SIGMA Final Report. Volume V, Part 1-3. Introduction, Functional Description and Evaluation.

Abstract : The first part of this report introduces SIGMA, the automated message-handling system used in the Military Message Experiment, developed at the Information Sciences Institute. This introduction is divided into two parts. The first, from 1968 to 1975, covers the period from the recognition of the need for improved communications at Camp Smith, Oahu, to the actual signing of a Memorandum of Agreement to conduct the MME. The second part covers ISI's involvement in the planning and the actual conducting of the MME, roughly from 1973 to 1979. The second part of the SIGMA Final Report describes the functionality of SIGMA as a user views it. This part introduces the reader to the system in roughly the sequences that a new user is exposed to it. It starts with a discussion of the terminal, followed by the log-on procedure, then proceeds to the various objects the user deals with in SIGMA and the operations he may perform on them. The developers of SIGMA learned a great deal during the MME about what the proper functions of an automated message-handling system should be, but these lessons were only part of the developers education. The experimental results were affected more by several higher level issues than by the details of the message service operation. This part of the SIGMA Final Report is divided into the following major sections: high-level issues, functional and design considerations for a message service, and lessons on development and operational environment for the experiment.