Original Message Date: 03 May 92 02:25:35
From: Uucp on 1:125/555
To: Tom Jennings on 1:125/111
Subj: wais
^AINTL 1:125/111 1:125/555
From kumr!quake.think.com!brewster
From: brewster@Think.COM (Brewster Kahle)
To: Tom.Jennings@f111.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG
Date: Fri, 1 May 92 11:55:14 PDT
Hi Tom!
I did not see you at the rainbow gathering, did you make it?
I talked with Tim Pozar yesterday and he mentioned you were back in town.
WAIS stuff is going well. about 10k users in 26 countries; 225 servers in
10 countries; a new db every day. The technology is starting to look old,
but it is only 1 year old... such is the way of progress.
There is an IBMPC client for using over tcp/ip, but nothing over phones.
See below.
I would love to brainstorm on this. The possibilities for revolution are
huge. The big changes are the networks are settling down enough to make
interactive services, and storage capicity of disks is way up. Togetehr
you can make a publishing system that can make everyone a publisher.
-brewster
Congrats on the EFF award, you deserve it.
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 92 03:16:32 PDT
From: Tom.Jennings@f111.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Tom Jennings)
Hi, long time no etc. !
Do you have any dox on WAIS that you can gimme? I know you gave me a
set once upon a time, vbut I've lost 'em, and I bet they're old
anyhoo. I can take .DVI just fine if you can produce them, or else
paper copies even...
YOu could email to tomj@fidosw.fidonet.org (gated to FidoNet, so no
unix compressed stuff), or tomj@kumr.lns.com, ie. Pozar's machine,
where I can sz them, or postal ...
I hope I am not imposing... if so, feel free to correct me at any
point!!
Is there an IBM PC implementation yet?
I'm trying to formulate near- to far-term plans for local cheap and
usable communications using what's generally considered cast of fjunk
hardware, as a sort of design baseline. (ANd adjusting upwards as
reality dictates :-)
--
Tom Jennings - via FidoNet node 1:125/555
UUCP: ...!uunet!hoptoad!kumr!fidogate!111!Tom.Jennings
INTERNET: Tom.Jennings@f111.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG
Feel free to ask for any set of dox from barbara.
Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) Bibliography
Barbara Lincoln (barbara@think.com)
4/20/92
------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard copies of the following documents are available. Some
documents are available electronically, as stated, but might not contain
figures in the ascii version.
Email, fax, mail or phone your name, address and phone number to:
Barbara Lincoln, Thinking Machines Corp., 1010 El Camino Real, Suite
310, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, phone: 415-329-9300, fax: 415-329-9329,
email:barbara@think.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------
WAIS Documents
---------------
- "Wide Area Information Servers", (overview sheet) Brewster Kahle,
Thinking Machines, April, 1991.
One page overview of the Internet release of WAIS.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/wais-discussion/overview.txt@quake.think.com or
WAIS server wais-discussion-archive.src
- "An Executive Information System for Unstructured Files: Wide Area
Information Servers", Brewster Kahle, Harry Morris, Franklin Davis, Kevin
Teine, Clare Hart, Robin Palmer. November, 1991. Description of the Peat
Marwick experiment, similar to the paper in Online above.
- "Interfaces for Distributed Systems of Information Servers", Brewster
Kahle, Harry Morris, Jonathan Goldman (Thinking Machines Corporation),
Thomas Erickson (Apple Computer), John Curran (NSF Network Service Center),
March, 1992. (formally named "Interfaces for Wide Area Information Ť
Servers")
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/wais-discussion/Interfaces.txt@quake.think.com
or WAIS server wais-discussion-archives.src
- "An Information System for Corporate Users: Wide Area Information
Servers", Brewster Kahle, April, 1991. Thinking Machines technical
report TMC-199. Also in ONLINE Magazine Aug 1991.
Report on the system constructed for Peat Marwick and other corporate
users. Has screen shots of WAIStation.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/doc/wais-corp.txt@quake.think.com or WAIS server
wais-docs.src
- "WAIS Bibliography", Barbara Lincoln, Thinking Machines, April,
1992. (This list).
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/wais-discussion/bibliography.txt@quake.think.com or
WAIS server wais-discussion-archive.src
- "Wide Area Information Servers Concepts", Brewster Kahle,
November, 1989,Thinking Machines technical report TMC-202.
