Associative personal memory, a user oriented approach

This paper describes a personal information retrieval system, APM, written in PASCAL for small computers. The motivation is to help the user to keep abreast of information in rapidly growing areas and to do research. It has been modeled after the Community Memory system which has been successful in store-front community computer situations in the past. However, APM represents a significant extension in its inclusion of associative structures, its expanded user-oriented design, and in its inherent extendibility. It should be particularly suitable for both individual retrieval systems and as a basis for a networked community of systems.Along with describing a typical command language and its base implementation, the associative structures that compliment the open-ended keyword design are detailed. Particularly useful is the treatment of these structures by the same internal operations that are used for the retrieval of the messages themselves. A spin-off is the capability of having the system respond to the individual's own conceptual structures rather than rigidly-designed ones. The implication of this to large-scale sharing of information between APM nodes in co-operative networks are discussed.The user-oriented design is essentially achieved by putting all of the system-user interactions on the same basis as messages in the data-base. This fact greatly enhances the flexibility required to meet the requirements of particular users. By making the alterations to interactions straightforward, the resulting system can evolve without the obstacles of "encrusted" code. Much of the internal operation of APM can also be handled in this manner.As a result of this experience with APM, several guidelines are described for the development of user-oriented software in the personal computing field. A notion of "appropriate software" is elaborated. Finally, extensions to APM are discussed including: a) using meta-message structures such as "presentation scripts" and "development skeletons", and b) using an associative data-base as a context for interactive modelling.