Networking at NYU Volume 4, N

September I

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU is edited and published by New

York University's Academic Comput­

ing Facility (ACF). Its ,scope includes information about computing and networking activities at NYU's various schools, departments, and administra­tive units.

Copies of Academic Computing and Networking at NYU are mailed to Uni­versity faculty and staff and are also

available from the ACF' s Information Services Office (Room 306, Warren Weaver Hall). Students holding ACF

individual computer accounts are in­cluded automatically in the news­

letter's mailing list.

We welcome your comments and suggestions about the articles in this issue, and about articles for future issues of the newsletter. Contributions

from sources within the University are invited for consideration by the editor;

please call 998-3038 or send E-mail to frederickson@adduster.nyu.edu for more information. Articles are written

by members of the ACF staff, unless otherwise indicated.

Opinions expressed in the articles

in this newsletter are those of the authors and not necessarily those of

the Academic Computing Facility or of New York University.

Volume 4, Number I September 1993

Below many of the bylines in the newsletter are electronic mail (E-mail)

addresses. If you do not use E-mail

but would like to, see the box on page

30 for information about opening an appropriate account.

This issue was prepared on Apple Macintosh Quadra and IIci computers,

using Aldus PageMaker, Microsoft Word, Adobe Type Manager, and

Adobe Photoshop. Fonts used in this issue are Palatino for the text and Gill

Sans bold for headlines, along with Zapf Dingbats and Courier for special effects. Screen shots from the PC were

produced on a Gateway 486 com­puter, using Hifaak. Camera-ready

copy of text, screen shots, and images taken from videotape was produced

using a 600-dpi QMS 1700 printer. The cover image was rendered in Alias on a Silicon Graphics Iris Indigo com­

puter; an ll"x17" print from a 3M

Desktop Color Proofer was screened for halftone by Echo Graphics, which also did the halftones from photo­

graphs, as well as printing and bind­ing the newsletter.

David Frederickson frederickson@adduster.nyu.edu

Consulting Editor Estelle Hochberg

hochberg@adcluster.nyu.edu

Schedule Section Editor John Quinan

quinan@adduster.nyu.edu

Photography LuRatunil

ratunil@acfcluster.nyu.edu

Production David White

Production Assistant Andrew Banks

Design David Frederickson

Contributors David Ackerman, Peter Bardazzi

(TSOA), Lisa Barnett, Frances Bauer, Kathy Bear (Computer Store), Gary

Chapman, Vincent Doogan, Allison Druin (CIMS), Patrick Franc (CIMS),

Edward Friedman, Phil Galanter,

David M. Geshwind (TSOA),Edward Huff (GSAS), Beth Kevles, Robert Lancaster (GSAS), Frank LoPresti,

Max Marmor (IFA), Tom McNulty

(Bobst Library), Marvin Rich (GSAS), George Sadowsky, Stephen Tihor,

Carmen Vasquez, Brane Zivkovic (SEHNAP, TSOA).

Special thanks to Preeti Elavunkal,

Quynh Tran, Chun hua Zheng, and other students from the NYU Summer

High School Computing Program.

Thanks also to Joe Citta, Howard Fink, Ed Franceschini, Bert Holland, Henry

Mullish, Vlad Torbin.

Life in Cyberspace One of the increasingly evident characteristics of life on the Internet is the leveling effect that it has on hierarch­ical distinctions among people who interact. John Garrett reports the following anecdote in the July-August 1993 issue of the Educom Review:

"Not long ago, a friend bought a new software pro­gram but couldn't get it to work. He sent an E-mail plea to a bulletin board and an expert answered. There were four or five messages back and forth before the prob­lem was solved; finally, the expert asked my friend who he was. My friend responded that he was forty-six years old and a professor at X University. 'Who are you?' he asked in return. The expert responded, 'I'm twelve, and I'm in the seventh grade.'"

When information from certain senses is not avail­able, we pay more attention to the remaining informa­tion. For example, blind people have reported that while the inability to see the person to whom they are talking may be frustrating, it also relieves them of reacting to the person's physical attributes and having their judg­ment shaped by them. Even people with sight under­stand the significant differences between personal and telephonic interaction, both in perception and in behav­ior. If anonymity is added to remote interaction, people are free to assume roles limited only by their fantasies, and often do; the behavior associated with the rapid growth and use of CB radios attests to this effect.

At one end of this spectrum is a test proposed by the famous British mathematician Alan Turing. In the 1940s, when both the nature and promise of computers was still quite fuzzy, Turing proposed a now-famous defi­nition of artificial intelligence. He proposed the follow­ing scenario: A person whose job it is to determine whether a given behavior is or is not "intelligent" asks questions of an unknown and invisible respondent, who is either another person or a computer. In order not to bias the judgment by form, the communication between the two parties is performed using ordinary keyboard devices, such as teletypewriters, so that the communi-

DRAWING BY P. STEINER; © 1993 THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE, INC.

"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."

cation could conceivably be from either a human being or a machine. The judge then asks questions of the unknown respondent and, based upon the responses, decides whether or not the respondent displays intelli­gence.

In effect, the Turing test asks us to discern intelli­gence simply from the nature and quality of the inter­action with an entity with whom we communicate, rather than from the physical or mechanical form of the respondent. That is essentially the current nature of most communication over the Internet. This limitation in the form of communication, together with the relative ano­nymity of correspondents, allows any contributions to discussions to be judged on their merits, rather than on the reputation or appearance of the sender. In this sense the Internet promotes a dimension of intellectual de­mocracy that can lead to exploration of ideas that other­wise might not surface. The Internet is open to everyone, even dogs, who can contribute appropriately and mean­ingfully to any of its many activities which, in a broad sense, support our research and teaching.

Welcome back! - George Sadowsky

sadowsky@nyu.edu

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993

Scoring Films on Cue and Online: The Future Is Here by Brane Zivkovic with David Frederickson zivkovic@acfcluster.nyu.edu • frederickson@acfcluster.nyu.edu

ZOOM IN:

Location: Downtown Manhattan. Action: The composer is working on a film score in her home studio. (Video and audio source: Videotape of edited film, running at 30 frames

per second.)

CUT: Location: Hollywood film studio. Action: The music editor

is making a new edit of one of the scenes that has back­ground music. (Video and audio source: Film picture and

sound running at 24 frames per second.)

CUT:

Location: London. Action: The director, working on Euro­

pean promotion for film, must approve the new edit, with music matching the visuals. (Video and audio source: A vid­

eotape of the previous edit, running at 25 frames per sec­

ond.) SPLIT SCREEN:

Action: Three collaborators at remote locations evaluate and

adjust the revisions, communicating and transferring the files by electronic mail over the Internet.

FADEOUT ...

Is this how films will be put together in the future? Probably.

Can it be done now at the Academic Computing Facility's Arts and Media Studio? Yes.

How? Using the film-scoring program Cue (by OpCode), a Macintosh computer, a word processor,

Brane Zivkovic is a film composer who has scored thirteen films and is working on a TV cartoon series, The Toysters. For the last four years, he has taught Music for Film and Television at TSOA, and courses in Film Scoring at SEHNAP, the Aspen Music School, and Brooklyn College.

and E-mail or FAXmail on the Internet. True comput­ing and networking!

Cue Sheets and the Film Score The sound track for a film has to be tightly coordinated with the action shown on screen. This is obviously true for dialogue, which must match the actors' lip move-

These days, the conductor of a film score watches the edited film on a video monitor, not a movie screen, as he conducts. Over the image of the action, Cue can superimpose "streamers" running across the screen to indicate the "hit points," and flashes of light to indicate the musical beats. Here a participant in last year's AS CAP /Fred Karlin Film Scoring Workshop conducts a studio orchestra at 20th Century-Fox. PHOTO BY LESTER COHEN, COURTESY ASCAP

Production: I.QY: Cue: ~!2.M.al (Tempo Format: B.P.M)

19.08 17

., .

.

..

01m William Hartzell, Kool Muza

23.85 21

28.63 25

Page 2 7/12193 7:05 PM

33.40 29

Production: I.g_y Production#: Q.1 Episode: Meeting the Toys

Cue:6.M.a.·~· Starting Tempo:~

8eginsat~lnReef/Act2

____ ,,. ,.,1 ... And then !he chase. Jade and

h" "°"'" '" lh'°~~c ""' "'°°" "P"'·"'"'"''

METER: 1

Toys start to nml

Toy 1 hits toy 2

Green Guy says: "h"

"·" "' Black Guy

{ THE TEMPO CHANGES TO 54.98 ON THIS CLICK )

@i" She says and gets tripped.

45.35 V' CUT "@~2

52.12 V' CUT Toy In aha bag 1

1 :os.ao V' CUT Worm screams 1

1:12.97 V' CUT Ogre hits the door

1:16.68 V' CUT Nose guy hit with pellets

1:26.99 V' CUT Nose guy hits door

1:35.23\/' CUT Womanlandsonhobbyhorse

1:38.73 V' CUT Woman on horse hits door

1:41.67\/' CUT Woman on horsa cn1shas

Page1 7121193 1:37 PM

.The Cue software can provide the composer with score paper that has tempos, meters, bar lines, and

instrumentation in place, as well as the verbal cues and timings needed to synchronize the music with the film. The

cue sheet itself is a listing of all these elements.

ments, and for sound effects such as the bang of a door that we see slamming. It is no less true of the musical score, which may underscore, or counterpoint, or punc­tuate the action on screen - or may even stop entirely at a particularly climactic moment.

Whether the musical score is put together from bits and pieces of existing recordings or is composed spe­cifically for the film, it must be synchronized with the film, moment by moment, beat by beat. Each small sequence of the film that needs music - which is at most several minutes long - is called a cue. Each cue must be timed precisely, along with the timings of all the hit points within it - the sounds or actions with which the music must be coordinated. A typical 90-minute feature film might well have 40 or 50 cues and 100 hits, so the job of making the timings is not a small one.

Once the timings are in place - traditionally written on multiple cue sheets - the low-level algebra begins. The composer must calculate which musical speeds or tempos will best match the mood of each cue, and which

musical meters will catch the most hits - that is, which will produce a musical beat that coordinates with each of the hit points. This step usually involves a lot of drudgery with a stopwatch, and a lot of trial and error.

Enter Cue

Cue is a computer program written by composer Rick Johnston that greatly simplifies the task of synchroniza­tion; its aim is to automate every task that takes time away from the creative process. It can be used by com­posers and music editors working for major film stu­dios or by someone doing both jobs in a home studio. The latest version, 3.05, will run on any Macintosh com­puter, including the Mac Plus, though it is compatible with the high-end 32-bit Macs.

With Cue you can create and save detailed cue sheets - one for each of the cues - which include tempos, meters, timings, descriptions of the onscreen action, and so forth. You can also design your own score paper, for whatever selection of instruments you want, and print it out with all of this information at the top of the page.

The first step of working with Cue is the most te­dious. All the relevant timings from the film must be entered on the cue sheet - probably as absolute time addresses taken from the videotape. You could enter the timings in any of several formats: as hours, min­utes, seconds, and fractions, as feet and frames, as mu­sical measures and beats, or as any format of SMPTE time code (established by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers). Cue will translate and dis­play the timings in any of these formats; most likely you would want the relative time, measured from the start of the cue.

Once the cue sheet is completed for a particular cue, the program will search through the range of tempos that you specify, trying to find the tempo that catches the most hit points. You can then fine-tune the tempo map, speeding or slowing the tempos within the cue to catch more of the hits.

(continued on page 10)

Film Scoring III, taught by Brane Zivkovic in the Mu­sic Department of the School of Education, is an ad­

vanced course about computing and networking in

film scoring, perhaps the only one of its sort in the country. Students learn how to use Cue, the program described in this article, from the basics to very ad­vanced features like importing and exporting files (both text and MIDI), and how to send and receive the files over the Internet or via FAX.mail.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 3

Expanded rts and edia esources from the Academic Computing Facility Philip Galanter galanter@nyu.edu

The Academic Computing Facility offers a number of resources that will be of interest to those active in the arts and other forms of media production. This article presents an overview of those resources, including many recent additions. V\lhile these Arts and Media facilities provide a high-technology environment, the intended users include those who are active in traditional forms of photography, film-making, painting, sculpture, ani­mation, sound design, and music composition, as well as more recent forms such as interactive multimedia.

ACF Arts and Media facilities include the Student Studio, which features high-end Macintosh computers and related peripherals needed for class work; the Videographics Studio, where Silicon Graphics and Macintosh computers support video production; and a facility with high-end Macintosh systems and special peripherals in support of faculty and advanced student projects. Access to these facilities requires an ACF account, which can be applied for either on a class or individual basis through the ACF Accounts Office (phone 998-3035).

The Arts and Media facilities include an array of hardware and software tools that are expressive, pow­erful, and (usually!) easy to use. Over 40 Macintosh software packages are available for the creation of art works as still images, motion pictures, music, sound, and interactive art. Because these are professional, in­dustry-standard media tools, they provide students with training and experience that will directly relate to their professional careers.

Beyond providing access to hardware and software resources, the ACF also provides~consulting services to university departments that have their own computer­based studio and production facilities. This kind of co-

ordinated planning makes it possible for students to take advantage of both departmental and central ACF resources with maximum synergy and compatibility. The ACF currently collaborates in planning arts and media resources with the Tisch School of the Arts Film and Television, Photography and ITP Departments, and the School of Education Music and Art Departments.

The ACF also sponsors various events of interest to faculty, students, and staff in the arts, from brown-bag

Arts and Media Brown-Bag Lunches The ACF will be sponsoring two monthly brown-bag lunch

sessions each month. One monthly session will be limited to NYU faculty

artists interested in the use of computers and other tech­

nologies in their creative work, research, or teaching. At a typical session one artist will present an informal report on a work-in-progress or recent conference, or will dem­

onstrate a new software tool or artistically useful technol­ogy. In addition, informal discussion will provide a way

to exchange information, identify common interests and needs, and launch collaborations across schools and

departments. Another monthly session will be limited to NYU tech­

nical staff and graduate students charged with maintain­

ing technical environments such as computer labs, video and film production facilities, and recording studios, in

support of artistic programs. Similar to the above, there will usually be some kind of informal presentation, but also time will be allowed for free form discussion of com­

mon problems, solutions, needs, and areas of interest. For more information contact Philip Galanter via E-mail

at galanter@nyu.edu or at 998-3041.

4 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

lunches (see box on previous page) to classes and colloquia (see page 13 for information about the colloquium series, and the schedule of classes begin­ning on page 47).

The ACF Arts and Media Student Studio The Student Studio supports both classes and, with appropriate faculty sponsorship, individual student projects. Systems can be reserved for use by students with accounts, and a small Arts and Media classroom can be reserved by faculty members for training ses­sions. Each system in the studio includes a Macintosh Quadra 700, 800, or 950 with at least 20 megabytes of memory and 600 MB of disk space, a monitor with a 24-bit color screen 16 inches or larger, and a Syquest drive that allows the use of 45 MB removable hard-disk car­tridges.

Distributed among these systems are special periph­erals such as pressure-sensitive drawing tablets with wireless pens, CD-ROM/CD-audio drives, CD-quality analog and digital audio input and output, image scan­ners for paper and film, professional MIDI musical in­struments, audio mixers, DAT and audio cassette tape decks, color printers, videodisc players under computer control, S-VHS video tape decks, and video adapters with hardware compression to capture, produce, and display QuickTime movies at full frame rates.

Painters, photographers, and designers can use a number of professional software tools, such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Fractal Design's Painter X2, and Quark XPress to create, modify, and compose im­ages. Recent software additions include Ofoto for intelligent color scanning, EfiColor Cachet for color man-

The ACF Arts and Media Student Studio provides advanced Macintosh systems along with devices for the use and production of audio and video. Shown on the right is a 660-megabyte hard drive; next to it, from top to bottom, are a mixer, an audio cassette deck, and an S-VHS video tape deck. At far left, the end of a MID I keyboard can be seen.

agement and correction, and numerous "plug-in" ef­fects including Kai's Power Tools, Andromeda Series 1, Xaos Paint Alchemy, and Aldus Gallery Effects Volume 2.

Filmmakers, animators, and multimedia producers can digitize video, add digital effects or hand-drawn rotoscoping, create 2D cell animations by hand or with scanned images, and create 3D rendered animations, then edit the results for high-quality QuickTime mov­ies, or for later videotape recording at the ACF Videographics Studio described below. Recent software upgrades and additions include Adobe Premiere 3.0 for nonlinear editing and VideoFusion 1.5 for video effects like compositing, complex transitions, and morphing.

Musicians and sound-track editors can transfer or digitize audio from DAT, CD, and audio cassette, manipulate and edit sounds, compose and notate mu­sic using MIDI, and record the results. Recent software upgrades include Deck 2.0 for digital audio mixing, and the latest versions of the visual MIDI programming application Max, and the professional film-scoring tool Cue (described in the article on page 2).

The ACF Arts and Media Videographics Studio

The ACF Arts and Media Videographics Studio includes both a workstation room and a video room. The work­station room includes Silicon Graphics Indigo 4000XZ systems running software from both Alias Research and Wavefront Technologies. Both Alias and Wavefront are standards in the film and television industry for the production of 3D animations. They also include signifi­cant paint capabilities, and Wavefront provides tools to "composite" animations and real-world footage into a

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 S

Software at the ACF's Arts and Media Student Studio The software listed below is installed in the ACF's Arts and Media Student Studio in the Education Building at 35 West

Fourth Street, which is equipped with powerful desktop computers and color printers. (For the latest information about equipment, hours, and access policies, please call the ACF HelpLine, 998-3333.)

