Newsgroups: ukc.courses1
Subject: Computer Systems I past papers
Reply-To: mg@ukc.ac.uk (M.W.Guy)
Distribution: ukc
Organization: Computing Lab, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.

Several people have approached me with a problem concerning the
Unix-ey part of Computer Systems I, so I will repeat in public
what I have told those who have asked:

The problem is with the questions in past papers that ask about various
features of the "em" text editor.

For the first time this year, we have been able to teach "vi" instead of "em"
as your first text editor, so you should disregard all parts of past papers
that are about the editor "em".

The exam question will not concern itself with knowledge about specific
Unix utilities; questions like "what does the -l flag do to ls" or "how do you
go up one line in vi" seem pointless, because you would be able to look these
up in manuals in real life.

Instead, you should ensure that you understand the purpose of,
and the relation between, concepts such as files, directories,
i-nodes, processes, the shell and so on.

Sorry about the late timing of this article; it's only just become apparent
that this confusion exists.  Please pass a copy of this note to people who
might be too deeply into revision to read the news.

Thanks
	Martin