Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!genbank!apple!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!rpi!ccnysci!phri!roy From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genbank Subject: Re: Distributing GenBank over the Internet Message-ID: <1989Dec13.201432.20058@phri.nyu.edu> Date: 13 Dec 89 20:14:32 GMT References: <1989Dec7.213027.8591@phri.nyu.edu> <1364@uvm-gen.UUCP> <30.25862b68@bio.embnet.se> Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System) Reply-To: roy@alanine.UUCP (Roy Smith) Organization: Public Health Research Institute, NYC Lines: 50 kristoff@genbank.BIO.NET (David Kristofferson) writes: > the biological community is unfortunately often on the trailing edge of the > information technology revolution. [...] every biology department in any > self-respecting university should have a department committee on computing > and networking. They should be actively investigating setting up local > networks, connecting these to larger scale, high speed networks like the > Internet, getting access to electronic communications capabilities > particularly newsreading software (which is in the public domain), etc Dave, I think you hit the nail directly on the head. Less than two years ago, after much planning, scheeming, begging favors, and scrounging spare equipment, I proposed setting the PHRI up with a 9600 buad SLIP connection to the Internet which would have involved a total outlay of $300 to install a LADC circuit and $75 a month to maintain it. I was floored when the response came back that I was proposing an extremely expensive way to send email (the value of which had not been demonstrated) and my request was turned down! I did keep at it though, and somehow (I'm still not sure how) I managed to pry loose about $10k in capital costs to set up a 56kbps link (with the same $75/month LADC rental charge). Little by little, people are making use of the infrastructure I fought so hard to put in place. I was somewhat surprised (pleasantly) when a new person came to the Institute a few months ago and asked me how to send email. He didn't ask me *if* we had it, he took it for granted that we did and just wanted to know the local juju. For the past week or two, we've been bantering around ways to deal with distributing genbank. I think it's all pretty much agreed that some sort of network file transfer over high-speed links would be the ideal way. Unfortunately, that possibility has been dismissed as the standard distribution channel because not enough genbank subscribers have the needed links. Perhaps the solution is to get those links in place, and the local expertise in place to use those links effectively and keep them running. I am also constantly surprised when visiting scientists remark, either directly to me, or to other scientists who pass it on, that they are really impressed with our computer setup. Every one of our scientists has at worst an ASCII terminal in his or her office. Some have diskless Sun workstations. Some have Macs. A few poor misguided souls have PCs :-) They are all somehow networked with everything else. We have a random assortment of sequence analysis programs and the Internet connection described above. So why am I surprised when people are so impressed? Because I consider what we have to be just barely passable. If most of the visitors here are impressed, that must mean that what most people have available to them in the way of computer resources is a disaster. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "My karma ran over my dogma"