Still Images Adobe Photoshop 2.5 Adobe Illustrator 3.2

Aldus Gallery Effects 1 & 2 1.5 Claris MacDraw Pro l.Ovl Claris MacPaint 2.0

MacroMedia Life Forms 1.0.1 MacRenderMan 1.1.1 MacroMind 3D 1.1

MacroMind Director 3.1 MacroMind MediaMaker 1.2 QuickPICS 1.0

OpCode Max 2.5.2 OpCode Studio Vision 1.4

Interaction Aldus Persuasion 2.1

HyperCard 2.1 MacroMind Director 3.1

OpCode MIQiplay

Fractal Design's Painter X2 2.0 Quark XPress 3.1

Raster Ops MoviePak Video Fusion 1.5

Kai's Power Tools 1.0

Andromeda Series 1 Ray Dream JAG 1.0.4 Swivel 3D Pro 2.0

Voyager Videostack Toolkit 2.2

Voyager CD.-Audio Toolkit 1.2 Ofoto 2.0.1 Efi Color Cachet 1.0.2

Xaos Paint Alchemy

Sound and Music

Coda Finale 2.6.3 OSC Deck2.0

Interactive Tutorials

The Book of MIDI Macintosh Basics

Moving Images Adobe Premiere 3.0

Digidesign Sound Designer II OpCode Cue 3.0.5

Macintosh Electronic Reference

Apple QuickTime 1.6 MacroMedia MacroModel 1.0.0

OpCode Galaxy Plus 1.2.lml Utilities Retrospect 1.3c

single scene, and "particle system" tools to animate effects such as rain, smoke, snow, and fireworks.

The video room allows animators and others to move digital motion pictures to and from the computer using a number of video tape formats, including broadcast­quality Betacam, industrial-quality 3 I 4" U-matic SP, and high-quality S-VHS, Hi-8, and VHS. A dedicated Sili­con Graphics 4D /25 workstation is used with a Tektronix Avanzar board to generate frame-by-frame broadcast-quality output to the above formats. In addi­tion, a Macintosh-based Avid Media Suite Pro system with 9 gigabytes of disk space provides a nonlinear digital video-editing capability, and can generate real­time industrial-quality output in the above formats.

A Prime Image 810 full-frame digital interformat transcoder and timebase corrector is available for con­version to and from RGB or any of the above tape formats. In addition, DAT audio, audio mixing, :MIDI and SMPTE lock-up, and Macintosh-based CD-quality audio-production capabilities are supported, and all computers and· tape machines in the video room are connected with a Videomedia V-Lan control network.

The ACF Innovation Center The ACF Innovation Center is a facility recently created

in renovated space on the second floor of Warren Weaver Hall. With a goal of supporting the use and development of new, exotic, or relatively expensive technologies by pioneering faculty members and their advanced students, the Innovation Center will be supporting a number of activities. Some of these activi­ties are in the realm of Arts and Media, including a high-quality imaging initiative, support for faculty mem­bers exploring multimedia, and later this year, a facility for recording CD-ROMs.

The high-quality imaging initiative makes available 2 high-end Macintosh systems, one for scanning, the other for color printing. Each system has large amounts of physical memory (about 90 MB) and disk space, as well as large color displays and graphics tablets, and access to all of the software noted above.

The image-scanning system features a Leafscan 45 film scanner. The Leafscan 45 uses a 6000-element CCD, which permits image resolution up to 5080 dots per inch, and 48 bits of color resolution (16 bits per primary color). The Leafscan 45 supports most professional film formats, in color and black-and-white, negative and positive, including 35 mm, 6 x 9 cm, 2 1 / 4

11, and 4" x 5"

sizes. Images scanned with 48 bits of color resolution will produce 24-bit-color images on the Macintosh that

6 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

The Leafscan 45 is a high-resolution multiformat professional film scanner available at the ACF Innovation

Center. See text for further details.

preserve color fidelity as well as detail in highlights and shadows.

The printing system features a 3M Rainbow dye­sublimation printer capable of producing "matchprint" -quality color prints up to 17.2" x 11.9" that appear similar to color photographic prints. This printer can be used to make prints by photographers using digital tools, or to simulate a number of standard presses and generate color proofs for publishers creating desktop color sepa­rations. In addition, users of 3D animation systems can use the 3M Rainbow to produce photorealistic stills.

In addition, we will be exploring color-management software such as the Apple Colorsync and Efi EfiColor systems. These provide a software architecture consis­tent color throughout the process, from the scan to the screen to the matchprint, and on to the pre-press color separations. Color management is a surprisingly com­plex issue technologically, and will be reported on in future issues of this newsletter.

The Innovation Center also provides a place for fac­ulty members to gain access to, learn about, and create with the same software and hardware tools available to their students in the Arts and Media Student Studio.

ACF Arts and Media Futures and Departmental Collaborations

As noted above, later this fall, a CD-ROM recording system will be added to the Arts and Media area of the Innovation Center. With this system, musicians will be able to record audio CDs, artists and photographers will be able to compile digital portfolios and image archives with dozens or hundreds of images, and inter­active-multimedia producers will be able to create soft­ware presenting a megabyte-intensive experience on a very portable CD-ROM medium.

In addition, we expect to be doing significant work in the area of color management, understanding archi­val computer media for artists, and exploring alterna­tive media for computer artists such as Iris prints and various press and photographic processes available from services in Manhattan.

The response to the ACF Arts and Media facilities has been enthusiastic, to say the least, and at times user demand has exceeded our supply. The challenge we face is to expand the capacity of these facilities to meet the explosion of digital applications in the fine and applied arts, while at the same time maintaining the current professional level of media tools provided. As noted above, we have found that the best way to do this is a collaboration with both the ACF and the aca­demic department providing facilities which comple­ment each other. II

The Powerbook as Musician's Rep Can a Macintosh help a performing artist launch and maintain a career? Professor Mark Holland of the De­

partment of Music and Music Professions (School of Education) thinks so. Last spring he conducted a work­

shop for students in the performing arts, in which he

demonstrated the numerous ways the Mac, and its sibling the Powerbook, could use a number of normal

software programs to meet the practical needs of a

musician - for everything from maintaining databases of auditoriums and managers to designing and print­

ing brochures, letterheads, and programs, from com­

posing form letters to merging them with address lists for automated mailings, from reserving airplane tick­ets to beeping to remind the musician that it's time to

catch the plane. We hope to have a longer report on the workshop

in a later issue of this newsletter. Meanwhile, anyone

interested in joining the workshop this fall should con­tact Prof. Holland at hollandm@acfcluster.nyu.edu or

at 998-5458.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 7

The challenges you would find in the immersive theater: Top,

your nemesis in "The Babysitter" - the baby that

cries at every untoward noise you cause. Middle, sifting the

evidence in "Room 101" - to save yourself from electrocution,

you have to identify the real murderer. Right, part of the

metaphysical trek of "A Journey," possibly through Hell,

to spiritual enlightenment. The settings were dark both for atmosphere and to hide the

gadgetry.

mersive Theater and Learning

The project was to produce something called immersive theater - an environment that would somehow inter­act with the participant, and thereby give each person who went through it a different experience. The semes­ter-long collaboration between teachers, art students, computer scientists, and technicians produced three multimedia walk-through rooms. Each one has a script that plunges the participant into an environment filled with objects that react to his or her conscious choices and unconscious actions.

Of the collaborators who produced the environments at Tisch School of the Arts in May, the students were enrolled in Peter Bardazzi' s Introduction to Multime­dia and Computer Graphics, offered in the Animation Department of TSOA's Department of Film and Televi­sion. But the Department of Computer Science (FAS and CIMS) was deeply involved as well, with the ex­pertise of professors Ken Perlin and Richard Wallace of the Robotics Lab, and the participation of researchers Allison Druin, Rajesh Raichoudhury, Troy Downing, and Vineel Shah. The students came from both depart­ments, forming three mixed working groups to explore the technical and dramatic possibilities of the project.

The film students learned to write scripts for com­puters and people, producing a sort of elaborate semi­improvisational puppetry; the computer students, who had to write the programs and solder the wires to pro-

duce the wildest effects the others could invent, learned about stage design and timing. Since the collaborators, as well as the course itself, were breaking new ground, the work was as much exploration and invention as it was production and staging. Even the adventurous people who showed up to experience the immersive theater broke new ground, since as they went through the environments, their actions affected the events and the outcomes of the scenes.

And what happens to you in the immersive theater? In "A Journey," you walk through a space that

assaults you with images and sounds of violence, deca­dence, and uncertain salvation; in the end, enlighten­ment comes, if at all, only from within. In "The Babysitter," your task is to have the baby sleeping qui­etly when the parents return; but everything you do seems to cause some appliance to roar or zing into activity, waking the baby to another fit of kicking and squalling. And in "Room 101," you find yourself ac­cused of a murder in New York City, A.D. 2012; you can avoid electrocution only by deducing the identity of the real murderer.

For information on future projects, please contact Peter Bardazzi by phone at 998-1700 or at the E-mail address below.

- David Frederickson with Peter Bardazzi frederickson@adcluster.nyu.edu

bardazzi@acfcluster.nyu.edu

(Peter Bardazzi teaches Computer Graphics in the Department of Film and Television (TSOA). In partnership with Pauline Ores, he introduced the first computer-graphics course at NYU in 1984-85.)

Above, Peter Bardazzi (right) confers with Troy Downing (top left), Professor Ken Perlin, and Kim Markegard, who is wiring "the Rig" - the input-output box that is central to the effects in the immersive theater. Below, Professor Richard Wallace demonstrates part of the electronic puppetry - his experimental actuator, in which electronic circuits control magnetic fields that pull the free-floating arm to imitate complex human motions.

Left, a technician solders a sensor pad, which, when walked on, will trigger a complex series of programmed events. ALL PICTURES ON THESE PAGES WERE TAKEN FROM A VIDEO

DOCUMENTARY OF THE PROJECT BY JEFF SEVERTSON.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 9

Scoring Film on Cue (continued from page 3) As you work, Cue can send a variety of documents

to your printer - everything from the original spotting notes (which keep track of the decisions you and the director make about the type and placement of the music) to a formal title page for the stack of documents. Other printouts include the individual cue sheets, a master cue list, a performing rights cue sheet (which includes all information relevant to copyrights and performing rights - and, ultimately, fees), and the custom-made score paper on which you can finally write your music.

Exporting Cue The information on the cue sheet can be exported to two other formats, to provide an interface with other systems.

It can be exported as a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file that can be read by a sequencer. This provides a template on which the musical sequence can be built. Similarly, a MIDI file can be imported into Cue; the MIDI timings can be used to override those in the Cue file, if desired. Although it is not itself a se­quencer, Cue will tum any MIDI-accessible sound on and off at specified SMPTE time address using its MIDI events option.

Alternatively, the cue sheet can be exported as text. The file can be either detailed - which saves all the information on the cue sheet - or sparse, which saves only a single column of timings and the descriptions of the cue points; the latter form is the only one that can be reimported into the program for further work

Either type of text file can be imported into a word processor for editing and printing. You can cut and paste to other applications as necessary, or you can send the file by E-mail to your distant collaborators, wherever they may be. There, if they have Cue on their machines, they can proceed within the application; or they can use the timings to compare with whatever other output they have.

FADE IN ON SPLIT SCREEN:

Action: The three remote collaborators complete and ap­

prove the revisions within minutes, via the Internet. Con­gratulations and champagne all around.

MUSIC UP AND OVER ...

Manifold: Ribbons of Marble Embedded in Crystal This issue's cover is derived from a full-color frame of computer animation. Called M.anifold, it is a work of

Virtual Sculpture by David M. Geshwind from the collec­

tion Process Takes Fonn. Rather than planning these works visually, Geshwind

"conceives of processes or algorithms for constructing the various descriptions of shape, color, and texture for these

synthetic objects. Generally, if the process seems interesting or elegant, the resulting visual is also pleasing; but, often I

don't really know exactly what it will look like until after it is rendered."

Although he produced some of the earliest commercial

works of computer animation in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Geshwind had not created any animated works for more than ten years. He took Phil Sanders' s course in

the Interactive Telecommunications Program of the Tisch

School of the Arts in order to become familiar with the new computer-animation tools. The capabilities of SGI Indigo

workstations running Alias software in the ACF Arts and Media Videographics Studio change the process of anima­

tion radically - "It's nothing like programming mainframe

computers in 'C,' " says Geshwind, "which is how we used

to do it." Geshwind holds patents in computer technology,

including Virtual Reality, and is interested in creating ap­

plications for VR including "shared spaces akin to muse­ums or art galleries where works created specifically for VR

can be experienced. I could not possibly produce physical versions of these sculptures. Manifold would require that

paper-thin, flexible sheets of marble be embedded in pol­ished, carved crystal." After rendering a 360-degree anima­tion in Alias, he then processes the animation sequence for

stereoscopic video, "which gives a real sense of the shape

of the object and the way it interacts with light. In a few years, hardware will be available to explore these works

interactively, at the same high visual quality." Currently, David Geshwind is completing his master's

degree in interactive telecommunications at TSOA and, at

the same time, is starting the PhD program in the Depart­

ment of Computer Sciences (CIMS). - David Frederickson

frederickson@acfcluster.nyu.edu

Nirtual Sculpture is a trademark of David M. Geshwind, and the Manifold image is copyright © 1993 by him. For more information, please contact Mr. Geshwind by E-mail at geshwndd@acfcluster.nyu.edu or at 388-0122.)

I 0 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

NYU Summer Computer Program for High-School Students David Frederickson frederickson@acfcluster.nyu.edu

What do you get when you put fifty or so bright New York City high-school students in a room at NYU with fifty computers? You get a lot of quiet - quietly click­ing keys, quietly intense work, and a lot of quiet learn­ing. Plus a good dose of fun, almost equally quiet. That, at least, was what I found at the 14 Washington Place microcomputer lab on the last Wednesday of July -one of the last days of the month-long Summer High School Students Program of the Academic Computing Facility at NYU.

This free program, now in its twenty-sixth year, gives a chance for students from public and private high schools around the city (even a few from New Jersey and the suburbs) to gain some college-level instruction in computer science and programming languages, and some hands-on experience with computers, scanners, color printers, and other peripherals. Students were rec­ommended for the course by their science or math­ematics teachers, and were selected on the basis of their written applications.

The program started on July 1 with a welcoming talk on the expanding role of computers by ACF director George Sadowsky, and an introduction to the staff by ACF User Services coordinator Vincent Doogan. After that, the students spent every day from 10:00 to 4:00 in a mix of lectures, computer demonstrations, and inde­pendent work on individual assignments in pro­gramming, multimedia, and computer and network applications such as spreadsheets, word-processing, database management, E-mail and Internet. Courses were taught by several members of the ACF's User Services Group - Henry Mullish on Fortran, word­processing, and spreadsheets, Vlad Torbin on the C programming language, Jeff Bary and Beth Kevles on

Internet and E-mail, and Joe Citta, Howard Fink, and Mark Thompson on graphics and multimedia applica­tions. There were also guest lectures on math by Profes­sor Gideon Zwas of Tel-Aviv University, and on trends in computer science by Matthew Smosna of the Depart­ment of Computer Science.

The final week was the time for the students to work on their independent projects. The choices spanned the range from writing a computer program to producing a multimedia diary to publishing a newsletter. Some of the students worked on individual projects; others col­laborated in small groups. The best of the projects were presented to the whole group on the last Friday, before the awards and graduation certificates were given out.

High-school students in NYU' s summer computer program in the ACF's Macintosh classroom in the Education Building. PHOTO BY MATIHIAS Lr

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 I I

One group of seniors from Stuyvesant High School hit all bases: Billie Gastic, Teddy Huang, and Monica Rivera chose to write one program in C and another in Fortran, while publishing a newsletter that included poems, restaurant reviews, and a story with satirical portraits of many of the participants in the program, teachers as well as students. Preeti Elavunkal, Quynh Tran (both from Bronx Science), and Chun hua Zheng (Stuyvesant) were a bit more journalistic in their news­letter, which they, like the other group, produced in WordPerfect 5.1 on IBM PCs. The lead story in News for NYU incorporates student comments on the program (see sidebar), and the suggestion box on the last page offers ideas for improvements; in between are pieces on early-decision college admissions, movies, and stress.

It's hard to write and debug a full-scale program in a week, but many of the students succeeded. According to Vlad Torbin, two of the best were game programs written in the C language. Michael Emanuel (New Rochelle High School) wrote a program to play Tic­Tac-Toe against the user (it often wins), and Henry Li (Brooklyn Tech) produced Casino, a suite of games such as blackjack, roulette, and slot machine, which featured graphics, multiple menus, and some special user mes­sages.

In multimedia, Ewa Baj or (Bishop Ford High School) produced an excellent HyperCard stack that tests the user's knowledge of the human anatomy. Another pro­ject, produced by a group consisting of Matthias Li (Hunter College High School), Denman Tuzo (Regis), Maciej Matyjas (Stuyvesant) and David Schoppik (Solomon Schechter Day School), went the multimedia route to show a slightly wacky version of a day in the life of a student in the program. They scanned their

color photos into Adobe PhotoShop and presented them in a HyperCard stack on the Macintosh - plus a morphing sequence in which the dreaming student sees one instructor's face evolve into another's, then another's, until the last one turns into a lobster.

So for four weeks, the ACF microcomputer labs were animated by a group of lively and capable high-school students. They were gaining exposure to computers and the science behind them; they were learning and having fun; and they would have another impressive item to add to their college applications. Some had had courses in programming in their schools; for others, it was their first exposure to computers.

