There is now a WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers) server running at the International AVS Center. WAIS allows a user to ask a question to a server, which provides a ranked list of documents that may help answer that question. The user can then peruse through the documents that seem useful. All of the .txt files for AVS modules freely available on the International AVS Center's anonymous ftp site have been indexed, as well as informational files such as AVS_README and FAQ. WAIS should prove more and more useful as the AVS module repository becomes larger. It provides a convienient interface to large amounts of data. There is also an archive of comp.graphics.avs postings beginning with May 1992 postings. For example, I might be interested in JPEG files, so I might ask the server the question: "Can I read or write JPEG files using AVS?" A typical response from swais, a WAIS client that you could type your question into, would be as shown below. I could then select any of these documents for viewing. SWAIS Search Results Items: 40 # Score Source Title Lines 001: [1000] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) AVS_README /src/avs/ftp/ 589 002: [ 844] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) AVS_CATALOG /src/avs/ftp/ 2008 003: [ 603] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) write_jpeg 459 004: [ 592] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_jpeg 456 005: [ 413] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) WHAT_IS_AVS /src/avs/ftp/ 290 006: [ 380] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) FAQ /src/avs/ftp/ 274 007: [ 184] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_HDF_SDS 198 008: [ 184] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_abekas_ 116 009: [ 178] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_tiff 225 010: [ 173] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_shak 461 011: [ 139] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_FLOW3D 140 012: [ 139] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_compres 67 013: [ 139] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_compres 63 014: [ 139] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) write_compres 67 015: [ 111] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) fast_animate 109 016: [ 106] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) animate_file 177 017: [ 100] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) write_abekas 58 018: [ 89] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_16_bit_ 69 019: [ 89] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_sunras 63 020: [ 83] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) Image_Sequen 219 021: [ 83] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) phoenics_int 62 022: [ 83] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) write_irreg 58 023: [ 83] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) write_reg 58 024: [ 78] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) Keyframe_Ani 777 025: [ 67] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) write_A60_yu 44 026: [ 61] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) readFLOW3D 71 027: [ 55] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) Record_Anima 301 028: [ 50] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_dyna3d 89 029: [ 50] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_gif 52 030: [ 50] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) cone 78 031: [ 44] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) field_conver 132 032: [ 44] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) my_mirror 64 033: [ 44] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) new_crop 140 034: [ 44] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) 3D_axis 174 035: [ 39] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) animate_floa 274 036: [ 39] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) animate_inte 274 037: [ 39] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) read_Dore_im 24 038: [ 39] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) Iterate 128 039: [ 39] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) Stepper 115 040: [ 39] ( AVS_TXT_FILES) collage 95 To get the WAIS client and server software, ftp to think.com, login as anonymous, and get the compressed file wais/wais-8-b4.tar.Z. In the same location, you can get a list of available sources from the file wais-sources.tar.Z. A "source" is a file needed by a WAIS client (running on your local machine) to access a server running on a remote (or local) machine. An overview of WAIS is provided below, in an article written by Brewster Kahle of Thinking Machines. Brewster is the Project Leader of the WAIS project. Overview of Wide Area Information Servers Brewster Kahle April 1991 The Wide Area Information Servers system is a set of products supplied by different vendors to help end-users find and retrieve information over networks. Thinking Machines, Apple Computer, and Dow Jones initially implemented such a system for use by business executives. These products are becoming more widely available from various companies. What does WAIS do? Users on different platforms can access personal, company, and published information from one interface. The information can be anything: text, pictures, voice, or formatted documents. Since a single computer-to-computer protocol is used, information can be stored anywhere on different types of machines. Anyone can use this system since it uses natural language questions to find relevant documents. Relevent documents can be fed back to a server to refine the search. This avoids complicated query languages and vendor specific systems. Successful searches can be automatically run to alert the user when new information becomes available. How does WAIS work? The servers take a users question and do their best to find relevant documents. The servers, at this point, do not "understand" the users english language question, rather they try to find documents that contain those words and phrases and ranks then based on heuristics. The user interfaces (clients) talk to the servers using an extension to a standard protocol Z39.50. Using a public standard allows vendors to compete with each other, while bypassing the usual proprietary protocol period that slows development. Thinking Machines is giving away an implementation of this standard to help vendors develop clients and servers. What WAIS servers exist? Even though the system is very new, there are already several servers: * Dow Jones is putting a server on their own DowVision network. This server contains the Wall Street Journal, Barons, and 450 magazines. This is a for-pay server. * Thinking Machines operates a Connection Machine on the internet for free use. The databases it supports are some patents, a collection of molecular biology abstracts, a cookbook, and the CIA World Factbook. * MIT supports a poetry server with a great deal of classical and modern poetry. Cosmic is serving descriptions of government software packages. The Library of Congress has plans to make their catalog available on the protocol. * Weather maps and forecasts are made available by Thinking Machines as a repackaging of existing information. * The "directory of servers" facility is operated by Thinking Machines so that new servers can be easily registered as either for-pay or for-free servers and users can find out about these services. How can I find out more about WAIS? Contact Brewster Kahle for more information on the WAIS project, the Connection Machine WAIS system, or the free Mac, Unix Server, and X Window System interfaces. There is a mailing list that has weekly postings on progress and new releases; to subscribe send and email note to wais-discussion-request@think.com. Brewster Kahle Project Leader Wide Area Information Servers Brewster@Think.com The source file you will need to access the International AVS Center's archive of the module text files is "avs-txt-files.src" (NOT including the lines with the asterisks): ************************avs-txt-files.src*********************** (:source :version 3 :database-name "/usr1/avs/wais-sources/AVS_TXT_FILES" :cost 0.00 :cost-unit :free :maintainer "avs@doppler.ncsc.org" :ip-address "128.109.178.23" :ip-name "doppler.ncsc.org" :tcp-port 210 :description "Server created with WAIS release 8 b4 on Apr 23 16:22:03 1992 by avs@doppler All of the .txt files for Application Visualization System (AVS) modules freely available on the International AVS Center's anonymous ftp site have been indexed, as well as informational files such as AVS_README and FAQ. The anonymous ftp site can be accessed at avs.ncsc.org. Please send email to avsemail@ncsc.org for an automated reply with information about the International AVS Center and how you can make use of it. Please send questions for the International AVS Center to avs@ncsc.org. " ) **************************************************************** The source file you will need to access the International AVS Center's archive of the postings to comp.graphics.avs is "cg_avs_files.src" (NOT including the lines with the asterisks): ************************cg_avs_files.src************************ (:source :version 3 :database-name "/usr1/avs/wais-sources/cg_avs_files" :cost 0.00 :cost-unit :free :maintainer "avs@doppler.ncsc.org" :ip-address "128.109.178.23" :ip-name "doppler.ncsc.org" :tcp-port 210 :description "Server created with WAIS release 8 b4 on Jun 6 10:35:11 1992 by avs@doppler An archive of postings to the newsgroup comp.graphics.avs has been indexed, starting with May 1992 postings. Please send email to avsemail@ncsc.org for an automated reply with information about the International AVS Center and how you can make use of it and our anonymous ftp site. Please send questions for the International AVS Center to avs@ncsc.org. " ) ****************************************************************