[TUHS] Bell Office Automation System (OAS)?

segaloco via TUHS tuhs at tuhs.org
Fri Dec 9 06:24:07 AEST 2022


Good day all, this may be COFF instead, but I'm not joined over there yet, might need some Warren help/approval.

In any case, received that 3B20S 4.1 manual in good shape, unpacked it, and out fell a little tri-fold titled "The Office Automation System (OAS) Editor-Formatter (ef) Reference Card" emblazoned with the usual Bell Laboratories, non-disclosure note abut the Bell System, and a nice little picture of a terminal I can't identify as well as the full manual for this OAS leaning against it: "The Office Automation System (OAS)" with a nice big Bell logo at the bottom of the spine.

The latter is likely a manual I spotted in a video once and couldn't make out the name/title at the time, thought I was seeing another long-lost UNIX manual.  I've never heard of this before, and Google isn't turning up much as Office Automation System appears to be a general industry term.

I seem to recall hearing about ef itself once or twice, some sort of pre-vi screen editor from Bell methinks?  Not super familiar with it though, I just seem to recall reading about that before somewhere.

Anywho, dealing with a move in the near future that is hopefully into a home I own, so pretty distracted from that scanning I keep talking about, but hopefully when I'm settled in in a few months I can setup a proper scan bench in my new place and really go to town on things.

- Matt G.


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