tin Usenet News Quick Reference Basic Information ================= Usenet news can be thought of as the original "bulletin board" of the Internet. It allows Internet users to participate in discussions about various topics using electronic mail. On Information Technology's Alpha Unix system, tin can be used to read and post news items. Note: PINE can also be used to read Usenet news; see the Quick Reference document "Reading Usenet News with PINE" for details. tin can read Usenet news locally (from /usr/spool/news) or remotely (using the "r" option) using an NNTP (Network News Transport Protocol) server. It will automatically use News Overview (nov) style index files if available. Startup ======= Type "tin" at the Unix shell prompt. The first time you do this you will shortly see a list of all known news groups. To subscribe to a newsgroup press "y" to yank all known newsgroups in, and then do one of the following: -- Subscribe to a specific newsgroup by typing s and then the name of the newsgroup. -- Subscribe to a set of groups using a search pattern by typing S and then the pattern to use (such as "comp.text.*"). After you have finished subscribing, type "y" again to yank out all unsubscribed newsgroups. To unsubscribe from subscribed newsgroups, use "u" to unsubscribe from a single group or "U" to unsubscribe by a pattern. To view the list of postings in a newsgroup, use the up or down arrows keys to select it and the press Enter or the right arrow key. The same keystrokes are used to view a particular posting (up or down arrows to select, Enter or right arrow to view). Postings can also be selected by number, and text strings in the subjects can be searched for with the "/" command. To exit from reading a posting and return to the list of postings and/or the list of newsgroups, use the left arrow key. Help Facilities =============== Help from tin is available at any time by typing "h" and following the menu prompts. Help is also available from the Unix man pages (type "man tin"). Online Tutorials ================ Online tutorials for tin are not available at this time. Exit ==== Type "q" and press Return when viewing your newsgroups to exit tin.