"The month of July has gone by so quickly," wrote Billie Gastic on the last Thursday. "For me, the pro­gram has been a success. I have met many enthusiastic and motivated individuals this summer. I have learned a great deal about computers and computer program­ming, as well as the art of cooperative learning." •

From News for NYU, a student newsletter: So What Was It Like? "Hallelujah!" students shouted as the last day of school finally arrived. Their minds were filled with wonder­

ful thoughts of the upcoming vacation and of having absolutely no work to do - heaven! But for some,

summer vacation means more work. The choice for those who are not lucky enough to step beyond the dirty shores of New York this summer is between

getting a job or being enriched academically. The lucky

ones were those who found jobs that paid $10 an hour and those who were admitted to the NYU summer

computer course .... So what did this year's participants think of the

course? Most students enjoyed the experience, finding

it very informative and interesting. "I think Word­Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBASE are things that are really helpful," said Qing Zhang, one of the students.

11 All the helpers were very helpful and enthusiastic and extremely amiable," smiled Monica Rivera, "Quote me on that!" ...

"This school gave me the opportunity to learn the different languages in computers that I would not have been able to learn in high school," Yesenia Contreras

exclaimed. Perhaps Michael Emanuel sums it all up - "I had a

great time. It's a very good opportunity. There isn't

really anything else like it."

-from News for NYU, by Preeti Elavunkal, Quynh Tran, and Chun hua Zheng

12 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

The Communications Revolution - ho Wins, Who Loses? ctober I S Colloquium at Y

Professor W. Russell Neuman of Tufts University will speak on the the implications of the communications revolution at Warren Weaver Hall, room 109, on Octo­ber 15 at 2:00 pm. "We are witnessing a major struc­tural transformation in the way human beings communicate with one another," he says. "The once­separate industrial sectors of computing, telecommuni­cation, broadcasting, and publishing are on a collision course fueled by the digital revolution." We constantly hear of new experiments in two-way television and videophones, and read of plans for 500-channel cable, and individually tailored electronic newspapers. ''While the captains of industry prepare for a major turf battle," Neuman says, "the White House puts forward a rather dreamy notion of a univeral digital highway dubbed the National Information Infrastructure."

A number of fundamental questions of network architecture and of public policy, Professor Neuman argues, "require urgent attention and sustained re­search." He points to such key issues as information overload, privacy, public access, protection of intellec­tual property, and network control. "In the broader view, among industrial sectors and in the tug of war

W. Russell Neuman is the Edward R. Murrow Professor of International Communications and Direc­tor of the Murrow Center at the Fletcher School of Law

and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and a Research As­sociate at the MIT Media Laboratory. He teaches com­munications policy and public opinion in the Fletcher

School's International Information and Communica­tion Program. Professor Neuman's current research focuses on the economics, regulation, and social im­

pact of new media technologies. His books include The Social Impact of Television (As­

pen Institute, 1981), The Paradox of Mass Politics (Har­

vard University Press, 1986), The Future of the Mass Audience (Cambridge University Press, 1991), The Tele­communications Revolution (Routledge, 1992), Common Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 1992), and The Gordian Knot: Political Gridlock and the Communications Revolution (MIT Press, forthcoming).

Nominations: ...... : ........ .:= for This Year's Max Goldstein Prize The Max Goldstein Prize for Undergraduate Creativ­

ity in Computing has been established in honor of former ACF Director, Max Goldstein. Professor

Goldstein, the first Director of the Academic Comput­ing Facility, died last year.

Each annual prize consists of a cash award of $500.

The prize will be awarded yearly to an NYU under­graduate who has applied computing in a creative and practical way to improve the academic, cultural, or

social life of either the University or the community. Nominations for the Max Goldstein Prize should be

submitted to the Director of the ACF, George Sa­dowsky, and should state the name of the nominee, the nominator's relationship to the nominee, a descrip­

tion of the nominee's accomplishment, and how the accomplishment satisfies the criteria for the prize. Nominations will be evaluated by a committee com­

posed of members of the Courant Institute and Dr. Sadowsky. Nominations should reach Dr. Sadowsky

by March 15.

between the communicator and the audience member - who wins, who loses?"

More Colloquia Are Planned for Fall Professor Neuman's talk will launch this semester's series of NYU colloquia focusing on innovative uses of computing and networking in research and higher edu­cation. The remaining presentations in the fall series will be announced in NYU Events, the University's bi­weekly calendar, and on the NYU CWIS, and flyers will be mailed to all NYU faculty. To receive an E-mail flyer, ask to be added to the ACF' s mailing list: either send E-mail to document@adduster.nyu.edu or call 998-3333.

The colloquia are open to all NYU faculty, staff, and students. The series is sponsored by the ACF and the Faculty of Arts and Science, with support from Apple Computer, Inc. Individual colloquia are co-sponsored by additional University departments depending on topic. For notes on last spring's colloquia, see the next page.

- David Frederickson frederickson@adcluster.nyu.edu

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU Septembe·r 1993 13

At the Spring '93 Colloquia: Geographic Information Systems and Macintosh Software for Scholars

A broad survey of developments in the field of GIS (geo­graphic information systems) and a technical seminar on

two new Macintosh programs for scholars were the final two entries in last spring's colloquium series. Professor J. Robert Cooke of Cornell University introduced two of his programs for the Mac - the scientific wordprocessor Math Writer and the multimedia bibliographic database

DiscoverPro. In another presentation, Professor Michael F.

Goodchild of the University of California at Santa Barbara spoke on GIS.

MathWriter. Scientific Wordprocessor Professor Cooke, who teaches agricultural and biological engineering at Cornell, has previously developed several

prize-winning instructional programs, among others. The two shown here on April 9 were tools for scholars.

Math Writer, a scientific wordprocessor, has most of the

normal typographic and formatting capabilities we have learned to expect from wordprocessors. Its strong point, though, is its ability to write complex mathematical and

scientific formulas. A toolbar on the left of the screen dis­

plays several basic formula components - sums, products, square roots, brackets - that can be chosen with the click of a mouse. Different typefaces can be specified, including

symbols and Greek letters, and the positions of letters and

numbers can be adjusted minutely. The program appears to have many of the abilities of that scientific standby, TeX,

without the complex notation.

DiscoverPro: Multimedia Database The second program, DiscoverPro, is a bibliographic data­

base that was designed to fulfill stringent demands. Cooke envisioned the user as a faculty member who would want to have hundreds or thousands of items catalogued and accessible through a variety of search criteria. The database should accept very complete annotations - enough to satisfy a librarian. It should have room for long notes and

extracts of text, in all languages. It should accommodate

nontraditional documents - images, movies, sound re­cordings. It should accept and reformat databases down­

loaded from CD-ROMs. It should be able to output the information in any imaginable bibliographic format.

And it should be easy to use.

The result is a powerful and flexible database that takes full advantage of the Mac's ease of use. QuickTime movies can be incorporated for motion. The inclusion of Quick­

Time, which perforce must compress images to the maxi-

Professor]. Robert Cooke discussing his programs Math Writer and DiscoverPro.

mum to provide the many frames necessary to depict mo­tion, brought an unexpected benefit - the ability to save

whole books of typeset material digitally, quite economi­cally in terms of disk space. QuickTime movies were not

easy to play a frame at a time; once the developer included that ability, there seemed to be no reason not to use entirely separate photographs on successive frames. Thus each

frame could be a page of a book or article, typeset and ready for viewing on the user's monitor.

For more information on these two programs, please contact Professor Cooke by E-mail at cookepub@aol.com or at the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engi­

neering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853

GIS: Explorations and Research Geographic information systems allow information to be

stored, linked, retrieved, analyzed, and displayed accord­

ing to geographic criteria. A typical use might be a data­

base of population, property values, and taxes linked to a township map. But the uses are much broader, and work­

ers in more and more fields, from city planning to archaeol­ogy to epidemiology to mass marketing, are discovering

the value of GIS. The prominent geographer Professor Michael F.

Goodchild, who heads the National Center for Geographic (continued on page 21)

14 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

• • i lio r Classical Scholars

by Max Mannor rnannor@acfcluster.nyu.edu

Scholars in the humanities often lament the inadequacy of computerized indexes to the specialized literature in their field. Until recently, this inadequacy has been par­ticularly severe in classical studies, especially classical archaeology and art history.

None of the standard online indexes - indeed, none of the standard print indexes - to the literature of art history provides anything approaching adequate cov­erage of ancient art and archaeology. For that one must tum to such specialized serial indexes as L' Annee Philologique, Fasti Archeologici, and, above all, the com­prehensive serial Archaeologische Bibliographie, produced annually by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI).

This remarkable publication is produced by the Rome branch of the DAI, whose library, founded in 1829, is one of the most comprehensive libraries devoted to

Detail of the first screen of hierarchical subject headings. Further screens (indicated by asterisks) provide progres­sively more specific headings. The diamonds indicate that there's a note to explain the range and application of a term. 007*Top is the term selected here.

OOl*Praxinst

002*Slbd 004*Pers

OOS*MusSlg

OOB*Anthr OlO*Kg

Oll*Archit

012*Plast

015*Portr

practice and institutions

collected works personalia, ...

+museums and collections

anthropology

history of art

+ architecture

plastic art and sculpture

portrait

• I

classical studies. Its rich holdings include ancient his­tory, classical philology, numismatics, and epigraphy, as well as the archaeology of Egypt, the Ancient Near East, and the classical world. Since its initial appear­ance in 1956, the library's annual bibliography has served the international community of classical scholars as one of its mainstays. Now, thanks to an ambitious initiative of the DAI, this outstanding biblio­graphical resource is available electronically.

The online version of the Archaeologische Bibliographie, which is being distributed on floppy disks as well as in CD-ROM format, bears the evocative trade name DYABOLA. An English approximation of the original German acronym might read: DYnamically Accumu­lating dataBase of Objects from and Literature on An­tiquity. Despite a further allusion to the colloquial Greek word for "devil," DYABOLA comes as a blessing to the classical scholar. Like the printed Archaeologische Bibliographie, DYABOLA indexes the entire range of scholarly publications on antiquity: monographs and corpora, periodicals, festschriften and other collective volumes, obituaries, etc. - more than 200,000 citations in all.

DYABOLA first appeared in 1992, and initially en­compassed index data for the years 1985through1990. Its second installment, recently released, extends the database's retrospective indexing coverage back as far as 1971, while also rendering it current through 1991. A forthcoming third and final retrospective installment will encompass the entire period from 1956, rendering DYABOLA coextensive with its printed equivalent.

Max Marmor is Reference/Collection Development Librarian at the Stephen Chan Library of the NYU Institute of Fine Arts.

Academic:: Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 I S

At NYU, DYABOLA is available for end-user search­ing at the Stephen Chan Library of Fine Arts (Institute of Fine Arts, 1 East 78th Street) by appointment only (772-5825). Classical art and archaeology have long been central to the IFA's mission as the NYU graduate pro­gram in art history and archaeology. It is therefore ap­propriate that the IF A library should offer access to DYABOLA alongside such art historical databases as the Art Index on CD-ROM and Bibliography of the History of Art (available to the NYU community under the aus­pices of the DIALOG Classmate program, administered by Bobst Library). At the IF A, DYABOLA resides on an IBM-type 386 PC with a 200-megabyte hard disk The results of searches can be sent to an attached printer or downloaded to floppy disks.

DYABOLA may be searched by author, publication title, keyword, series title, as well as by means of the DAI's elaborate hierarchical system of subject head­ings, adapted from the printed Archaeologische Biblio­graphie (see illustration on previous page). Scholars familiar with that bibliography's system will find sub­ject searching in DYABOLA straightforward - indeed enhanced, thanks to the ability to search subject head­ings in languages other than German. DYABOLA sup­ports searching in any of four languages: English, French, German and Italian. A single function key per­mits the user to select a search language, whereupon both subject headings and interactive program displays appear in the language selected. DYABOLA further sup­ports searching with the modem Greek alphabet: a single function key converts the keyboard to assigned Greek equivalents.

This flexibility is entirely characteristic of DYABOLA. For example, a series of keystroke macros enable the user to (1) identify a periodical abbreviation; (2) re­trieve the table of contents of a collective volume; and (3) retrieve citations for reviews of cited titles (below).

DYABOLA is menu-driven, with menu options at

Book review citations annexed to a monographic record and retrieved by means of a keystroke macro. A further macro will identify periodical abbreviations.

Gymnasium 96(1989), 259-260. (Herrmann, F. X.)

Gnomon 61(1989), 407-418. (Alfoldy, G.)

JRS 79(1989), 157-164. (Wallace Hadrill, A.)

GOttGelAnz 241(1989), 192-198. (Geyer, A.)

DLZ 109(1989), 966-968. (Schindler, W.)

Histz 248(1989), 415-418. (Kienast, D.)

the left side of the screen and search results shown at the right under headings assigned by the user. Search results may be manipulated by means of Boolean op­erators, and may be downloaded to disk or printed out (see illustration below).

As noted above, DYABOLA will soon offer enhanced electronic access to the entire Archaeologische Bibliographie. But that does not exhaust the ambitious planning be-

AQUEDUCT 12

SITEDELP

DEL PHO I

CONGREGY

64

11

1

save

load

print

delete copy

rename

print lists

export

quit

Left: Menu of search results under rubrics assigned by the user, also indicating number of citations retrieved. Right: Submenu explaining data manipulation. "Combine" refers to Boolean searchiry,g.

hind the project. The American School of Classical Stud­ies at Athens is already exploring the possibility of us­ing DYABOLA as the basis for a union catalogue of the library holdings of the majo~ European archaeological institutions. ARGOS, as the prototype of this union cata­logue is known, will include, among other riches, the entire body of archaeological and historical literature in the library of the American School, which embraces the whole of antiquity through the Middle Byzantine pe­riod, and includes publications from the age of Winckel­mann in the eighteenth century through the present. In this way, the coverage supplied by the Archaeologische Bibliographie and now reflected in DYABOLA (from 1956 to the present) will be supplemented for earlier eras of classical scholarship.

Further modules for DYABOLA are also envisioned. The DAI branch in Madrid is undertaking to provide an online catalogue of data on Iberian archaeology us­ing DYABOLA. This database will eventually be an­nexed to DYABOLA and marketed as a special module, as will a comprehensive bibliography concerning Winckelmann, being undertaken by the Winckelmann Society. •

16 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

For the MLA, Computers Are Now "Indispensable" The Modem Language Association

has recently issued a policy statement calling computers "indispensable for

teaching and research in language, literature, writing, and linguistics." The Statement on Computer Support, drafted by the members' Committee on Computers and Emerging Tech­

nologies in Teaching and Research and adopted in May by the Executive Council, says that electronic media are "already essential for the repre­sentation, storage, and transmission

of knowledge," and calls upon col­

leges and universities to recognize the

changing role of electronic tools and support their use.

The statement sets out eight guide­lines, which among other things

declare that shared computers are inadequate and that researchers re­quire connections to the Internet. The

MLA recommends that faculty mem­bers should have a say in the selection

of hardware and software appropriate for their needs, and should receive compensation for work done to sup­

port and facilitate computer use, and academic recognition for development of software, and for research pub­

lished electronically.

Medievalists Go Electronic Electronic journals are turning up in

all fields these days. In July, plans were announced for the Bryn Mawr

Medieval Review to join its sister publi­

cation, the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, in electronic space. It will publish

reviews - written by what is hoped will be large and diverse stable of reviewers - of current work in all

areas of medieval studies, and will post a monthly list of "Books Re­ceived," with brief notes on books not

yet placed for review.

Editors Eugene Vance of the Uni­

versity of Washington and James J. O'Donnell of the University of Penn­sylvania say that there will be no paper version of the BMMR. Instead, the reviews will be sent to subscribers

serially, as they are ready. Columns of opinion, authors' replies, and discus­sions of earlier reviews will also be

published. A monthly "masthead" file will list editorial staff, give subscrip­tion details, and so forth. Back issues will be available through the Univer­

sity of Virginia's library electronic-text service, which will allow users to

locate individual files by Gopher and transfer them to their own computers by ftp (file transfer protocol).

To subscribe, send an e-mail mes­

sage to listserv@cc.brynmawr.edu

with nothing on the subject line and the single message line:

SUBSCRIBE BMMR-L your name

- substituting your own name in the message line.

Medieval-Culture Software Developed at Loyola Professor Allen J. Frantzen of Loyola

University Chicago has developed a program for students in medieval­culture courses to complement their reading of medieval texts. The Seafarer program enables students to explore

topics that they read about in texts. by providing them with information about particular aspects of medieval

life, including labor practices, social

rank, monastic life, magic, and medi­cine. The HyperCard-based program

also includes references to contempo­rary society to prompt students to think about the extent to which life

has changed through the centuries.

John Ruffing, a graduate student from Cornell University, helped to develop the software.

For more information, contact Mr. Frantzen, English Department, Loyola University, Chicago, 60626; by phone

at (312) 508-2240 or by electronic mail, yla0ajf%luccpua.bitnet@uicvm.uic.edu.

Send E-Mail to the NEH Now you can use E-mail to contact

the National Endowment for Humani­

ties for publications or grant app­lications. Suzanne Volpe, an NEH spokeswoman, says electronic mail

will enable the agency to respond more quickly to requests for informa­tion. But transition to electronics is only partial: the agency will send out its grant application by regular mail, and it still requires multiple copies of proposals to be mailed in to Washing­ton.

