2, True Type font Times New Roman, point size 14, with one-inch left and right (sometimes 1.5-inch right) margins. If that is available to you, and inserted at the beginning of the ASCII text files, they should appear with full lines on the screen. (e) End of file. To insure that you have received the full text, the last line in every file is END OF FILE (except for the Test Pattern for Living files, which end with # # #).. COPYRIGHT AND CONDITIONS. These files are provided as a courtesy and convenience to students, researchers, journalists and other individuals who have asked for printed versions of them from time to time. They are not intended for commercial reproduction by others. The material is copyright by Nicholas Johnson -- and occasionally by others as well. Permission from Nicholas Johnson is hereby granted to read, download, and distribute the material to others for free -- provided that the copyright notice and conditions are attached. Permission of others also holding copyrights must be obtained directly. Of course, it is expected when others are quoting or citing the texts that the legal, professional, ethical and social standards will be followed of crediting the author. Permission is not granted to distribute the material without the copyright notice and conditions, or to use the material in any way for which remuneration is received, without first obtaining the prior permission of Nicholas Johnson (and other copyright holders where relevant). COMMUNICATION AND FEEDBACK. Nicholas Johnson (Internet: 1035393@mcimail.com) would welcome your reactions to this on line "library." Whether it continues to exist and expand will depend upon levels of use and response. If you have trouble accessing the files, or have other questions regarding operation of the computer system, please address them to ftp-admin@cpsr.org. END OF FILE