Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!vax5!fqoj 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. Reply to: Roger Jagoda System Analyst Cornell University Internet: FQOJ@CORNELLA.CIT.CORNELL.EDU Bitnet: FQOJ@CORNELLA.BITNET Snail Mail: 220 Cornell Comp. Cent. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 AT&T: (607) 255-8960