NEH's public-information office

can be reached at nehopa@gwuvm.gwu.edu

on the Internet.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 17

Inform our Fingertips: The Is ere! Estelle Hochberg with David Ackerman hochberg@adcluster.nyu.edu • ackennan@acfcluster.nyu.edu

The NYU CWIS is here! The fall 1993 semester will be the premiere season of the New York University Cam­pus-Wide Information System. Developed and oper­ated by the Academic Computing Facility, the NYU CWIS (pronounced "kwiss") will become officially avail­able on September 15, to computer users in the NYU community and at thousands of Internet-linked institu­tions across the country and around the world.

The NYU CWIS will provide easy, menu-driven ac­cess to a growing online repository of current informa­tion about NYU facilities, programs, policies, and events, and to a wealth of resources accessible via the Internet, the worldwide network of networks.

A "second-generation" campus-wide information

system, the NYU CWIS will replace INFO, an earlier ACF-developed system that has been accessible via NYU-NET and the Internet for over five years. The NYU CWIS expands and restructures the scope of INFO, and employs software called the Internet Gopher. A newer technology, Gopher has gained wide acceptance at uni­versities and other institutions as a stable and adapt­able tool for disseminating and accessing information via network, one that also offers an intuitive, consistent user interface (see box on page 20 for more on Gopher).

NYU Programs, Facilities, and Events An important and growing function of the NYU

CWIS will be to serve as a kind of electronic publication

The NYU CWIS will offer information provided by NYU

departments and organizations, as well as a means of easy ac­

cess to Internet resources. A vast number of Internet infor­

mation resources can be reached through various menu selec­

tions. At right, an illustration of what the main menu of

NYU CWIS might look like, as the information base provided by NYU departments grows.

lem Vork Uni ••er:: i f.1-1 Ci::un ••A:=-IJ i de I n form·~ t i o:w1 "::1..1:= tem 0:. C 111 S :··

Overlying it is the External Campus-Wide

Infonnation Systems submenu, which is called up by selecting that item on the NYU

CWIS main menu.

Root gopher server: gopher.nyu.edu

1. About NVU CWIS (Campus-Wide Information System)/ 2. Academic Computing and Networking Resources/ 3. 4. 5. 5. 7. 8. 9.

I l~- g~~~~?~!i~ I t\\ 14 . Safety and Se \@

15. 15. 17.

-->I 1s.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

-->I 6. 7.

Us i ng Ex terna I Campus:-W i de I n format i on Sys terns

About Us i ng Ex terna I Campus:-W i de I n format i on Sys terns . Al I External CWIS Systems:/ A 11 Reg i s:tered Gophers/ Geograph i c:a I I ndex to Reg i s tered Gophers I L i m i ted Search of GopherSpac:e <? > Se I ec: ted Gophers:, New or Noteworthy I Veron i c:a <keyword search of Gopher sites)/

!I to Qu i t, Z to go up a menu

18 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

!1111

Page: 1 /1 J

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

-->Io. 7. 8.

about NYU. Through the CWIS, an array of informa­tion about NYU can be distributed not only to the thou­sands of computer users in the NYU community but also potentially to the millions of individuals with ac­cess to the worldwide Internet.

Over the summer, ACF staff members have been meeting with representatives of University departments who are interested in using the NYU CWIS to provide information about their programs and facilities to the NYU community. This will continue, as an ongoing process, with other interested NYU units. A number of departments are expected to begin adding information in the fall semester; some have already begun to do so, as this article goes to press.

Up-to-date listings of on-campus and local events; descriptions of university facilities, academic programs and courses; admissions procedures; up-to-the-minute listings of open courses; university telephone listings and E-mail addresses; job openings; research projects; electronic editions of university journals, ·newsletters, and other publications - these are only a few examples of the types of information that a growing number of institutions are providing on their Internet-connected campus-wide information systems. All these and more could be made available on the NYU CWIS as its base of locally provided information expands.

An Explosion of Network-Accessible Resources While the base of information about NYU is just

starting to grow, a vast amount of information can al­ready be reached through the NYU CWIS and the easy

Selected Gophers, New or Noteworthy

About Selected Gophers. NIH <National Institutes of Health)/ NSF <National Science Foundation)

-->I 1. About this I ist.

U.S. Government Gophers

2. Extension Service~ USDA/ 3. Federal Info Exchange <FEDIX)/ 4. LANL Physics Information Service/ 5. Library of Congress MARVEL/ 6. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/

links that it provides to the many Gopher servers and other resources at Internet-connected universities, re­search organizations, and government agencies.

For example, there are hundreds of electronic jour­nals in diverse academic disciplines, research reports, calls for proposals, job listings, archives of manuscripts and other discipline-oriented materials for medicine, biology, the humanities, and other fields. There are cam­pus-wide information systems of other universities, as well as hundreds of library catalogs around the world - including, at NYU, the Bobst Library Catalog (BobCat), the Law School Library Catalog Gulius), and the Medical Environmental Dental Catalog (MEDCAT). There are the Gopher servers of the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the NSF Metacenter, the Library of Congress, and many other federal agencies. There are Gophers containing infor­mation about the White House, the Genome Project, and the academic scene (see the news byte on Academe This Week on page 31). The Gopher servers of interna­tional organizations - including the World Health Or­ganization, the Internet Society, and the United Nations - can also be accessed via the NYU CWIS.

While the exploding quantity of resources might seem daunting, there is fascinating material to explore - and exploring the NYU CWIS is easy.

Using the NYU CWIS is Easy The NYU CWIS can be accessed from desktop com­

puters in on-campus offices and computer labs or -

7. NASA Mid-Continent Technology Transfer Center/

When you choose Selected Gophers, New or Note­worthy and then U.S. Government Gophers, you arrive at the screen shown here. Gopher makes it easy to traverse from manu to menu - tunneling through the Internet - until you reach the information you want. Once you find the information you are inter­ested in, it is equally easy to view it on screen and, if desired, obtain a copy for your later use (see text for details).

8. NASA Network Application and Information Center <NAIC)/ 9. National Institute of Standards and Technology <NIST)/ 10. National Institutes of Health (NIH)/ 11. National Science Foundation <NSF>/ 12. Protein Data Bank - Brookhaven National Lab/ 13. USDA National Agricultural Library Plant Genome/ 14 . USDA-ARS GR I ~l Nati ona I Genet i c Resources Program I

b~~{;~~.,.~~ Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 19

via telephone lines and modem - from your home computer.

Holders of ACF Electronic Mail and Information Ser­vices (EMIS) Accounts can connect to the NYU CWIS by selecting Information from the EMIS main menu. (If you have a "full-service" account on the ACFcluster or on an ACF UNIX computer, enter the command gopher at the system prompt, instead.)

The NYU CWIS main menu will soon appear, offer­ing you a list of topics and resources. A horizontal arrow will point to the first item on the menu. Simply use the up- and down- arrow keys on your keyboard to

A Gopher-Based CWIS Gopher is a system of software for delivering and re­

trieving information via network. Essentially, it consists of sets of client software and server software. The server software runs on a· computer - the Gopher server -that is delivering (or serving) the information. The client software runs on the computer from which you are ac­cessing the server, and provides the interface that you use to browse and retrieve the information. When a cli­ent and server are part of a well-designed system like Gopher, they work in harmony, so that you, as the user, need not worry about the connections the software is making for you in the background.

One valuable feature of Gopher client programs is that, typically, they provide a consistent interface that is very easy to use. For example, with the Gopher client program described in this article, you simply use a small and consistent set of single-keystroke commands to browse through menus and access documents, software, and other information residing on the many Internet­linked Gopher servers. Whether the computer that is serving· the information is local or geographically dis­tant, the interface and your actions are the same. Having accessed a document, you can read it, send a copy to

yourself via E-mail, save it as a diskfile on the computer from which you have accessed Gopher, or print it on an ACF shared printer.

The Gopher system was designed to provide ready links among Gopher servers. Information resources on over two thousand Internet-connected Gopher servers can now be reached through the NYU CWIS in the pretty much seamless fashion described above. In addition, telnet and ftp transactions with many other information servers that are not Gopher-based (many databases and library catalogs, for example) are consid­erably simplified; the Gopher server acts as a "front end," allowing simple menu options - consistent with the

move this pointer to the item that interests you, and press the Return key to move to the selected submenu or document. (If you prefer, you may also select an item by typing its number and pressing Return.)

Like other Gopher systems, the NYU CWIS is a sys­tem of menus that lead you to other menus and, through these, to the documents and resources that you are seeking. A slash (/) at the end of a menu title indicates that selecting it will pull up another menu. You use exactly the same operations to navigate and select items on any of the menus that the system leads you to. To return to a previous menu from a subsidiary one, type

Gopher interface - to be substituted for the Internet addresses and for many of the commands that you would otherwise have to enter.

Developed originally at the University of Minnesota (where the gopher is the school mascot providing a con­venient pun on gofor), Gopher quickly became a "dis­tributed" endeavor, with individuals at many Universities collaborating via network in its further development. It has evolved into a system that is both robust and adapt­able, and the Gopher protocol is soon to become an Internet standard. Moreover, because interest in Gopher is so widespread, further development is under way, so that new versions with more sophisticated capabilities can be expected to emerge. For example, by this coming

spring, full boolean search capability is expected to be added to the stable and well-tested text-based version of Gopher currently employed by the NYU CWIS. As ro­bust new versions become available, the CWIS will con­tinue to adapt to advances in technology and the growing information needs of the NYU community.

Gopher client programs have been written for a num­ber of different types of computers. This article has de­scribed the client that will be used by people who access

the NYU CWIS by logging in directly to an ACF VMS or UNIX computer from their desktop PC or Macintosh. The ACF also distributes client programs for use on IBM­type and Macintosh computers in NYU offices that are connected to NYU-NET via Ethernet or Localtalk net­works. These programs have the "look and feel" of their

respective desktop environments and enable you to store and print Gopher-retrieved documents directly on your hard disk and printer. They are available without charge

from the ACF, although you will need to supply your own blank floppy disk: please contact Larry Mingione at 998-3043.

-EPHwithDA

20 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

the letter u (for "up"). To jump back to the main menu, type the letter m (for "main").

Retrieving documents is equally easy. For example, from the NYU CWIS main menu, select item 1, About NYU CWIS (Campus-Wide Information System)/. From the menu that is called up, select Using NYU CWIS. This will retrieve a document giving you more complete instructions on using the NYU CWIS and other Gopher servers. As you read the document, press Return to advance from one screenful of text to the next. When you reach the end of the document you can E-mail a copy to yourself (type m for "mail"), save a copy in your directory on the ACFcluster (or the UNIX computer) from which you are accessing the CWIS (type s), print the document on an ACF printer (type p), or simply press Return to return to the About NYU CWIS menu.

Having gone through these basics, you're ready to explore some of the exciting resources available through the CWIS. I recommend that you begin by selecting another item on the About NYU CWIS menu, New and Noteworthy. This will be an excellent menu to refer to periodically, as it will point you to interesting new additions to the NYU base of information, as well as to other Gopher-linked resources of particular inter­est to the NYU community.

On the NYU CWIS main menu, continue your ex­ploration of Internet resources by selecting Using Ex­ternal Campus-Wide Information Systems and then, on the menu that you receive, Selected Gophers, New or Noteworthy. Here you will find links to many of the resources mentioned in this article, and more.

Learning More About the NYU CWIS The system is so very simple to use, that perhaps the

best introduction is to just go ahead and try it yourself. For those interested in learning more about the NYU CWIS, the ACF will be offering a series of talks and demonstrations (see page 56 in this issue's schedule of ACF classes). These sessions will guide new users to some of the rich resources available via the CWIS, in addition to demonstrating some of the interesting fea­tures of the software. Articles in future issues of this newsletter will focus on particular resources and high­light new services as they become available.

Representatives of NYU departments or organiza­tions that might be interested in contributing informa­tion to the NYU CWIS should contact the ACF Help Line (998-3333) or send E-mail to cwis@nyu.edu (or, from the ACFcluster, simply to cwis). •

Spring Colloquia (continued from page 14) Information and Analysis (NCGIA) at the University of California at Stanta Barbara, surveyed some of the more exciting aspects of the field in a talk on April 23 at NYU. The presentation was well received by a large audience of faculty and students drawn from several NYU schools and disciplines.

Professor Goodchild observed that people often find it hard to remember that maps are not reality, but merely interpretations of reality, more or less accurate and more or less selective. What would be deemed accurate at one scale would clearly be inaccurate when enlarged far enough. Maps can now be stored in computers - either as raster images, made up of pixels, which cannot be enlarged very far without losing definition; or as objects that can be de­scribed as coordinates and vectors, and can thus be en­larged to theoretically any size. A computerized map can be linked with databases of information that can be ac­cessed by means of the map; such databases can be huge. Maps can be used to link different types of information, without the map itself being of great interest; or the maps can be made to display many different layers of informa­tion. Ideally, the maps and the linked information can permit analysis that would not otherwise be possible, and will reveal trends and relationships that would be at best

obscure in the raw data'. Professor Goodchild demonstrated several different GIS

applications that are available through the NCGIA; for further information, write to NCGIA, University of Clifornia, Stanta Barbara, Calif. 93106-4060 or via E-mail at ncgia@ncgia.ucsb.edu.

- David Frederickson frederickson@acfcluster.nyu.edu

October Meeting for SA/GIS Group NYU 's Spatial Analysis and Geographic Information Systems Group will co-sponsor a meeting with the NYPC Statistics, Demographic, and Mapping Software SIG on Wednesday, October 27. The meeting will fea­ture demonstrations of the Windows and networked version of GisPlus, TransCAD, and Caliper's GIS. It

will be held in Warren Weaver Hall, Room 313, from 6:10 to 8:30 pm. Contact Zvia Segal Naphtali at naphtali@acfcluster.nyu.edu or Professor Robert Burnham at bumham@acfcluster.nyu.edu for more information.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 21

Gary Chapman chapman@nyu.edu

llllill

I

In the last year, the Academic Computing Facility has begun distributing two electronic-mail programs for microcomputers directly connected to NYU-NET: Eudora for Apple Macintoshes and NUPop for IBM-type PCs. Both of these programs are available from the ACF free of charge; they work on Macs and PCs connected via Ethernet network (and on Macs connected via Localtalk) to the campus network. An article in the September 1992 issue of this newsletter described the features of

Eudora. NUPop has been developed, and· continues to be de­

veloped, at Northwestern University for in-house use (and the name is therefore pronounced "N-U-Pop"); a large number of universities around the Internet have contributed (through testing and use) to this develop­ment, and have adopted NUPop for use in their com­munities. At New York University, NUPop represents one of a range of E-mail solutions available to members of the community; it is distributed by the ACF as part

of a collection of networking and information services software tools for PCs (including Telnet, Kermit, FTP, Gopher, and NUPop).

Like Eudora, NUPop is a "POP" (Post Office Proto­col) mail program. POP is a protocol or method for a program on one computer to retrieve and send elec­tronic mail in cooperation with a central mail server (such as the ACFcluster minicomputers). The advan­tage of this scheme is that the E-mail program you use is customized for your computer (a Mac program for Mac users, a PC program for PC users), and allows ready access to the printing, editing, and storage capa­bilities of your machine. The mail server, where mail messages are stored in your "mailbox" until your mail program picks them up, is designed to be highly reli­able and available 24 hours per day, in order to guaran­tee that you receive all your mail messages from your correspondents.

Version 1 of NUPop provided a full-screen editor for

The Composer window of NUPop. A member of the Documentation staff is writing to John Doe, whose username is doej and whose address is on the ACFcluster. A copy is being sent to the newsletter editor; the subject line and text follow. The address window has a scrolling bar to permit listing several addresses for duplicate mailings; a long text can also be scrolled.

Here "Utilities" has been selected, which drops down a submenu listing the options available (the light gray ones are not available from this screen). The option highlighted, Finger, permits a search for the real name and address of a given username.

long messages; a mouse could be used if desired. Other features allowed the user to search an electronic phone­book database and to read identical messages to de­fined groups of recipients.

A new version (2.0) of NUPop will be used at North­western beginning in the fall of 1993; the ACF will begin distributing this version in September. Version 2.0 adds many new features for powerful and inte­grated network interface (see box for a list of features).

The addition of these many capabilities into NUPop 2.0 makes this program a veritable Swiss Army knife of network utilities. And while some of these utilities (such as the Telnet and Gopher utilities) are perhaps not as versatile or as responsive as free-standing programs from other sources (such as NCSA Telnet), they are emi­nently serviceable.

NUPop is characterized by three different "windows" for different functions of the program: a "Composer" window for creating and sending messages, a "Viewer" window for reading incoming mail messages, and an "Index" window provides a "table of contents" of all messages which have come in. In using the program, one can toggle between these windows, or by setting one's screen to support 50 horizontal lines of text, one can tile all three windows and switch among them with a mouse.

Creating an Outgoing Message An example of creating and sending a message will show NUPop's ease of use. The "Composer" window contains fields for who the message goes to, for a sub­ject heading, and for the text of the message. Buttons on the screen are used to switch to other windows, to instruct the program to attach a data file to the mail message, and to send the message. I can put the mes­sage into a "queue" and send it later; I can tell NUPop to send all queued messages, and I can tell the program to send the current message immediately.

First I specify who is to receive the message, by typing the electronic mail address of the recipient. In the example, the message is going to John Doe, whose E-mail address is doej@acfcluster.nyu.edu.

Using the mouse, I can also select "Cc" to specify persons to receive copies of this message, or "BlCc" to send blind copies to other persons (the difference is that the ·recipient's message will show who has received copies on the Cc line, but not who has received blind copies).