Early draft of paper outlining how a Wide Area Information System
could grow.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/doc/wais-concepts.txt@quake.think.com or WAIS
server wais-docs.src
- "Wide Area Information Servers: A SuperComputer on Every Desk", Brewster
Kahle, Thinking Machines, August 1991. This is a set of overview
presentation slides for WAIS.
- "WAIStation, A User Interface for WAIS", February 1991, Thinking
Machines technical report TMC-203.
User interface documentation with screen shots.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/doc/waistation_users_guide.txt@quake.think.com or WAIS
server wais-docs.src
WAIS-related articles/publications
--------------------------------
- "The Promise of the WAIS Protocol", UNIX Today!, Jason Levitt,
December 9, 1991, pp.44, 47-48.
Article describing the freeware release.
- "For the PC User, Vast Libraries", New York Times, John Markoff,
July 3, 1991, pg C1.
Overview of WAIS Internet experiment.
- "WAIS: Is It the Lotus 1-2-3 of the Internet?", Communications Week, Carl
Malamud, March 16, 1992, pg. 17.
Brief article of WAIS on the Internet.
- "Where There's a Will, There's a WAIS", Digital Media - A Seybold Report,
Denise Caruso, February 17, 1992, pg.5-6.
Article touching on several issues of wais, such as protocol,
client/server relationship, "for pay" servers, and legal issues.
- "The Reading Room", Digital Media - A Seybold Report, Brewster Kahle,
February 17, 1992, pg. 7-8.
Essay on the controversy between private ownership of information and
public access to information.
- "Browsing Through Terabytes", Byte Magazine, Richard Stein, May
1991, pp157-164.
Readable article on what a large WAIS system looks like.
- "WAIS Promises Easy Text Retrieval", MacWeek, Henry Norr, May
14, 1991, pg22.
Report on the Peat Marwick WAIS system.
- "Release 1.0", Esther Dyson, April 1991, entire issue.
In-depth article on commercial systems and protocols, featuring
WAIS. (Hardcopy copies available from: EDventure Holdings, 375 Park
Ave., New York, NY 10152; (212) 758-3434)
Anonymous FTP: /pub/wais/wais-discussion/issue-8.text@quake.think.com
WAIS server: wais-discussion-archives.src
- "The Global Village Starts with WAIS", Tomaso Poggio, December 1991,
Overview of WAIS in Italian.
- "Network to Unite Data Bases", San Jose Mercury News, John
Markoff, July 21, 1991, page 1F.
Rewriting of the "For the PC User, Vast Libraries," New York Times
article with emphasis on Apple component.
- "Designing a Desktop Information System: Observations and Issues",
Thomas Erickson & Gitta Salomon. Human Factors in Computing Systems,
CHI '91 Conference Proceedings (pp. 49-54) April 1991, New Orleans.
New York: ACM, 1991.
Early paper on the Apple interface for WAIS.
- "Z39.50-1988: Information Retrieval Service Definition and Protocol
Specification for Library Applications". National Information Standards
Organization (Z39), P.O. Box 1056, Bethesda, MD 20817. (301) 975-2814.
Available from Document Center, Belmont, CA. Telephone 415-591-7600.
- "Z39.50-1991 Version 2", May 1991. Electronic version of the working
copy of the Z39.50 implementors group. Anonymous FTP:
/pub/wais/doc/z3950-spec.txt@quake.think.com or WAIS server wais-docs.
- "The Z39.50 Information Retrieval Protocol: An Overview and Status
Report", Clifford Lynch, Computer Communication Review ACM SIGCOMM
Introduction to the the protocol of WAIS.
- "WAIS Interface Protocol, Prototype Functional Specification", April
1990. Our Changes to the Z39.50-1988 specification. Anonymous FTP:
/pub/wais/doc/protspec.txt or WAIS server wais-docs.
Thinking Machines Technical Reports
-----------------------------------
- "Parallel Free-Text Search on the Connection Machine System",
C. Stanfill and B. Kahle, 1986. Thinking Machines technical report
TMC-72. Communications of the ACM, Volume 29, Number 12, December 1986.
How a signature system can be used on a parallel machine.
- "Massively Parallel Information Retrieval for Wide Area Information
Servers", C. Stanfill, Thinking Machines, October, 1991. Paper presented
at the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.
Charlottesville, Virginia.
Technical paper on Connection Machine servers on the WAIS system.
Postscript copy available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/doc/cm-servers.ps@quake.think.com or WAIS server wais-docs.
