Article Computational mail as network infrastructure for computer-supported cooperative work Share on Author: Nathanial S. Borenstein View Profile Authors Info & Claims CSCW '92: Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative workDecember 1992 Pages 67–74https://doi.org/10.1145/143457.143463Online:01 December 1992Publication History 54citation616DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations54Total Downloads616Last 12 Months24Last 6 weeks2 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

The Andrew Message System, a distributed system for multi-media electronic communication, has a number of special features that support cooperative work. After a brief discussion of the system itself, these features are described and discussed in more detail. Examples of how organizations actually use these features are then presented and discussed, with particular attention paid to the “Advisor” system for electronic consulting.

UNIX Emacs is well-known and widely used as a text editor that has been extended in a remarkable number of directions, not always wisely. Because it is programmable in a powerful yet simple programming language, Emacs has been used as a development tool for the construction of some remarkably complex user-oriented programs. Indeed, it has served as both a user interface management system and a user interface toolkit, though it was designed as neither. In this paper, we discuss the features that have made it so popular for user interface development, in an attempt to derive lessons of value for more powerful and more systematically designed systems in the future.

Three text editors were studied using the editor evaluation methodology developed by Roberts and Moran [3, 4]. The results are presented as an extension of the studies by Roberts and Moran, with comparisons to the editors they studied earlier. In addition, supplementary measurements were taken that suggest minor flaws in the Roberts and Moran methodology. Further problems with the methodology are discussed, with an eye toward improving the methodology for future use. Although three significant problems with the methodology are reported, the problems are interesting primarily as lessons for the design of future evaluation methodologies. The Roberts and Moran methodology remains largely useful for the purposes for which it was designed.