Moving the mouse to the "Subject:" field, I type in the subject of my message, then moving to the "Text:" field, I type in the message I wish to send.

Finally, I click the mouse on the "Send Now" button - and NUPop will contact the ACF mail server ma­chine (I use machine ACFPOP.NYU.EDU for this pur­pose) and send the message.

Incoming Mail Receiving incoming mail is equally easy with NUPop. At any point I can select an 11 Acquire" command from an on-screen button or from a menu; NUPop contacts the mail server, and downloads my new mail messages

(continued on page 30)

NUPop Features For those interested in technical details, here are some

of the major features of NUPop: In Version I

• Full-screen message editing • Mouse support for cut-and-paste • ASCII encoding and decoding of file enclosures

using Binhex (Macintosh compatible) • Ph utility (network access to an electronic phone-

book database) • Support for mailing to defined groups of people

• Simple terminal emulation Additions in Version 2 • DOS Protected-Mode Version available (for greater

memory utilization)

• ASCII encode/decode via uuencode/uudecode as well as Binhex

• Built-in Telnet, VTlOO terminal emulation (to log in

to host computers) • Built-in Ping utility (to check if a machine on the

network is "up") • Built-in FTP utility (for transferring files)

• Built-in LPR utility (for printing to Unix printers) • Built-in Gopher client (for access to campus-wide

information systems)

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 23

Update on PSl's Dial-In Link to NYU-NET from Afar Holders of NYU computer accounts who live or travel

outside of the city and need to connect to NYU-NET may

want to apply for an Individual Dialup Service (IDS) ac­count through PSI (Performance Systems International).

There is now a fee for registration, though the account itself remains free to any member of the NYU community through the University's participation in NYSERNet (New

York State Education and Research Network). Once regis­tered, users can log onto their NYU computers by using a

local, instead of long-distance, phone number. (For more

about the PSI accounts, see the May 1993 newsletter.) To apply for an IDS account, please complete PSI's IDS

Registration Form. The form may be obtained from the

ACF Accounts Office in room 305 Warren Weaver Hall (998-3035). It may also be obtained online by sending

E-mail to ids-registration@psi.com . A PostScript file of the

application will be returned.

Completed forms must be mailed or faxed directly to PSI. As of July 1, 1993, a one-time, non-refundable process­

ing fee of $19 must accompany the application form. PSI

also requires the applicant to send a photocopy of his or her NYU ID card. The applicant must also provide an NYU address on the registration form, since PSI will not accept

home addresses. PSI estimates that a registration form will be processed

within 4 to 5 weeks from the date of receipt. The applicant will receive the account ID number and password informa­tion by US. mail.

-Carmen Vasquez vasquez@acfcluster.nyu.edu

ACF Cluster Upgraded for Faster Network Service Many members of the NYU community who have ACF Electronic Mail and Information Services Accounts and other users of network information services at NYU can

expect faster, more dependable service, now that most of the service hosts on the ACFcluster have been upgraded.

As before, the Internet name of the cluster as a whole is acfcluster.nyu.edu. Connections to acfcluster will reach one of the machines in the group.

The cluster handles a large part of the E-mail traffic and information services activities at NYU - including some 3000 members of the community who have electronic mail and information services accounts. All indications are that usage will increase at a steady or growing rate through the next academic year. The additional systems represent

a large increase in computing power and should offer enough additional power to speed most information ser­vices access.

Configuring Your E-Mail Program Electronic-mail programs such as Eudora (on the Macin­

tosh) and NUPop (for IBM-type PCs) need to be configured

with a POP (post-office protocol) address. (For more on POP programs, see Gary Chapman's article on NUPop in this issue.) When configuring these programs,

acfpop.nyu.edu is the proper address for that purpose. The

Modem Access to NYU-NET The modem pool at the ACF is being upgraded to permit greater high-speed access to NYU-NET and the computers at NYU. Look for a report in a future issue of this newsletter.

POP mail program will then typically connect to a node of the ACFcluster optimized for POP mail uses. Although occasionally it is helpful to address or use one specific

machine in the ACFcluster, users should always give their return address as username@acfcluster.nyu.edu.

Over the spring and summer the old machines known collectively as the ACFcluster, and individually as ACFl,

ACF6, ACF7, and JANUS, have been superseded by an almost entirely new cluster, made up of new, more power­

ful machines designated ACF6, ACF7, and ACF8. The old servers were DEC VAX 8600, 8650, and 8350

systems, each slow by today's standards. They have been replaced by a bank of 3 DEC AXP 300 model 400S systems, featuring DEC's new Alpha architecture and AXP RISC

processors (for more about the Alpha class of machines, see the note on page 43 of the January 1993 issue of this news­

letter). An additional 10 gigabytes of disk storage was

added at the same time. The ACFl node of the ACFcluster, a VAX 6330, will

remain in service for at least another year. Some applica­

tion software (e.g. certain statistical packages and Bitnet access tools such as SEND/FILE and RECEIVE commands) are not yet available on the Alpha architecture machines;

to use such software, connect specifically to ACFl. If you have any problems with the ACFcluster, send a

mail message to comment on the machine in question (i.e.,

comment@acfcluster.nyu.edu). If you are unable to send electronic mail, phone the ACF HelpLine at 998-3333.

-Stephen Tihor tihor@acfcluster.nyu.edu

24 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Network Operations Center Publishes NYU-N ET Technical Handbook Gary Chapman chapman@nyu.edu

The continually growing NYU-NET - New York Uni­versity's data-communications network - now inter­connects more than 3500 computer systems in more than 40 NYU buildings. The network encompasses the Washington Square campus, the Dental Center, and Medical Center facilities in Manhattan and Sterling For­est. NYU-NET is a rapidly evolving communications network, with new locations, infrastructure devices, computers, services, and users constantly being added.

A good way to understand NYU-NET is as a hierar­chy of computer networks: small departmental networks in buildings; buildings tied together at each campus; each campus connected to the other campuses; and the whole of NYU-NET connected to the national and in­ternational communications network, the Internet.

Computer networking is a collaboration, extending all the way from the small departmental network up to the globe-encircling Internet. In keeping with this na­ture, NYU-NET is managed in a collaborative, distrib­uted fashion. Easily a hundred NYU staff members are directly involved in the day-to-day management of com­puter networks and networked computer systems that are important to the research and, teaching activities of the university. In order to coordinate the activities of these staff members, ensure that the component sys­tems are compatible, and keep the network running smoothly, the Academic Computing Facility maintains a Network Operations Center (NOC).

This summer, the NOC published the first edition of NYU-NET Technical Handbook: Guidelines, Procedures, Standards, after the text had been discussed and re­viewed for accuracy and acceptability by representa­tives of the university's Data Communications Task Force. This handbook provides basic, practical infor-

NYU-NET Technical Handbook

Guidelines, Procedures, Standards

Network Operations Center Academic Computing Facility

New York University

First Edition • June 1, 1993

mation, both for those now involved in managing vari­ous components of NYU-NET and for those who will be configuring or managing systems in departments that will eventually be connected to the network.

The handbook describes technical aspects of NYU­NET, providing two basic kinds of information:

• Technical details relevant to configuring various types of devices and systems attached to the net­work.

• Descriptions of standard practices and policies that

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 25

must be observed on a large and complex net­work like NYU-NET.

The handbook points out that "NYU-NET intermixes computer and communications technologies spanning two decades of technological evolution, with no end of new developments in sight. As a cooperative venture - both at the level of human use and at the level of interrelated hardware and software components - ev­ery new addition or modification to NYU-NET must fit into the established system in a conformant, seamless fashion."

The university's computing and networking staff must keep NYU-NET running smoothly while extend­ing its use and its capabilities. The network and system managers responsible for planning, purchasing, config­uring, and managing the systems and network infra­structure devices that collectively form NYU-NET­the local network managers - are the primary audi­ence for the handbook.

In some 80 pages, a wide range of topics are covered, including

• An overview of NYU-NET • A brief history of the NYU-NET infrastructure • Standard practices and policies • Major protocol suites on NYU-NET • Configuration guidelines for hosts, routers, and

Novell servers • Guidelines for setting up departmental LANs • Guidelines for purchasing network components,

including peer-to-peer networking products and network modems

A brief glossary defines the most important network­ing terms relevant to NYU-NET, and several appendi­ces and addenda focus on specific aspects of the network, such as procedures for obtainillg network numbers, NYU-NET management contracts, recent developments on NYU-NET, and so on. A key feature of the hand­book is that it can readily be expanded and updated: since it is available to staff members primarily via the network itself, it is easy to update portions of the hand-

Federal Register Service via Internet In the May 1993 issue of this newsletter, we informed

you of a new commercial service that offers Internet access to the U.S. Federal Register. The ACF is consider­ing obtaining a multi-user trial subscription to this

service. Faculty me;nbers who think that they or their students might be interested in this service should call the ACF HelpLine (998-3333) or send E-mail to cwis@nyu.edu.

ACF ~ HelpLine Q&A

Q: Can I print an E-mail message from my EMIS account that I am reading at home via modem?

A: Yes, you can. If you're connected to the ACFcluster via modem

and you want to print your E-mail message on your own printer, you'll need to save the mail message as a file on the cluster, and download this file to your com­puter at home, and then print the downloaded file.

The following steps should help: At the MAIL> prompt, type EXTRACT filename

- using any name you wish. For instance, typing EXTRACT mymail.lis would save a file named MYMAIL.LIS in your EMIS account.

At this point, you could download the file using Kermit. In the main menu, choose 4 (Tools) to down­load a file, then choose 5 (Download). You will then

be prompted for the filename- such as MYMAIL.LIS.

If the E-mail message is short enough to appear complete on the screen, printing can be even easier: On a PC, you can use the PrintScreen command; that

will give you everything that's on the screen. On a Mac, copy the message into a word processing pro­gram and print it from there.

Call the ACF Helpline at 998-3333

book (especially through new addenda) and announce these changes to people around campus via E-mail and network news.

The handbook may be obtained electronically via anonymous ftp from adcluster.nyu.edu in files nyunet/handbook. * or from the NYU Gopher-based Campus-Wide Information System (for more about the CWIS, see Estelle Hochberg's article in this section). To find the Handbook on CWIS, at the main menu select option 2, Academic Computing and Networking Re­sources, then 8, NYU-NET, then 2, Technical Informa­tion. The next window will offer several texts; you can then either read the most recently updated version of the text onscreen or mail it to yourself, save it, or print it out.

The Network Operations Center of the Academic Computing Facility is the focal point for NYU-NET coordination, information, and central network-man­agement activities. To reach the NOC, send an E-mail message to noc@nyu.edu (this is the preferred method); or call 998-3450 or 998-3333 (the ACF HelpLine). •

26 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Free N U- ET Connections in Student esidence Halls ffered by F

Vincent Doogan doogan@nyu.edu

During the spring semester, the Academic Computing Facility began offering direct connections to NYU-NET, New York University's campus network, to students living in the Goddard Hall and Third Avenue North residences. Students who chose to link their desktop computers to the network in this manner had high­speed access to a variety of campus information and computing resources, as well as the resources available on the worldwide Internet. At least one was highly pleased with his netWork connnection (see box below).

These high-speed connections will be offered again free of charge during the fall 1993 semester. Most Macintosh and IBM-type microcomputers with hard drives and Ethernet boards should meet the configura-

Dear Mr. Doogan,

I'm writing to say that the direct connection to NYU­NET is just great. I get great transfer rates and I like the

idea of not having to use the modem to dial in. The software I use most often is Fetch, Turbo-Gopher and

NCSA Telnet. I have had no problems with the setup so far. The two gentlemen who set up thE connection

were very courteous and professional. Thank you for making this connection available. I sincerely hope that

this service will continue at Third Avenue North. I will not most likely be occupying this room dur­

ing the summer, unless I decide to take summer classes.

As for next year, I plan to continue living in Third

Avenue North. I am trying as hard as I can to get this same room for next year. Thanks for everything. The connection has been nothing but flawless.

Sincerely,

Jimmy Wu

tion requirements for connecting to NYU-NET. To be sure that you buy the right equipment, the ACF recom­mends that students interested in this service consult with them before making any purchases.

Direct connection to NYU-NET provides high-speed access to a range of basic services that are currently available through slower modem connection to the net­work provided by the ACF. Among these services are:

• electronic mail - sending and receiving E-mail messages, subscribing to discussions lists and elec­tronic conferences

• access to Internet, the international network of com­puter networks

• mainframe computer access and file transfer soft­ware, using Kermit, Telnet, FTP, and TN3270

• access to the Gopher-based New York University Campus-Wide Information System (NYU CWIS) - including online archives and library catalogs, such as BobCat and MEDcat.

Students who would like to have one of these direct NYU-NET connections, or to find out more about them, should call the ACF HelpLine at 998-3333. B

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 27

Scholarly lectronic Conferences Available via International Networks David White with Lu Ratunil and Beth Kevles whited@acfcluster.nyu.edu • ratunil@acfcluster.nyu.edu • kevles@nyu.edu

Electronic conferences like the BITNET discussion "lists" allow scholars at universities around the world to exchange information and views quickly and conve­niently via international networks and electronic mail (E-mail). Some lists are for discussion; some are formal electronic "journals." Some lists are moderated (that is, a moderator decides which offerings to add to the postings); some are free-for-alls. Some have low traffic; others will fill up your "mailbox" (your available disk space) in a single week

In this newsletter we often feature discussion lists focusing on a wide variety of topics in the humanities, arts, and the social, physical, and medical sciences. Here we present a few newly discovered and rediscovered lists that look interesting. Once you're connected to a list on one topic, you're likely to hear about other lists on related topics.

If none of these interest you, though, where do you look to find one that might? You need to search out a list of discussion lists. But since no one is in charge of all the mailing lists that exist, there is no one place you can be sure of finding a complete list of lists. However, there are some places you can look (see box at the right).

The box on page 29 tells you how to subscribe to these lists using E-mail. Whenever you subscribe to a list, be certain to hold on to the information about how to unsubscribe. Getting mail from a list that no longer interests you is worse than getting junk mail at home.

Users of ACF mainframes and minicomputers auto­matically have access to E-mail. Other members of the NYU community can obtain Electronic Mail and Infor­mation Services Accounts (please see the box on page 30). For this article, the list name follows List, and the

subscription address follows Sub. Unless otherwise noted, all E-mail addresses in this article are Internet addresses.

Arab Press. The Arab-Press is a monthly newsletter by the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defense that in­cludes unedited quotes from the press around the Arab world. The material in this newsletter will be geared towards academics researching the Arab countries and toward the public at large.

List: arab-press Sub: listserv@jerusaleml.datasrv.co.il

Directory of Electronic Mail Discussion Lists There is one frequently updated directory of E-mail discussion lists that I know of. This listing is available from mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu by sending an

E-mail message with nothing on the subject line and

the following four-line message:

send/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part 1

send/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part 2

send/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part 3

send/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part 4

Send a message containing "help" to get general infor­

mation about the mail server. Another mailing list that is invaluable is called net­

happenings; net-happenings@is.internic.net is the

mailing address. To subscribe, use the standard listserv procedure at that address (see box on page 29).

-BK

28 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Bibliography. BIBSOCAN is an unmoderated discus­sion group dealing with the subject of bibliography. The list serves as a forum where knowledge of biblio­graphic techniques can be shared.

List: bibsocan Sub: listserv@vm.utcc.utoronto.ca

Book Reviews. The moderated information list BOOKNEWS publishes reviews of upcoming books, CD's, and videos. This list does not accept postings of non-review material; they should be sent to the Book­Talk discussion list. All submissions remain the copy­righted material of the author, but the Infinity Link Corporation retains a compilation copyright on all ma­terial to protect all authors.

List: booknews Sub: listserv@colurnbia.ilc.con

New Books. The focus of discussion for BOOK-TALK is upcoming book, cd, and video titles. The areas of interest on this unmoderated list include series titles, author discussions, pricing, out of print titles, and sub­jects such as electronic publishing.

List: book-talk Sub: listserv@colurnbia.ilc.con

Campus Climate. The C.Afv1PCLIM list was created to provide a forum for discussions pertaining to college campuses' personal, educational, and physical environ­ments. Possible subjects would include campus race relations, sexual harassment, exterior lighting, fire regu­lations, and handicap access. It is hoped that subscrib­ers would be able to specify how these issues are handled at their campus.

List: campclim Sub: listserv@uafsysb.uark.edu

Human Rights. There is a new discussion list for schol­ars interested in the scientific study of human rights, called HRS-L. The intention is to encourage the quanti­tative study of human rights by putting human rights researchers into contact with each other so that they may share information and ideas quickly.

List: hrs-I Sub: listserv@bingvmb.cc.binghamton.edu

Public Policy. PUBPOL-L is an electronic forum for graduate students, professionals, faculty, and staff in the fields of public policy, public administration, plan­ning and other related areas. Areas of discussion will include current public policy issues, events and confer-

Subscribing to Discussion Lists and Electronic Conferences Users of the ACF's UNIX, VAX/VMS, and VM/CMS computers - and holders of the ACF's Electronic Mail Accounts - can subscribe to electronic conferences and discussion lists by sending an E-mail message containing only the command

subscribe list_name your _name

replacing list_name with the appropriate list name (e.g., acsoft-1) and your_name with your first and last name- i.e., subscribe acsoft-1 mary smith

Send the message to the "subscription address" listed in the article. If you are using an Electronic Mail Account or a

regular account on the ACF cluster of VAX/VMS computers, use the address format shown below under "VMS."

