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From: fqoj@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: NeXT Database Prowess
Message-ID: <19350@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: 14 Aug 89 23:45:09 GMT
Sender: news@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Reply-To: fqoj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu ()
Organization: Cornell Information Technologies, Ithaca NY
Lines: 49


                                                                                
Folks,                                                                          
                                                                                
There is a ton of interest on my campus surrounding the NeXT machine.           
Surprisingly, or not suprisingly, depending on your view-point, much of         
the interest comes from NON-technical fields. I have a question that            
I've seen many people dance around on this net but no one clearly               
address. Many people have seen the "Complete Works of Shakespear" go            
through its paces. The next (no pun) step, obviously, for many, is too          
put the subject matter of their interest "on-line" in a similar fashion.        
I have two specific requests to pass on by way of example: In one case,         
the entire written works of Sigmund Freud have been entered                     
electronically (really! the department even got a grant from NEH to do          
it. They've spent almost $50,000 so far in Kurzweil time!)...they'd             
like to have that database "NeXTized" or whatever the process is                
called. A similar situation is for a unit studying the works of Plato.          
Although the Plato project is not nearly as far along, both projects are        
VERY interested in the technology. So, the querries:                            
                                                                                
What exactly is the process going on "under" the Shakespear icon, it            
can't be just a glorified fgrep. How does the cube, burdened with the           
unix file-system, get such good recall on that large database?                  
                                                                                
Is there a way Cornell could send the disk data to NeXT, or even a third        
party, and have them put the data on an OD with the proper                      
cross-indexing? We'd want to do the front-end ourselves in IB                   
(obviously, where's the fun without that chance?  :-)   )                       
                                                                                
Is there a way to licence the underlying software that drives such              
cross-referenced databases? Is this a NeXT-developed technology or third        
party? Obviously the potential is great for any field to have their "hot        
topics" ready and on-line in such a fashion. Will it be part of a future        
OS release. Maybe something like AppKit only this would be called               
DataBaseKit?                                                                    
                                                                                
Please, we're sincere here and the money is (sort of) there or can be           
found. If anyone has any info please pass it along or, if you could,            
direct me to someone who is in the know. Thanks in advance.                     
                                                                                
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Roger Jagoda                                                                    
System Analyst                                                                  
Cornell University                                                              
Internet: FQOJ@CORNELLA.CIT.CORNELL.EDU                                         
Bitnet: FQOJ@CORNELLA.BITNET                                                    
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