This is for the adventurous... a quick introduction to WAIS via
SWAIS using telnet. Just telnet hub.nnsc.nsf.net and when asked
for a login give the login wais. If you have VT100 emulation
then it works quite well. Here is a session I logged from
Finland this afternoon, after being told of the availablity of SWAIS.
********************* EXAMPLE SESSION WITH COMMENTS *****************
sun4 /mnt/home/csc/harper 2> telnet hub.nnsc.nsf.net
Trying...
Connected to hub.nnsc.nsf.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
SunOS UNIX (hub.nnsc.nsf.net)
login: wais
! the fist menu that you are presented with is a list of
! available sources.
SWAIS Search Entry Sources: 15
1: Source: directory-of-servers
2: Source: ietf-documents
3: Source: internet-drafts
4: Source: internet-rfcs
5: Source: info-mac
6: Source: US-Gov-Programs
7: Source: cosmic-abstracts
8: Source: cosmic-programs
9: Source: eff-documents
10: Source: online-libraries
11: Source: poetry
12: Source: wall-street-journal
13: Source: world-factbook
14: Source: usenet-cookbook
15: Source: sun-mail
Keywords:
! if you hit a h for HELP you get the following screen.
! Now the two things that are important are SOURCES and
! KEYWORDS. With the cursor key you can move to the CIA world
! factbook (13:) and select the source by pressing the space bar
! an asterix will appear next to the source to indicate that it
! has been selected. By then pressing w you will be put onto the
! Keyword line and you could write Finland or Upper Volta to find out
! about that country.
SWAIS Search Entry Help Page: 1
j Move Down one source
k Move Up one source
<space> Select current source
<ret> Perform search
s Select new sources
w Select new keywords
h Show this help display
H Provide WAIS overview
q Leave simple wais program
SWAIS Search Entry Sources: 15
! Here I have selected the source world-factbook
! and it is marked with a * By pressing w I toggle to the keywords
! command line and I can type in Finland and WAIS then reports that
! 9 items have been found. There is a score of 1000 agaist the first
! item so wais is saying this item is the best one to look at.
! on the left you are told how many line are in the document.
1: Source: directory-of-servers
2: Source: ietf-documents
3: Source: internet-drafts
4: Source: internet-rfcs
5: Source: info-mac
6: Source: US-Gov-Programs
7: Source: cosmic-abstracts
8: Source: cosmic-programs
9: Source: eff-documents
10: Source: online-libraries
11: Source: poetry
12: Source: wall-street-journal
13: * Source: world-factbook
14: Source: usenet-cookbook
15: Source: sun-mail
Keywords: Finland
Found 9 items.
SWAIS Search Results Items: 9
# Score Source Title Lines
1: [1000] ( cmns-vax.think) Country: Finland - Geography Total area: 266
2: [ 964] ( cmns-vax.think) Country: Atlantic Ocean - Geography Total 74
3: [ 946] ( cmns-vax.think) Country: Sweden - Geography Total area: 4 253
4: [ 946] ( cmns-vax.think) Country: Norway - Geography Total area: 3 267
5: [ 946] ( cmns-vax.think) Country: Denmark - Geography Total area: 259
6: [ 946] ( cmns-vax.think) Country: Antarctica - Geography Total are 145
7: [ 928] ( cmns-vax.think) Appendix E: Cross-Reference L 1072
8: [ 928] ( cmns-vax.think) Country: Soviet Union - Geography Total a 353
9: [ 928] ( cmns-vax.think) THE WORLD FACTBOOK 697
SWAIS Search Results Help Page: 1
! by pressing h you then get instructions for viewing the items.
! If the highlight is on item 1 then by pressing the spacebar you
! can retreive it.
j, ^N Move Down one item
k, ^P Move Up one item
<space> Display current item
s Make another search with new sources
u Use this item to the list of sources
w Make another search with new keywords
h Show this help display
H Provide WAIS overview
q Leave simple wais program
! Wais then give all the data in the CIA world fact book
! which in this session was a bit garbled , but I expect
! that is because I was not using a perfect VT100 emulation
! Perhaps you will have better luck.
Retrieving: Country: Finland - Geography Total area: 337,030 km2;
CIA The World Factbook 1990 900101
CountryFinland005- GeographyTotalea: 337,030 km2and area: 305,470
km2Comparativ,
USSR313 km
Coastline,126 km excludingislandsd coastalindentationsMaritimeclaims
Contiguouszone nm
Continentalshelf00 meters to depth exploitation
Exclusivefishingzone2 nm
Territorialsea nmClimate(coldtemperate(potentiallysubarcticut
comparativelymild;
population concentrated smallsouthwesterncoastalplainNote(longboundaryth
USSR(H)
Nationality(noun(Finn;
adjective(FinnishEthnicdivisions(Finn(Swede(Lapp(Gypsy(Tr
Language Finnish. Swedish both official small Lapp and
Russian speaking minorities Literacy 100%
..... rest of text deleted.
! If you want to find out all about Finland then you will have to
! initiate a SWAIS session youself.
! Anyway this is enough to be getting on with. This stuff is just
! hot off the press so perhaps that is the reason it still has some
! bugs
All the best
Rob "Scoop" Harper