Address formats for UNIX and CMS systems are also shown. POP (post office protocol) mailers - programs that

handle E-mail on microcomputers, such as Eudora for the Macintosh and NUPOP for the IBM-type PC - use a simple address form.

VMS

Internet in% "username @node"

e.g., in%"listserv@vm.usc.edu"

BITNET bitnet%"username @node"

e.g., bitnet%"listserv@wumvd"

UNIX

username @node

listserv@vm.usc.edu

CMS Eudora and NUPOP username at node username @node

listserv at vm.usc.edu listserv@vm.usc.edu

username @node.bitnet username at node

listserv@wumvd.bitnet listserv at wumvd username @node.bitnet

listserv@wumvd.bi tnet

You will receive an E-mail acceptance of your subscription, which will include instructions for unsubscribing. Be sure to

save that information, or you may find it hard to get off the list. Then sit back and wait for your messages to start arriving.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 29

ences, research, teaching, curriculum and courses, and employment and career opportunities.

List: pubpol-1 Sub: listserv@vml.spcs.umn.edu

Mathematical Sciences. SAMATH is a list that will allow people interested in mathematics issues to dis­cuss matters of mutual concern.

List: samath Sub: listserv@saksuOO.bitn.et

Educational Administration. SIG-TEA was created as a discussion list for professors, practitioners and stu­dents of Educational Administration interested in is­sues and research on teaching.

List: sig-tea Sub: listserv@ukcc.uky.edu

Technical Support. TECHNET is an open, unmoderated discussion list for technical support staff at universities and other non-profit educational or research institutions worldwide. Discussions may cover such topics as elec­tronic and software design, interfacing of laboratory equipment to computers, data collection methods, etc.

List: technet Sub: listserv@acadvml.uottawa.ca

ACF ~ HelpLine Q&A

Q: I can't send mail from my ACFcluster account Every time I type six or seven lines, I get this error

message: %MAIL-E-READERR, error reading SYS$INPUT

-RMS-W-RTB, 512 byte record too large for user's

buffer

%MAIL-E-SENDABORT, no message sent

Do I need to have my buffer quota increased? A: No. No change in buffer size is needed.

All you need to do is to press the Return key at the end of each line - as if you were typing on a type­writer, rather than a wordprocessor. The message

buffer is an area of temporary memory that stores

what you are typing - up to about 500 characters. Hitting the Return key sends that set of characters to

another area of memory and opens a fresh buffer.

This problem can also be avoided by using a text editor (rather than the usual default line editQr) when

writing your mail message.

Call the ACF Helpline at 998-3333

Obtaining an E-Mail Account The ACF' s Electronic Mail Accounts are available free of charge to NYU faculty, staff, and students. Elec­tronic mail (E-mail) is also available automatically to individuals with accounts on ACF mainframes and

minicomputers. NYU students, faculty and staff members may ap­

ply for E-mail Accounts at any of the ACF microcom­

puter labs (see inside back cover for locations and hours). You will need to complete a very brief applica­tion form and to show your current valid NYU ID.

Faculty and staff members, if they prefer, may also request E-mail Accounts by letter. Please use depart­mental letterhead showing the department's address and phone number, and include your name, title, campus address and campus phone number, and send

your request to the Academic Computing Facility Accounts Office, Room 305, Warren Weaver Hall.

For additional information on ACF computer accounts, please contact the ACF Accounts Office at 998-3035.

Strategic Information Systems. There is a new elec­tronic journal in the field of strategic information systems, called the Electronic Journal of Strategic Infor­mation Systems (SIS-EJOURNAL). The aim of SIS­EJOURNAL is to encourage, advance, and communicate interdisciplinary thinking in the field of strategic infor­mation systems, by means of fast electronic publica­tion.

List: sis-ejoumal Sub: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk •

NUPop (continued from page 21) to my PC. I can then view a list of these messages with the "Index" window, and read each one in the "Viewer" window. I can also set NUPop to check for new mail at intervals (for example, every 10 minutes); and if I run NUPop in a DOS session under Microsoft Windows or OS /2, it will check for mail in the background as I work with other programs.

Getting Started with NUPop If you have an Ethernet-connected PC in an NYU of­fice, you can obtain NUPop (as well as the other NYU­NET networking software for PCs) from the Academic Computing Facility by contacting Larry Mingione at 998-3043. There is no charge for the program or its documentation, but you will be asked to supply your own blank floppy disk •

30 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

E-Mail Link to White House, Yet Again The dream of the electronic White

House is coming ever closer to reality. You can now send E-mail directly

to president@whitehouse.gov or,

if you prefer to address a known

network partisan, vice-president@whitehouse.gov ,

rather than indirectly through the CompuServe address mentioned previously in these pages. And you

should get an immediate, though automatic, response - mine came within two minutes - signed by

Marsha Scott, deputy assistant to the president, thanking you for sending your thoughts and comments and

welcoming your participation in the ongoing experiment. According to the latest version of a relevant fact sheet, a

written response should follow by ordinary mail - if you include your

mailing address. But if you want information (large­

ly press releases), it is still being pro­vided by the experimental system developed during the 1992 presiden­tial campaign at the MIT Artificial

Intelligence Laboratory. That system is strained by the active interest of the country's networkers, so until it is replaced by a more powerful system, the organizers would prefer that it be used only by those who intend to archive and redistribute the informa­

tion. The system doesn't handle full E­mail messages, so leave the message

area blank; you simply address dinton-info@campaign92.org and put

an appropriate phrase on the subject line: RECEIVE SOCIAL POLICY or

whatever. For more information, put HELP on the subject line.

Most of the information is available elsewhere, generally paired with us­ers' commentary - on CompuServe,

America Online, MCI Mail bulletin

boards, Internet newsgroups. For the latter, look for alt.politics.clinton or talk.politics.misc and similar head­

ings.

Congress Joins the Internet The White House isn't the only new E­mail address in Washington. Now the U.S. Congress is connecting to the Internet, as well.

According to a recent announce­ment from the Rep. Charlie Rose,

chairman of the House Committee on Administration, seven U.S. Represen­tatives now have public electronic mailboxes. They're participating in a pilot program of the House of Repre­sentatives Constituent Electronic Mail System, intended "to assess the impact of electronic mail on Congressional offices and their mission of serving the

residents of a Congressional District." The only one of the seven from the

Northeast is Rep. Sam Gejdenson of

Connecticut. (The others are Represen­tatives Rose and Watt of North Caro­lina, Dickey of Arkansas, Gingrich of

Georgia, and Miller and Stark of Cali­

fornia.) Since the aim of the program is to permit communication between constituents and their representatives, the electronic addresses are given out

only to constituents who send in a postcard with both their electronic and regular addresses. Furthermore, re­

plies to electronic mail will be sent through the U.S. Postal Service. This method, says the announcement, "will

help to ensure confidentiality, a con­cern that is of utmost importance to the House of Representatives."

In the meantime, you can write to your representative to encourage him or her to go online, or you can send a message to comment@hr.house.gov

with comments and suggestions.

The Chronicle Posts Academe This Week on the Internet If you're anxious for the latest aca­demic news, or looking for a job or a

grant, you can now scan the best of The Chronicle of Higher Education on your own computer screen. The week­

ly Chronicle, probably the top profes­sional news source for college faculty members and administrators in the United States and many other coun­

tries, now publishes Academe This Week on the Internet.

Each Tuesday at noon, Academe This Week posts brief synopses of the articles and letters in the next day's

Chronicle, as well as a calendar of the week's events in academe, and rel­evant events in Washington. Impor­tant deadlines for fellowships and grants are also posted.

The real bargain for job-seekers is the listing of hundreds of openings at academic and nonprofit institutions worldwide. You can quickly search

the listings by region or key word, as well as through the Chronicle's list of job titles.

Academe This Week is available

through the NYU CWIS (see article on page 18). At the main menu, select

Using External Campus-Wide Informa­tion Systems, then Selected Gophers, New and Noteworthy and finally, Chronicle of Higher Education, Academe This Week.

Information Flood or Flood Information? In July and August, you didn't have to

tum on the TV or radio to get infor­mation about the Mississippi flood, or even open the newspaper. All you had to do was tum on your computer.

There was plenty of information on

the Internet. For anyone looking for official

information, Gopher was the ideal

guide (see more about Gopher in the article on CWIS on page xxx). In late

July, a veronica search for "flood" in

gopher yielded eleven pages of titles,

including an advisory from the Uni­versity of Iowa about classes being moved from low-lying parts of cam-

( continued on page 33)

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 JI

lectronic hroughout

esources vailable obst ibrary

TomMcNulty mcnulty@acfduster.nyu.edu

Since the late 1980s, Bobst Library has offered a number of information sources on CD-ROM (Compact Disc with Read-Only Memory), but access to these popular re­search tools was generally limited to one or two users at stand-alone computers equipped with CD-ROM play­ers. Now, thanks to the new networking software con­necting Bobst Library's many CD-ROM products, users can search a number of sources without moving from workstation to workstation, and multiple users can search the same database simultaneously. (Some of these advances were discussed in a previous issue of this newsletter; this article will bring the information up to date.)

CD-ROM offers a number of advantages over tradi­tional printed indexes. Most printed sources allow re­searchers to identify articles by subject and title, and sometimes by author. CD-ROM supplements these in­dexing options with more advanced features, including searches by title or subject keywords, by date of publi­cation, journal title, and company name. While most of the Library's CD-ROMs provide bibliographic citations, often with abstracts, some also offer full text or numeric data.

Networked CD-ROM workstations are located in each of the Library's three reference centers, providing access to information sources in humanities and gen­eral topics (main floor), social sciences, education and business (sixth floor), and science and medicine (ninth floor). In order to print their CD-ROM searches, users must download their own search results onto a DOS­formatted (IBM-compatible) disk Downloading pro-

Tom McNulty, General and Humanities Reference, Bobst Library.

Networked CD-ROM Databases ABl/INFORM (business) 6, 9

Dissertation Abstracts, 1861- 1

ERIC, 1966-(education) 6,9

General Business File (InfoTrac) 6

MLA Bibliography, 1981- (literature) 1

New York Times, 1990- (full-text) 1, 6

Newspaper Abstracts, 1985- 1, 6

Periodical Abstracts, 1986- 1, 6, 9

Predicasts F&S Full Text, 1990- (business) 6

Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS), 1972- 1, 6, 9

PsycLIT, 1984- 6,9

Other Databases and Information Services ARTFL (French language & literature) 1

Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals 1, 6, 9

CANCERLIT 9

Chemical Abstracts Cumulative Index 9

CINAHL (Nursing) 9

Compact Disclosure 6

DIALOG Information Service 1, 6, 9

Dow Jones News/Retrieval

Service (educational subscription)

GIS ARC/INFO

HAPI (Hispanic American Periodicals Index)

Health Plan (Health Care and Delivery)

History of Science and Technology

MED LINE

National Trade Databank

RUN U.S. Census Data on CD-ROM

6

6

1, 6, 9

9

1, 6, 9

9

6 1, 6, 9, B

6

U.S. Government Information on CD-ROM 6

Worldscope 6

32 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

duces an ASCII file of the search, which can be im­ported into popular word-processing programs like WordPerfect and Microsoft Word. The staff in the Bobst Microcomputer Center (B-Level) will provide hard-copy laser printouts of search results at no cost.

In addition to the network of CD-ROMs, a number of electronic information-retrieval services, online data­bases, and non-networked CD-ROMs are also available in each of Bobst Library's reference centers. Diverse subject areas are covered in this category of electronic reference service, including French language and litera­ture (main floor), U.S. Census data and other govern­ment information (sixth floor), and health and nursing sources (ninth floor). For a complete list of these addi­tional sources, see sidebar.

Fall DIALOG Classmate Program Workshops The DIALOG Classmate Program offers scholars the opportunity to search citation, full text, numerical, and directory databases in virtually all disciplines. These databases may be searched in the library or from your home or office personal computer equipped with Inter­net or modem access. Researchers may obtain pass­words to search more than one hundred online databases offered by DIALOG, a major national vendor of online databases.

Students and faculty members interested in obtain­ing a DIALOG Classmate account must attend a two­hour training session, in which they will get hands-on experience in the use of DIALOG databases. Training sessions are held in the Bobst Library Microcomputer Center, B-Level. Workshop participants will receive one hour of free search time. Additional one-hour pass­words are available at the Microcomputer Center for $15. Special DIALOG Refresher Sessions are also of­fered for users who have previously attended a basic workshop but would like to brush up on their database searching skills.

A description of the program and a schedule of basic and refresher sessions can be picked up in the Library's General and Humanities Reference Center (main floor). Contact Lise Dyckman, dyckman@adcluster.nyu.edu or 998-2513, for more information.

Internet Training Sessions Need help in finding all of those information resources available over the Internet? This fall, Bobst Library staff will offer hands-on training in the use of Internet re­sources and services. These sessions will cover elec­tronic journals, listservs (electronic conference boards), gophers, and basic functions such as Telnet, E-mail and

DIALOG Classmate Workshops The DIALOG Classmate workshops are open to cur­rently enrolled NYU students and faculty, on a walk­in basis (no preregistration necessary). To use DIALOG

Classmate, you must first attend a basic hands-on work­

shop, which covers specific commands, special system features, and downloading search results. Bring your current NYU ID, a DOS-formatted floppy disk, and

your research questions to the Electronic Resources Center, Level Bin Bobst Library, on any of these dates: Wednesday, September 29 5:30 pm-7:30 pm

Friday, October 8 Friday, October 29 Wednesday, November 3

Friday, November 12 Tuesday, November 16 Friday, December 3

Tuesday, December 7

10 am-noon 10 am-noon 5:30 pm-7:30 pm

10 am-noon 5:30 pm-7:30 pm

- 10 am-noon

5:30 pm-7:30 pm

FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Advance registration is required, and it is strongly recommended that attend­ees obtain an ACF E-mail account in advance (see the box on page 30 for more on the ACF' s Electronk Mail and Information Services Account). Sessions will be held in the Microcomputer Center, Bobst Library, Level-B, from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon on Tuesday, Octo­ber 19; Wednesday, October 27; Thursday, November 4; and Tuesday, November 9. Register with Lucinda Covert-Vail at covertvl@acfcluster.nyu.edu or by phone at 998-2497. •

(continued from page 31) pus, flood watches and warnings, and advice on how to minimize the stench from your flooded basement.

In response to all the water, a brand-new network newsgroup called alt.current-events.flood-of-93 sprang

up. Messages in the group include requests for status reports on low-lying areas ("How's Urbandale, Illinois, doing?"), requests for a route that will get one across the Mississippi by car, information about what, where, and

how to donate to the flood-ravaged areas, and a reminder that northern India and Bangladesh just had their own

devastating flood. In addition to these information resources that are avail­

able for the duration, there is always up-to-date weather

information available from the National Weather Service

for every part of the country. Even when the weather turns dry in the Midwest, you might want to try it out.

- Beth Kevles kevles@nyu.edu

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 33

New itles • to the F's

ded ata ase re 1ve

Frank LoPresti lopresti@acfcluster.nyu.edu

The following are some of the data sets that have been acquired by the Academic Computing Facility's Data Base Archive (DBA) since the report in the March 1993 issue of this newsletter.

Much of the Archive's data is made available through the ACF' s membership in the Inter-university Consor­tium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). More and more of these data collections are now being dis­tributed on media other than the traditional nine-track tape. Fortunately, these alternative media - diskettes, CD-ROMs, and network file transfer (FTP) - will al­low researchers to gain direct access to the data on their personal computers. Additionally, these new media permit orders to be filled more quickly, and they are more robust and therefore more dependable than tapes.

The ACF's Data Base Archive (DBA) acquires and

stores data files for instructional and research pur­

poses at NYU. Assistance in the use of these data files is provided by DBA staff to NYU faculty, researchers and graduate students. The DBA currently holds and

catalogues over 700 studies represented by more than 2400 data files. More are being acquired continually at

Bert Holland Retires Members of the NYU community- particularly those in the social sciences who have benefitted from Bert

Holland's expertise and patience over the last twenty­five years or so - wish him well as he retires from the ACF on August 31 to pursue his other interests. He

plans to stay in the area, though, so we expect to see him around from tin;le to time. Meanwhile, Frank LoPresti and Bob Yaffee will continue providing sup­

port for statistical computing in the social sciences in the Tisch Hall computer lab.

Judging by the rate of change away from mainframe tapes to the newer media, I can see magnetic tapes becoming only a secondary medium for data transmis­sion in three to five years.

