To: wais-discussion@Think.COM
From: TGAUSLIN@ISDRES.ER.USGS.GOV (by way of Brewster@WAIS.COM (Brewster Kahle))
X-Sender: brewster@wais.com
Subject: WAIS Client for IBM/MVS (DinoWAIS)

Well, it's working.  We (USGS) now have a WAIS client for IBM's MVS
operating environment (this is the IBM mainframe operating system.)
The client runs under TSO (time sharing option), and relies on ISPF
(Interactive Systems Productivity Facility) for screen management.
ISPF is almost a given for MVS systems.  I couldn't resist the
temptation to follow the stampede and call this "Dino(saur)WAIS."

What I'm looking for at this point is a few folks to help check out
the client.  Initially I'd like to provide the load library and
support libraries; we'll be providing the source when we package
the whole thing up after testing.  Any takers??

Also, I'm unaware of any Internet "standard" for moving IBM partitioned
data sets (PDS) around.  Is anyone aware of a simple way to pack
these up for FTP and still get a usable dataset at the other end?  If,
not, I've got some ideas.  I just don't want to do anything totally
foreign if there's a better way.

Since the translation and file structure differences are worked out,
we also expect to have an indexer and server before too long.  Updates
on this as we go along.

Lastly, DinoWAIS is based in WAIS b5.1.  That's waht was available when
we started the MVS port, so we stuck with it.  Every step of the
process has been documented, so moving it to other versions shouldn't
be very difficult.

Let me know who's interested, and we'll work out the FTP details on
the side.

Tim Gauslin
US Geological Survey
tgauslin@isdres.er.usgs.gov