Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!uunet!genbank!bionet!bcm!watson!sob
From: sob@watson.bcm.tmc.edu (Stan Barber)
Newsgroups: bionet.molbio.genbank
Subject: Re: Distributing GenBank over the Internet
Message-ID: <1855@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
Date: 15 Dec 89 05:06:52 GMT
References: <1989Dec7.213027.8591@phri.nyu.edu> <1364@uvm-gen.UUCP> <1989Dec11.160609.5436@phri.nyu.edu>
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Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
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In article <1989Dec11.160609.5436@phri.nyu.edu> roy@alanine.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>	CD-ROM is nice, but doesn't really solve the problems that tape has.
>You still have to get a physical object from point A to point B, and you
>still have to produce those objects.  How long does it take to press CDs
>compared to the time it takes to cut tapes?  Also, from what I know of CDs,
>they are much slower than magnetic hard disks.  Also, I'm not sure that
>CD-ROM is really practical yet.  Maybe in a couple of years, but it's still
>pretty much of a specialty item today.
>
I don't agree with you. CD-ROM is VERY VERY VERY available for both Macintosh
and PC environments NOW. People use them NOW. In the Unix workstations world,
they are a coming thing (Sun CD, DEC has had CDs for awhile). 

Also, makeing CDs is not that big of a deal if you are generating 100 of them
or more. I don't know the stats on how many sites get a GENBANK tape, but I'd
guess it is more than 100. I'd also guess that generating 100 tapes would take
about the same amount of time as generating 100 CDs.

--
Stan           internet: sob@bcm.tmc.edu         Director, Networking 
Olan           uucp: {rutgers,mailrus}!bcm!sob   and Systems Support
Barber         Opinions expressed are only mine. Baylor College of Medicine