The following datasets and codebooks have been requested and obtained by faculty and students at NYU, with the assistance of the ACF's DBA staff (see box). The datasets are most often available as raw data sets or in Osiris or SPSS format.

the request of researchers at NYU. For further infor- Soda.I and Political Data mation on the DBA's services, or for help in making American National Election Study: Pooled Senate Election use of them, please contact ACF consultants Bob Yaffee Study, 1988-1990. This data collection, focusing on (998-3402) or Frank LoPresti (998-3398). Also see "Lo- Senate elections, combines data from the first two eating and Using Social Science Data Collections at parts of a planned three-part series (1988, 1990, NYU" in the September 1992 issue of this newsletter. 1992) of Senate studies. Over the course of the Full descriptions of all the DBA holdings may be seen three elections, voters in each of the 50 states were by typing HELPME DATABASE on WYLBUR, or interviewed, and data was gathered on citizen help database on the ACFcluster, or by speaking to evaluations of all senators at each stage of their the DBA staff. six-year election cycles. The survey data facilitates

the comparison of House of Representatives and

34 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Senate races through the use of questions that gen­erally parallel those questions used in election stud­ies since 1978. (ICPSR 9580)

Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States, 1790-1970. Detailed ecological and descriptive data at the county and state level for the United States for the years 1790 to 1970 are contained in this collection. We have obtained County & State Census data for 1870, 1880, 1890, 1900, 1910, and 1920, and Religious Census Data (County and State) for 1890. These files contain extensive mformation about the social and politi­cal character of the United States, including a break­down of population by state, race, nationality, number of families, size of the family, births, deaths, marriages, occupation, religion, and gen­eral economic conditions. Some statistics are avail­able on such diverse subjects as total number of newspapers and periodicals, total capital invested in manufacturing, total number of educational in­stitutions and of churches, taxation by state, and land surface area in square miles. (ICPSR 0003)

National Crime Surveys National Sample, 1979-1987. U.S. Dept. of Justice statis­

tics. Person Level, All Victims for Up to Four Inci­dents, 10 Percent Sample, Non-victims for annual surveys, 1979 through 1987. These files are struc­tured hierarchically with four levels: household ID, household, person, and incident with up to four in­cidents per person. Data include type of crime, de­scription of offender, severity of crime, injuries or losses, and demographic characteristics of household members. (ICPSR 8608)

National Sample of Rape Victims, 1973-1982; and Other Crime Victims, 1973-1982. Both of these files also in­clude a 10 percent sample of non-victims. The subset of rape cases includes attempted and completed rapes. (ICPSR 8625)

Other Criminal Data Fireanns Violence and the Michigan Felony Fireanns Law:

Detroit, 1976-1978. This study gauges the impact of the Michigan Firearms Law on the processing of defendants in Detroit's Recorder's Court. Most variables in the study focus on the defendant and court processing decisions made at different stages. Special attention was given to determining the pres­ence and use of firearms and other weapons in each offense. Variables include gender and race of the defendant, race of the victim, original charges, type

of counsel, amount of bail, felony firearm charges, number of convictions, firearm used, judge, and sen­tence. (ICPSR 8509)

Sentencing Outcomes in 28 United States Felony Courts, 1985. The purposes of this study are to describe sen­tencing outcomes in felony courts for selected serious offenses - homicide, rape, robbery, aggra­vated assault, larceny, and drug trafficking - and to establish a statistical series on sentencing outcomes in felony courts throughout the United States. The jurisdictions consist of cities and counties with an average population of 1.1 million persons. The sen­tencing schemes available varied among jurisdictions, with both determinate and indeterminate sentenc­ing practices in operation. (ICPSR 8708)

National Survey of Lawyers' Career Satisfaction, Wave I, 1984, and Wave II, 1990. The purpose of this data collection was to assess career satisfaction among young lawyers throughout the United States. The questionnaire was designed to include as many fac­tors as possible that might reasonably affect job sat­isfaction. (ICPSR 9875)

The Euro-Barometer Survey Series The surveys listed below are the fruit of a unique pro­gram of cross-national and cross-temporal social-sci­ence research. The effort began in early 1970, when the Commission of the European Communities sponsored simultaneous surveys of the publics of the European Community. These surveys were designed to measure public awareness of, and attitudes toward, the Com­mon Market and other institutions of the European Community. The scope of the content and the geo­graphical coverage has increased over the years - sub­jective satisfaction and the perceived quality of life are now measured, and all current countries are included.

The ACF Data Base Archive has all the available Euro-Barometers; some recently included surveys are: Euro-Barometer 28: Relations with Third World Countries

and Energy Problems, November 1987. (ICPSR 9082) Euro-Barometer 29: Environmental Problems and Cancer,

March-April 1988. (ICPSR 9083) Euro-Barometer 30: Immigrants and Out-Groups in West­

ern Europe, October-November 1988. (ICPSR 9321) Euro-Barometer 31: European Elections, 1989: Pre-Election

Survey, March-April 1989. (ICPSR 9322) •

Other articles of interest: Arclnfo and ArcView have been installed at the ACF: page 39. SA/GIS Meeting: page 21. Michael F. Goodchild speaks on GIS: pages 14 and 21.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 35

NIH Image: Scientific Image Display, Enhancement, and Analysis on the Mac by Edward J. Huff huff@mcclbO.med.nyu.edu

NIH Image is a public-domain software suite for acquir­ing, processing, and analyzing images on the Macin­tosh. It was developed at the National Institutes of Health by Wayne Rasband (with help from many con­tributors; he lists three dozen in version 1.47). Its broad capabilities, superior user interface, and complete free­dom from copyright have combined to make it widely popular. Interested users will find it on the servers of the Academic Computing Facility, or can download it directly from the NIH via anonymous ftp (directions are given at the end of the article).

NIH Image was briefly discussed in the March issue of this newsletter (page 26) in a report on a technical seminar I gave at the ACF; here I would like to go into some of the program's more salient features.

• Its macro language permits one-button invocation of frequently used functions, and several macro

Edward ]. Huff is a Ph.D. candidate in the Biomolecular Chemistry Program (Chemistry, GSAS).

NIH Image's Simple Macro Language

packages are provided; keyboard equivalents are predefined, but can be easily changed.

• Brightness and contrast adjustments made with the lookup-table (LUT) tool give immediate feed­back for grayscale and pseudocolor images. The effect of numerous image-enhancement operations can be seen promptly, and can be applied to the entire image or only to a region of interest.

• Parts of one image, still of video, can be copied, blended into another., and dragged to position.

• Images can be rotated to any angle and scaled to increase or decrease the spatial dimensions. Up to 256 images of the same size can be combined into a "stack," which can be displayed rapidly in se­quence as an animation. This is especially appro­priate when the third dimension is actually time.

• When the stack consists of "slices" of a 3D image of an object, Image can construct a new stack which, when animated, displays a projection of the object rotating in space.

The Pascal-like macro language of NIH Image is not difficult to learn - much

easier than writing a Macintosh pro­gram from scratch. For instance, the sine-wave background image in the fig­

ure on page xxx was generated by the simple macro below, which is bound to the D key on the keyboard. The im­

age was completed by another macro which added a constant to all pixels within the circles.

macro 'Draw Sine Wave [D]';

var x, w, h: integer;

begin

end;

GetPicSize(w, h);

for x := 0 to w - 1 do begin MakeLineRoi(x, 0, x, h);

end;

SetForeground(SO + round(25 * (sin(3.1415926 * x I 120) + 1))); Fill;

36 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

NIH Image supports most video digitizer boards (which convert an analog video image from a camera, usually connected to a microscope, into digital form that a com­puter can use). Image files can also be imported from scanners md other sources.

Color Enhancement A typical image consists of a quarter-million pixels, each with a value between 0 and 255. In the 256-color mode, the Macintosh display uses a hardware lookup table (LUT) to translate a pixel value to a color or gray value. The table can be completely changed thousands of times per second, permitting immediate feedback. If the "millions of colors" mode is used, there is no hard­ware lookup table, and adjustments would require touching each pixel of the image, limiting the update rate to a few updates per second. For this reason, NIH Image requires use of 256-color mode.

To help visualize the data, profile plots can be drawn through the image along any arbitrary line or curve. Also, the program can produce a surface plot of the image; this works best if spatial averaging is applied first to smooth out the irregularities. Another way of visualizing the intensity information is to use pseudo­color palettes; the various colors give the effect of a contour map. A number of palettes are built into Im­age, and others can be easily created using a supplied macro package, or using the NCSA Paledit program. If an Image window is left visible in the background while running Paledit in the foreground, then the effects of the

Random noise can be recognized by its bell-shaped histo­gram. These images of DNA molecules in gel have "noisy" backgrounds, and were taken one minute apart. The image

in a was much darker than b because the mercury-arc lamp was flickering. (To improve legibility on the printed page,

the brightness of a was adjusted by subtracting a constant [this slid its histogram to the left], and after measuring the histograms, both images were enhanced with the "shadow" command.) The DNA is stained with a fluorescent dye and

appears brighter than the background. The left side of the histogram represents more light, and the right, less. Com­

parison of the histograms reveals that the right tail of histo­gram a has been truncated. Hence, any attempt to extract

quantitative intensity data from image a by averaging will give misleading results. Comparison of the left tail (the bulge corresponds to the DNA) shows that the dimmer (b)

illumination of image a resulted in dimmer fluorescence of the DNA, and a smaller difference between DNA and back­

ground. Effects like this also occur when the camera offset and gain controls are misadjusted.

palette-editing tools are immediately visible in the Im­age window.

Statistical Analysis of Image Pixel Values Image quickly displays the histogram of an entire im­age or any region of interest at the touch of a key. The statistical justification for averaging pixel values, either in time or in space, is the assumption that the "noise" in the image is random (see below). Displaying the histo­gram helps the camera operator in adjusting the gain and offset controls. It is necessary to check the histo­gram of the raw data in order to tell if the camera was adjusted properly.

Finding Objects in an Image Automatic analysis of images is based primarily on thresholding, or density slicing: an "object" is a con­tiguous group of pixels which fall above the threshold value, or within the limit values of a density slice. The threshold value or density range can be adjusted by dragging elements in the LUT window, with immedi­ate feedback. For thresholding, the background is white and the objects are black For density slicing, the back­ground is shown in the original gray scale and the objects are red. After a setting is found that identifies the objects while excluding the background, the ana­lyze particles command will tabulate various measure­ments calculated from the objects. Values for position and density can be calibrated and reported in units such as meters and optical density.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 37

c

e

0000

Eliminating the Background The 2D rolling-ball background-correction algorithm does a fair job of eliminating the background, while leaving foreground, which makes it easier to analyze, count, and measure the objects of interest.

..-:I,

The grayscale image at the top right, a, represents a series of dots of diameters from 10 to 60 superimposed on a background of a sine wave. Before the program can analyze the objects, it has to find them; but if it accepts anything over a certain threshold density as being relevant, it includes patches of the background, as shown by the black-and-white image (where the threshold value is 80) right under the grayscale one. If the original image is converted to a suiface plot, it produces the image of cylinders on a curving sine­wave background at left. With the 2D rolling-ball algorithm, the background is calculated by rolling a ball of given radius "under" the suiface of the image (which is conceptually "hollow") and taking the background to be any point touched by the ball. If the rolling ball has a diameter of 50, it finds the back­ground to be as shown in b; when that is subtracted from a, it leaves c: though a slight amount of back­ground is left, it is clearly distinguishable from the foreground objects, as shown in both the grayscale and threshold images (set to a threshold of 10).

When the background of an image varies widely, though, as above, it may be impossible to find a thresh­old that highlights the object without also selecting part of the background. In that case, the background can be corrected by using the 2D rolling-ball algorithm, or in some cases, the faster lD rolling-disk algorithm. (The two algorithms were written by Michael Castle and Janice Keller at the University of Michigan.) The 2D algorithm considers neighboring pixels in all directions, while the lD algorithm ignores pixels not on the cur­rent row.

An extensive user manual, many macro packages, an "inside Image" manual for programmers, and the Pascal source code, as well as the Image application program itself, are available by anonymous ftp from

g

When a small radius is used, though, the ball may fit "inside" a large object, and the object's center will be washed out. Ford, a ball of radius 10 was used, and much of the larger cylinders thus was counted as background; when subtracted from a, it gives the result ate, where only the smaller objects remain whole, and the larger ones become outline. A diameter of 20 at f gives better results at g.

zippy.nimh.nih.gov in the /pub/image directory. The complete macro package that was used to generate the figure above is available in the /pub/image/contrib directory. The manual requires Microsoft Word, and modifying the source code requires the Think Pascal compiler (from Symantec). Questions about NIH Image are welcome on the nih-image mailing list (send the E-mail message subscribe nih-image your _nan:e to listserv@soils.umn.edu) and in the Usenet newsgroup sci.image.processing.

The next new feature (due in version 1.50 of NIH Image) will be support for Adobe Photoshop plug-in modules. This will permit users to write image­processing routines in any Macintosh programming language and use them with Image. •

38 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

XMol: Another ay to Display Molecular Images The chemist's bag of electronic tricks keeps growing. The

Scientific Visualization Center at the ACF has recently

acquired a new software package for rapidly displaying

and printing three-dimensional images of molecules, with

data in a variety of numerical input formats. XMol l.3.1,

from the Minnesota Supercomputer Center, is nowinstalled

on the ACF's Science Silicon Graphics (SGI) workstations.

XMol, which is based on the X Windows system, uses

OSF /Motif 1.1 for the display and analysis of molecular

data. XMol generates pictorial images from numerical data

files. If no connectivity is specified, XMol can generate

bonds between adjacent atoms. Bond lengths, bond angles,

and torsional angles can be calculated.

At its most direct level of display, XMol permits the user

simply to input the XYZ or internal coordinates of each

atom of a molecule to generate a pictorial display. XMol can also be used to show a series of molecules in video­

animation form. It does not, however, provide model­

building or model-editing capabilities.

The program can be used to print out images, or to

convert data files from one format into another. XMol can

read and write in a variety of standard formats. It can

read Alchemy, CHEMLAB-II, Gaussian input and output,

MOLSIM, MOP AC input, output, and archive files, PDB

files, and free-form XYZ files. It can write files in nearly as

many formats: as Alchemy, CHEMLAB-II, Gaussian input,

MOLSIM, MOP AC input, free-form XYZ files, and as color

or black-and-white PostScript images.

For users of SGI systems other than those run by the

ACF, XMol is available by anonymous ftp directly from the

Minnesota Supercomputer Center at ftp.msc.edu , and the

developers welcome comments from users at xrnol@msc.edu .

- Robert G. Lancaster lancaster@acfcluster.nyu.edu

Mr. Lancaster is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry (GSAS).

Ardnfo: High-End Geographic Tool Arrives at the ACF The ACF has just received the GIS (geographic infor­

mation system) software Atcinfo and ArcView, from

ESRI. It will shortly be installed on an ACF Silicon

Graphics workstation as well as on microcomputers.

The software will be available early in the fall for both

instructional and research use. Please contact Frank

LoPresti (lopresti@acfcluster.nyu.edu or 998-3398) for

more information.

New at the Scientific Visualization Center: Animated Videos, a Solid-Ink Color Printer, and a Large Plotter Preparing an animated video from a sequence of sci­

entific images - anything form molecular models to

robotic constructions - is now vastly easier at the

ACF's Scientific Visualization Center. The center's

video-animation facilities have been greatly enhanced

this summer by the work of Estarose Wolfson, a visu­

alization scientist on the ACF staff for the summer.

(See the January 1993 issue of this newsletter for an

article on her work at the Robotics Lab of the Depart­

ment of Computer Sciences, CIMS.) She has devel­

oped software tools and associated documentation that

will make it relatively easy for researchers to record

sequences of images they have generated on a Silicon

Graphics workstation onto videodisk and videotape.

Users can now create scientific animations by using

the workstations and video devices themselves.

A new color printer, the Phaser III Pxi from

Tektronix, has been deployed at the Center. This printer

can produce color prints or transparencies at 300 dots

per inch; its PostScript Level 2 interpreter and other

software give it the ability. to match the color displayed

on the computer's monitor with much greater accu­

racy than with earlier color printers. The printer uses

an improved solid-ink technology, in which plastic ink

sticks are melted, and the melted ink is placed on the

paper. Four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black,

abbreviated as CMYK - the standard four colors for

printing) are used; they can be combined to create

other colors, in a potential palette of 16 million colors.

The printer uses plain paper, and the estimated aver­

age cost per printed page is about 25 cents - well

below the 80 cents for wax-transfer prints and the $8

or so for dye-sublimation prints.

A Hewlett-Packard 7586B drafting plotter has been

installed and, thanks to Estarose Wolfson, can be ad­

dressed from the SGI Indigo workstations in the cen­

ter. Its eight pens enable it to produce high-resolution

color plots using HPGL, the HP graphics language. Its

E-size drum and roll paper enable it to produce color

images about 39 inches wide and as long as desired.

For more about the Scientific Visualization Center,

and about getting a computer account to use its facili­

ties, please contact me at 998-3051 or by E-mail at the

address below.

- Edward Friedman friedman@nyu.edu

Academic: Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 39

olecules i otion

Can a lipid - a fatty acid - directly affect the way a protein functions? Recent investigations by NYU' s Dr. Marvin Rich - working in Prof. Seymour Brody's Biophysics Labora­tory, Department of Biology, GSAS, and using molecular-dynamics simu­lations and visualization techniques on the Silicon Graphics workstations at the ACF's Visualization Center­suggest that the class of lipids known as unsaturated fatty acids may be able to directly affect proteins.

Many molecules are extremely flexible, due to their freedom to rotate

about their carbon-carbon single bonds. At body temperatures, some that are relatively straight in the crys­tal state may become quite tangled.

Dr. Rich's hunch was that the flex­ibility of the fatty acids would lead them to take on many different shapes. Somehow, the tangled end of a mobilized fatty acid might just man­age to align its atoms in a way that would let it fit into a protein's receptor site, or into another curved pocket on its surface, thereby directly affecting the protein's function.

But how do we find the most inter­esting tangles, out of the thousands of possibilities? Plotting the permuta­tions of a molecule's potential motion on paper is well-nigh impossible -due not only to the sheer number of

permutations but also to the complica­tions added by the third dimension.

