Xref: utzoo news.groups:7416 comp.windows.x:7972
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!nsb+
From: nsb+@andrew.cmu.edu (Nathaniel Borenstein)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:
Message-ID: <4XyLley00Uk4ITlGRC@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 15 Feb 89 13:34:34 GMT
References: <8902140058.AA01450@lilink.UUCP>
Organization: Information Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 42
In-Reply-To: <8902140058.AA01450@lilink.UUCP>

> *Excerpts from TODO: 14-Feb-89 Michael R. Johnston@uune (745)*
> Hi. Before I cast my vote perhaps you could mail me a short description  of
> just what Andrew is?
Sure, and I'm posting it to the net for the benefit of others who might share
your question.

Andrew is a joint venture of IBM and CMU to develop the integrated university
software environment of the future.  It is primarily oriented to UNIX
workstations, although parts run on machines as simple as PC's, Macintoshes, and
VMS Vaxes.  There are three main parts to Andrew:

1.  The Andrew File System is a large-scale distributed file system.  Think of
it as NFS scaled WAY up.  It is beginning to be used as what we hope will
eventually be a single nationwide file system for computer science research.
From my machine at home, for example, I can now use "ls" to see files at MIT,
University of Michigan, and a few other sites.

2.  Andrew Toolkit is a very high lvel user interface toolkit for X11 and other
window systems.  It was recently selected as a "research technology" by the Open
Software Foundation.

3.  The Andrew Message System permits the exchange (even via SMTP through clunky
gateways like the ones to BITNET) of multimedia mail and bulletin board
messages, including raster images, equations, tables, spreadsheets, hierarchical
drawings, animations, and even pianos that actually make sounds.

The Toolkit and Message System have been generously made non-proprietary by IBM,
and are included on the X11R3 tape from MIT.  (You can find it under
contrib/toolkits/andrew, and it is known to run on IBM RT's, Suns, and
MicroVaxes as distributed on the tape.  Since the R3 release, patches have been
made to allow it to run on several other vendors' hardware, notably HP's.)  The
X11R3 release version of Andrew also includes a multimedia text editor, a
configurable graphical system monitoring program, a very nice help program, a
terminal interface (an alternative to xterm), and several other applications.
All three parts of Andrew are being considered in the product plans of several
major vendors.

That's the very short answer; for a longer answer, lets wait until the newsgroup
is created.

Nathaniel Borenstein
Manager, Andrew Applications Development