- "A Parallel Indexed Algorithm for Information Retrieval", C. Stanfill,
R. Thau, December 1990. Thinking Machines technical report TMC-67.
Appeared in Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Research
and Development in Information Retrieval SIGIR-89.
- "Extracting Content Bearing Terms in Parallel on the Connection
Machine", S. Smith, 1987. Thinking Machines technical report TMC-71.
Submitted to ACL.
- "Very Large Database Applications of the Connection Machine System",
D. Waltz, C. Stanfill, S. Smith, R. Thau, 1987. Thinking Machines Ť
technical
report TMC-70. Appeared in AFIPS/1987 NCC Proceedings, July 1987.
- "Parallel Computing for Information Retrieval: Recent Developments",
C. Stanfill, January, 1988. Thinking Machines technical report TMC-69.
- "An Analysis of the Effects of Data Corruption on Text Retrieval
Performance", S. Smith, C. Stanfill, December 1988. Thinking Machines
technical report TMC-68.
- "Information Retrieval on the Connection Machine: 1 to 8192 Gigabytes",
C. Stanfill, R. Thau, December 1990. Thinking Machines technical report
TMC-66. To appear in Information Processing and Management, 1991.
- "WAIStation, A User Interface for WAIS", February 1991, Thinking
Machines technical report TMC-203.
User interface documentation with screen shots.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/doc/waistation_users_guide.txt@quake.think.com or WAIS
server wais-docs.src
- "An Information System for Corporate Users: Wide Area Information
Servers", Brewster Kahle, April, 1991. Thinking Machines technical
report TMC-199. Also in ONLINE Magazine Aug 1991.
Report on the system constructed for Peat Marwick and other corporate
users. Has screen shots of WAIStation.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/doc/wais-corp.txt@quake.think.com or WAIS server
wais-docs.src
- "Wide Area Information Servers Concepts", Brewster Kahle,
November, 1989,Thinking Machines technical report TMC-202.
Early draft of paper outlining how a Wide Area Information System
could grow.
Available via anonymous ftp:
/pub/wais/doc/wais-concepts.txt@quake.think.com or WAIS
server wais-docs.src
Electronic Services
------------------
- wais-discussion@think.com: Weekly digest of mail from users and
developers on Electronic Publishing (includes all wais-interest postings).
Requests to wais-discussion-request@think.com.
Anonymous FTP access to archives:
/pub/wais/wais-discussion/issue-*@quake.think.com
- wais-interest@think.com: Infrequent annoucements of internet releases.
Requests to wais-interest-request@think.com.
Anonymous ftp access to archives:
/pub/wais/wais-interest/internet-*@quake.think.com
- wais-talk@think.com: interactive list of developers. A couple
notes a day. Requests to wais-talk-request@think.com. Archives
are available on WAIS server wais-talk-archives.src
- alt.wais: a netnews discussion group on WAIS issues. All postings to
wais-discussion@Think.COM and wais-interest@think.com go to that group
as well.
- Z3950iw: Z39.50 Implementors list for low level discussions of protocol
details. Requests to LISTSERV@NERVM.NERDC.UFL.EDU
- WAIS Unix Release: Freeware release of client code (X and gnu-emacs),
protocol code, and server code for accessing existing servers or
starting new servers.
Available via anonymous FTP: /wais/wais-8-*.tar.Z@think.com
Not by Thinking Machines:
NeXT release: /wais/WAIStation-NeXT-1.0.tar.Z@think.com
Telnet access: telnet quake.think.com login wais, password user@host
DOS Windows: /pub/wais/UNC/Windows@ftp.oit.unc.edu
Motif: /public/wais/motif-a1.tar.Z@think.com
IBM RS6000: /pub/misc/wais-8-b2-dist.tar.Z@ans.net
SunView: /pub/wais/sunsearch.src.*.tar.Z@samba.oit.unc.edu
VMS: /pub/wais/UNC*@samba.oit.unc.edu
- WAIStation Macintosh program: Freeware client program for accessing
servers over tcp/ip. See WAIStation documentation above (included in
the release).
Available via anonymous FTP:
/wais/WAIStation-0-*.sit.hqx@think.com
- Macintosh demostration screen-movie: Steve Cisler put together a short
screen-recorder movie for seeing some of what WAIStation does.
Available via anonymous FTP:
/wais/WAIStation-Canned-Demo.sit.hqx@think.com