This section is from the document '/news-archives/comp/infosystems/wais/001'.

From alt.wais Sun Jan 12 08:57:20 1992
From: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Date: 11 Jan 92 21:58:25 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.wais
Subject: FAQ for WAIS

FAQ for WAIS.  Questions only :-).

- What is WAIS?
- Where can I FTP
  a mac client?
  a unix client?
  a dos client?
  a NeXT client?
  a VMS client?
  the server?
- How do I find out what WAIS databases there are?
- What do I do when the directory of servers is unreachable?
- How do I add a server to the directory of servers?
- Where can I read more about WAIS in the trade press?

- What is Z39.50?
- Who is working on Z39.50 implementations?
- Do they interoperate?
- Where do these people talk about protocol details?
- What's a Z39 anyway?  Where did these people come from?

- What other systems work with WAIS?
- What's a gopher?
- What's WWW (World Wide Web)?
- What does "archie" have to do with WAIS?
- What does Prospero have to do with WAIS?
- How does WAIS relate to X.500 (ISO directory service) ?

- What's the scoring algorithm used by WAIS?
- How do I approximate a boolean search?
- How do I make a good index to a set of documents?
- What alternatives do I have to the default document parser?

- What relationship does WAIS have to DowQuest?
- How much does DowQuest cost, and what can I learn from it?
- Can the results be e-mailed back to my Internet mailbox?

- Are there any commercial WAIS servers?
- Can I look things up in
  the Whole Earth Catalog?
  the American Library Directory?
  Books in Print?
  Dissertation Abstracts International?
  the Library of Congress?
  Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory?
  the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers?
- Why not?  

- Can I use WAIS to search through and display
  images?
  sounds?
  video?
  X-rays?
  Postscript files?
  SGML-encoded text?
  multimedia documents?
  e-mail?
  usenet news?
  catalogs, directories, lists, lexicons, dictionaries?

- What's wrong with WAIS?
  as a protocol?
  in relation to scaling up to 1000s of servers?
  with the existing clients?

- How do I integrate WAIS into my
  campus-wide information system (CWIS) ?
  mail-based archive server (MBAS) ?
  anonymous FTP server ?
  mail reader ?
  news system ?
  Hypercard stack ?
  pen-based computer ?

- How do I do WAIS over a dialup connection ?

That's a bunch of questions, some of which have good answers,
others which don't.  There's a bunch more do be answered and
asked.

Remember the WAIS / Archivist's / Cybrarians BOF at Usenix.

--
Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN Inc. emv@msen.com
      MSEN Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI  48103 +1 313 741 1120