From bronze!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!bionet!turbo.bio.net!lear Mon Aug 26 19:39:14 EST 1991 Article: 1258 of bionet.software Xref: bronze bionet.general:1919 bionet.software:1258 bionet.molbio.genbank:331 Path: bronze!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!bionet!turbo.bio.net!lear From: lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot) Newsgroups: bionet.general,bionet.software,bionet.molbio.genbank Subject: Archive of BIOSCI messages available via WAIS Message-ID: Date: 27 Aug 91 00:09:16 GMT Followup-To: bionet.general Organization: GenBank Computing Resource for Mol. Biology Lines: 17 Genbank has made available an archive of all netnews messages posted since October 1989. It is accessable via the Wide Area Information Service (WAIS) in the biosci.src database on Genbank.bio.net. WAIS was designed by Thinking Machines and a small group of collaborators, including Apple Computer. Sample clients are available for Mac, X Display workstations, and GNU Emacs users. The software can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from quake.think.com. While we are waiting to be added into the global WAIS directory of servers, the service is available now. Note that the database of messages is updated once every several days. Please alert me to any problems. -- Eliot Lear [lear@turbo.bio.net] From bronze!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!uwm.edu!bionet!CSC.FI!Rob.Harper Tue Aug 27 11:02:01 EST 1991 Article: 1922 of bionet.general Path: bronze!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!uwm.edu!bionet!CSC.FI!Rob.Harper From: Rob.Harper@CSC.FI ("Robert Harper Finland", CSC) Newsgroups: bionet.general Subject: WAIS show time... Message-ID: <23F223F6159F421919@CSC.FI> Date: 27 Aug 91 15:47:00 GMT Sender: daemon@genbank.bio.net Distribution: bionet Lines: 119 Ahhh... it brought joy to my old heart to see that Genbank had made the BioSci newsgroups into a source for WAIS. I suppose the rest of you are wondering what this is all about... and if you can untilize this service. Eliot was so low keyed about his anouncement... so subdued... what a low profile for such an important event... no spotlights, or dancing girls to herald this new addition to the WAIS sources So once again I have to don my ring master's hat, crack my whip, and say "Ladies and gentlemen for your edification and entertainment let me present to you the new star of stage and screen the one, the only, BIOSCI.SRC" I have xwais running on a Sparcstation. There is a programme called "waissearch" which can be used to check remote hosts for sources. -h is the host name -d is the database name -p is the port So if I want to see what sources Genbank has I give to following command. sun4 /ftp/staff-docs 21> waissearch -h genbank.bio.net -d INFO -p 210 tcp and genbank will respond as follows: Search Response: NumberOfRecordsReturned: 3 1: Score: 1000, lines: 33 'directory-of-servers.src /gos/src/wais/wais-8-b 2: Score: 1000, lines: 13 'biosci.src /gos/src/wais/wais-8-b1/wais-sources 3: Score: 1000, lines: 12 'INFO.src /gos/src/wais/wais-8-b1/wais-sources/' View document number [type 0 or q to quit]: 2 As you can see there are 3 sources and the one that I am interested in is number 2. Since I want to get more information on the biosci.src I then type in option 2 and I get all the facts on that source. Headline: biosci.src /gos/src/wais/wais-8-b1/wais-sources/ (:source :version 3 :database-name "biosci" :ip-address "134.172.3.160" :ip-name "genbank.bio.net" :tcp-port 210 :cost 0.00 :cost-unit :free :maintainer "biosci-request@genbank.bio.net" :description "This database contains an archive of articles posted to the BIOSCI mailing lists and newsgroups since 1989. Now that I have this information I need to make it available to the WAISstation on my Sparc so I select NEW from under the SOURCES section of the WAISstation and I will then be presented with a new screen in which I can edit and add a NEW SOURCE. All that I need to do is add in the information that is listed under option 2... that is to say. Name:biosci.src Server:genbank.bio.net Service:210 Database:biosci Cost:0 Units:free Maintainer:biosci-request@genbank.bio.net Description:This database contains an archive of articles posted to the BIOSCI mailing lists and newsgroups since 1989. That's it... very simple... and now you are ready to roll. When I now open a Xwais session I can select biosci.src from the list of sources and then OPEN up a QUESTION session. The WAIS question window will open up and I can then choose the ADD SOURCE button and scroll and select the BIOSCI.SRC. Once the source has been selected you can then move with your mouse to the "Tell me about" section and write a normal free form message in plain english... marvelous that you do not have to remember any syntax... Let's SEARCH for "harper wais"... that's right bring that spotlight down on me:-)... and in under 15 seconds a tcp connection is made to Genbank and Wais looks for the keywords wais and harper and comes up with 40 documents found. At the top of the list I get an entry in the form 1000 6.4K (07/29/91) Rob.Harper Re: WAIS SESSION (SWAIS Simple WAIS) The score 1000 suggests that this article might be the best one to look at first... 6.4K tells you how big it is in kilobytes... 07/29/91 is the date when it was written... what a joy for those who want priority in patents... Rob.Harper, the author of the article (hey this is better than having your name in lights) and Re: WAIS SESSION the original subject as it appeared on the Usenet newsgroups. From inside the XWAIS question any of these files can be VIEWED online. I just click with the mouse the text I want to read and it will show up on the screen has highlighted and then by clicking on the VIEW button the document will be retrieved via tcp from Genbank for viewing. e.g. >This is for the adventurous... a quick introduction to WAIS via >SWAIS using telnet. Just telnet hub.nnsc.nsf.net and when asked >for a login give the login wais. OK kids that it... get to it... I suppose the next question to be answered is "How do you make a SOURCE" How about it Eliot??? the stage is all yours. Rob "Xwais" Harper.