This is where molecular simula-

Dr. Rich is Visiting Scientist in the Depart­ment of Biology, GSAS, where Prof. Brody's Biophysics Lab is also actively using Insight and Discover from Biosym Technologies, Inc., in modeling the photosynthetic reac­tion center. Dr. Rich's findings are to be published in an upcoming issue of the jour­nal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta.

tions and computer imaging show their value. For a relatively long time now, computers have been capable of crunching the numbers for calcula­tions of this sort; only within the last few years, though, have molecular­imaging programs and increasingly fast workstations been able to make the results visibly intelligible. The speed comes from the ACF Visualiza­tion Center's Crimson Elan, from Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SCI), which has a high-performance 100-megahertz processor and four independent ge­ometry engines; two modules from Biosym Technologies provide the millions of calculations: Discover, a program that can perform molecular­mechanics calculations, and Insight II, which produces images that'can be animated and viewed from any angle in three dimensions.

A technique known as /1 quenched molecular dynamics" was used in these studies. The calculations involve first running the routines to simulate the motions of a particular molecule at high temperatures over a brief period of time - a thousand picoseconds

40 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

(trillionths of a second)- recording the conformations achieved every picosecond, for a total of a thousand evenly spaced snapshots. Then, each of these conformations is /1 quenched" - that is, new calculations are run to simulate the cooling of the molecule; as it /1 cools," its shape will generally change, and the changes can be shown onscreen. This process was repeated with various saturated and unsatur­ated fatty acids; in each case, the basic calculations took several days even on the older SCI Irises in use until re­cently; each might take about a day on the faster Crimson.

On the left we see the arachidonic­acid molecule in its relatively straight crystal structure. The two dark balls at the top represent oxygen; the white balls represent hydrogen atoms, and the connecting gray blobs represent carbon atoms.

In the tangled form, the oxygen end of the molecule has folded back onto itself, producing a large knot. This knot happens to have a structure that may allow the molecule to bind to

specific sites on protein's surface, which could explain why certain fatty acids have been implicated in cancer and inflammatory responses.

- David Frederickson with Marvin Rich

richm@acfcluster.nyu.edu

Beyond the Supercomputin Center: Metacenter Coordinates NSF Resources Frances Bauer bauer@acfcluster.nyu.edu

The four supercomputing centers supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) have recently teamed up in a new, more tightly coordinated way that should bring benefits to researchers here at NYU and across the country. The directors of the four centers -the Cornell Theory Center (CTC), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the Uni-

versity of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), and the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC) - announced a new collaboration, a national metacenter for computatiqnal science and engineering.

What is a metacenter? The directors define the term to mean a coalescence of intellectual and physical re-

Current Resources at the NSF Supercomputing Centers and Metacenter Cornell Theory Center (CTC):

An IBM ES/9000-900 with 9 GB (gigabytes) of combined central and extended memory, with peak performance

of 2.66 Gflops (billions of floating-point operations

per second), 1/0 (input-output) capacity of nearly 3 GB per second.

For parallel processing: The Kendall Square, currently configured as a single

128-processor system; each processor is capable of 40

Mflops, and has a 30MB I sec 1/0 channel. A Scalable Cluster of RISC Systems (SCRS) of 22 IBM

550s; available for serial-batch or parallel-batch jobs. An SPl Cluster consisting of IBM scalable Powerparallel

systems will be generally available in September. National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA):

A Cray Y-MP4/464 with 4 processors and 64MW

(megawords, or million words, 8 bytes each) memory.

A Convex 3880 with 8 processors. A 512-node Thinking Machine CM-5 with a scalable disk

array attached. San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC):

A Cray Y-MP8/864 with 8 processors, to be replaced with an 8-processor C-90 in September.

For parallel processing: An Intel Paragon XP /S30, which is a 400-node, 30-Gflop,

32-bit machine.

An NCube with 128 nodes, 1.25 GB of memory,

capable of 420 Mflops. Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC):

A Cray C-90 with 16 processors, 1 Gflop peak perfor­mance, 256MW memory, with 128MW available for a job request.

A Thinking Machine CM-2 for massively parallel com­puting with 4 sequencers and 2 front ends. Each

sequencer has 8132 processors.

A SuperCluster consisting of 8 DEC DS5000 /240s with 64MB of memory and 1.75 GB local disk storage.

National Center for Atmospheric Research

(NCAR): A Cray Y-MP8/864.

An IBM RISC cluster consisting of 5 IBM 550 machines

with a 120-GB disk farm managed by an IBM 3090 capable of storing 42 terabytes (trillion bytes) of data

A Thinking Machine CM-5 with 32 nodes. For imaging: 4X5 slide and videotape output with increased high reso­

lution.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 41

sources unlimited by geographical constraint; a synthe­sis of individual centers that by combining resources creates a new resource greater than the sum of its parts. Based on the concept of /1 distributed heterogeneous com­puting" or metacomputing, the metacenter will be able to move portions of problems to the appropriate com­puter architecture, without regard to where the com­puters are located.

Each of the four centers specializes in a particular area. The PSC' s mission is to operate a large vector computer, the Cray Y-MP C-90. The NCSA specializes in the Thinking Machine CM-5, for parallel processing. The SDSC has the Intel Paragon and the NCube for parallel processing. The CTC' s expertise is in parallel computing with the Kendall Square KSRl and the IBM RISC Cluster. A $13 million U.S. government grant just announced will be used to purchase a 512-processor IBM supercomputer capable of performing calculations at speeds exceeding 100 gigaflops.

In addition to these four centers, there is the Na­tional Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at Boul­der, Colorado, where access is limited to researchers in oceanic or atmospheric sciences.

The ACF staff can provide information and help expedite applications for use of the computer resources at the four NSF Supercomputing Centers and NCAR. For assistance and applications, call the ACF Accounts Office, Room 305, Warren Weaver Hall (998-3035); for further information, contact the author by E-mail at bauer@acfcluster.nyu.edu or by phone at 998-3236. •

CAPC Begins to Fulfill Its Promise Several scientific users of the IBM RS/ 6000 Cluster at

the Academic Computing Facility have reported being

able to solve large problems in a significantly shorter

time by using this collection of machines. The Center

for Applied Parallel Computing (CAPC; see May 1993 newsletter), is a joint project of the ACF and IBM.

Other users have successfully parallelize their soft­

ware using the PVM system, and have then transported

the resulting programs to a larger cluster at the Cornell

Theory Center at Ithaca, New York.

The ACF will soon acquire software for the CAPC

that promises to parallelize Fortran programs automati­

cally. The Distributed Memory Parallelizer (DMP) sys­

tem from Applied Parallel Research, Inc. is capable of

modifying the user's application program by analyzing

it and inserting appropriate code for one of several parallel schemes. A more detailed description of the

DMP software will appear in a future newsletter.

ACF's Convex to Be Retired The Convex C-210 minisupercomputer, also known as

ACFlO, will be decommissioned on October 1, 1993. The system has given NYU scientists, researchers, and gradu­

ate students from many disciplines a robust, high-perfor­

mance computing environment for the last several years.

These users were able to prototype large models and

simulations as well as process large empirical and experi­

mental data sets. Limited production runs of these simula­

tions as well as problem-solving use third-party software

such as the computatationally intense Gaussian system.

The Convex also was also used as a platform to test appli­

cations and production prior to making massive runs on

remote national supercomputing centers such as the NSF' s

Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

New advances in high-performance computing hard­ware and software have rendered the Convex, and other

machines of this type, economically obsolete. Most major

manufacturers of computing systems have focused their

attention on RISC-based microprocessors, where they have

been able to make dramatic improvements of performance

coupled with substantial decreases in cost. These econo­

mies have made it possible for a university to afford its

own multiprocessor "parallel computing system,"

Recently the ACF took the initiative in this area and set

up CAPC - the Center for Applied Parallel Computig.

This consists of a cluster of nine IBM RS I 6000 RISC based

workstations and configured them with a switch into a

parallel computing system. In addition to state-of-the-art

RISC workstations, the cluster has a full complement of

parallel computing software systems such as PVM, Linda, and an automatic parallelizer from Applied Parallel Re­

search. This new RISC cluster has several times the computing

power of the Convex about to be retired. Users of the new

system have reported that not only is their work getting

done faster but they are now able to consider running

problems that are more complex and hence more compu­

tational intense. (For more about the RISC cluster, see the

note on this page.) Users of the Convex have been notified of the intention

to shut the system down on October 1. All existing files on

the machine will be preserved on magnetic tape by the

ACF operations staff, so they can be retrieved if necessary.

Nonetheless, users are also urged to back up their own

files as well.

Please feel free to contact me to discuss alternative

computing environments such as the ACF CAPC systems. - Edward Friedman

friedman@nyu.edu

42 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

NYU Computer Store Launches Its Second Year with a New Site and ew rograms by Kathy Bear beark@acfcluster.nyu.edu

There have been some exciting changes at the NYU Computer Store over the summer. The growth of our first year has continued, with expanded service pro­grams for both hardware and software, and with a new service location that we've opened in addition to our main location at 242 Greene Street.

New 12th Street Site In order to increase our ability to serve the NYU com­munity, we opened a new site at 7 East 12th Street, on the 5th floor, where our service department and our storage facility will be located. Customers will be able to pick up their newly purchased equipment or have their existing equipment serviced there

With the addition of this space, we will be able to carry more inventory, allowing us to fill orders more quickly. It will no longer be necessary to schedule ap­pointments to pick up orders. If the particular item you want is in stock, you can pick it up at 12th Street during our operating hours, which will be Monday through Friday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm and Saturday 11:00 am to 3:30 pm.

If any of the equipment needs servicing later, cus­tomers can return to the same site where they origi­nally picked it up. We are currently offering on-site and carry-in service on Apple and IBM products, whether the equipment is under warranty or not. You may con­tact the service department at 12th Street at 998-4231.

Student Deferred Payment Program This year, for the first time, NYU offered a deferred­payment program to its students for the purchase of

Kathy Bear is Manager of the NYU Computer Store.

computers. Students who enrolled in the program by July 15 were able to defer payment of up to $1500 for their computer purchase. This amount was added to their university bill and is payable in two installments during the academic year. The Computer Store had a good response to this pilot program, and we hope to be able to extend the time period in coming years to allow more students to take advantage of the program.

Apple Back-to-School Specials Apple Computer is offering some exciting back-to-school bundles to the NYU community through the NYU Com­puter Store. Until October 15, you can purchase some of Apple's most popular models at significantly reduced prices. The microcomputers being offered are the Color Classic 4/80 (that is, with 4 megabytes of RAM and an 80-megabyte hard drive), the LC III in 4/80 and 4/160 configurations, the Centris 610 4/80 and 8/230 with CD-ROM drive, the Centris 650 8/230 with CD-ROM drive, the PowerBook 145B 4/80, and the PowerBook Duo 230. The back-to-school bundles come with moni­tors and keyboards included and tl_le price breaks are truly exceptional. In addition, Apple is offering signifi­cant savings on two of their most popular printers, the Style Writer II and the Personal LaserWriter 300, during this time period. For more information and pricing, please stop by or call the NYU Computer Store (998-4672).

Apple Newton On August 2, Apple Computer announced its new New­ton MessagePad communications assistant. The New­ton is a new palm-sized unit, weighing less than a pound. Using a special stylus, the user can write down

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 43

notes, appoinhnents and phone numbers, which are then translated into text by the Newton; rough sketches can also be drawn on it. The Newton comes equipped with four built-in applications: a Notepad, a To-Do List, a Name File, and a Calendar. The New­ton has communications capabilities that allow it to send information to another Newton, a Macintosh, or a PC running Windows; to send a file to a printer; to send faxes; or to send and receive electronic mail. If you would like more information on this new tech­nology, please contact the Computer Store.

WordPerfect's CAP Program Over the summer, the NYU Computer Store has be­come the campus dealer for WordPerfect' s Customer Advantage Program. This type of site license allows departments to purchase copies of WordPerfect soft­ware at extremely low prices - e.g., WordPerfect 6.0 for $20 per license. The software may only be used on university-owned equipment and must therefore be purchased with a departmental budget number. The WordPerfect packages come with electronic docu­mentation only; the Computer Store also sells printed manuals. Departments may also purchase mainte­nance contracts on their existing software from WordPerfect, which .would give them all upgrades during the period that the maintenance is in effect. Maintenance may be purchased for one year or three years; the annual cost is lower on a three-year pur­chase.

The Apple Newton MessagePad is a palm-sized unit that comes with a special stylus which allows the user to write down notes that are then trans­lated into text by the Newton. The Newton is equipped with a Notepad, a To-Do List, a Name File, and a Calen­dar. It also has communications capa­bilities that allow it to tranfer files to other computers.

NYU Computer Store Services For those of you who are new to the NYU community, I would like to give a brief recap of the Computer Store's services. Our primary mission is to support the NYU community's computing needs. We carry many lines at educational prices - Apple Macintoshes and Newtons, IBM ValuePoints and ThinkPads, and Hewlett-Packard printers - and we keep the most popular models in stock. We also have an extensive inventory of educationally priced software. In addition, we can special-order hardware and software items and would be glad to discuss any special orders. Our book deparhnent has one of the most extensive collections of computing books and magazines in the metropolitan area, and we also special-order books. Our service de­parhnent repairs Apple and IBM equipment at our lo­cation or at your site, if it is at or close to NYU. We can do both warranty and out-of-warranty work and we also sell service contracts. We offer pre- and post-sale consultations and support, and for a minimal fee we can even install your equipment and instruct you in its use. In conjunction with the Academic Computing Fa­cility, we offer workshops on how to purchase your microcomputer and how to get started using it. Over­all, we are here to meet your computing needs and welcome your suggestions and comments. •

44 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Semi • I

Allison Druin and Patrick Franc allison@play.cs.nyu.edu • franc@cs.nyu.edu

The New York State Science and Teclmology Founda­tion has recently designated New York University as a Center of Advanced Teclmology in Digital Multimedia Production, Publishing, and Education. Under the terms of this grant, the center will work closely with New York State publishing, software, and other firms to ac­celerate the development of all sorts of multimedia and electronic-publishing activities within the New York area. The center will develop multimedia teclmologies and major multimedia modules, including modules having an educational emphasis. Teclmology transfer will be an integral part of the center's activities, and will help businesses position themselves with quality products early in the development of this high-poten­tial market.

A first activity of the Center will be to offer a (nearly) free 15-week intensive seminar in multimedia technolo­gies for firms active in this area or interested in explor­ing new multimedia business possibilities. The seminar will meet Fridays from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Lecturers will be drawn from the New York University Com­puter Science department, the Interactive Telecommu­nication, Film, and Animation programs at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and from firms prominent in multi­media and the related electronic-publishing industry in New York and elsewhere. It is also intended that this weekly seminar should serve as a forum in which New York firms interested in multimedia and electronic pub­lishing can meet to establish business contacts.

The tentative syllabus for the weekly seminars dur­ing the first semester is as follows:

• Survey of multimedia platforms and tools • Survey of multimedia tools and design issues

u m echnol

• I

• 1ves

• Video and film techniques and tools for multime­dia

• Animation and graphic techniques and tools for multimedia

• Morphing and graphical interpolation teclml.ques •Audio and sound-processing techniques and tools

for multimedia; multimedia product design for the educational market.

•Programming techniques for low-end systems (e.g. Phillips Photo-CD and Nintendo)

•Natural-language processing tools • Network and communication technologies • Computer networks and their impact on the

publishing industry • MIDI teclmology e New concepts in virtual reality and immersive

environments • Survey of outstanding multimedia products • Marketing multimedia products • Multimedia industry projections The fall series is fully subscribed, but the full series

will be repeated in the spring semester, and an inten­sive series is being planned for December. Participating firms will be allowed to designate one representative to attend the seminars. Additional representatives can be accommodated by special arrangement with the NYU Center for Digital Multimedia. To reserve a place, con­tact the Center at 998-3375. Firms deciding to partici­pate will be charged registration fee covering all 15 weeks of the seminar. •

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 45

NYSERNet Conference '93 NYSERNet' s second annual conference, "Access to the World's Information Resources," will be held in Rochester,

NY, on September 30-0ctober 2, 1993. Experts from across the United States to discuss Internet topics concerning education, libraries, on-line information, and network tech­nologies.There will be four tracks that include programs like "Disabilities and the Network," "On-Line Delivery

Systems," "Hunting and Gathering in Cyberspace," and "Bringing Internet into the Classroom." The conference will

feature an expanded tutorial selection, along with an Open Board of Directors Meeting. It will provide NYSERNet Affiliates with the opportunity to meet the Board of Direc­tors and give them valuable feedback. NYSERNet's Techni­

cal Users' Group (NYSERTech) will resume its regular meetings at NYSERNet '93. Topics of discussion will in­

clude current NYSERNet _projects and initiatives as well as the structure and roles that NYSERTech can play.

The conference is sponsored by NYSERNet, the New York State Education and Research Network for New York professionals in K-12 schools, colleges, libraries, state­funded technology organizations, state agencies, and

private-sector companies and corporations. For more info­rmation, contact NYSERNet Inc. by phone at (315) 453-2912

or by fax at (315) 453-3052

EDUCOM '93 The Educom '93 conference, Crafting New Communities, will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 17-20, 1993. The annual conference is the largest general meeting on information technology policy, trends, and applications in higher education. Along with the seminars and general sessions that will take place at the conference, the EDUCOM Higher Education Software and Curriculum

Innovation Awards Presentations will take place, along with the presentation of the Louis Robinson Award. The

conference will also include a software fair, where many examples of some of the most educationally significant software currently being developed for use in higher edu­cation will be presented. The winners of the Software and

Curriculum Innovations Awards will also be displayed. The sponsor of this conference, EDUCOM, is a

non-profit consortium of 600 colleges and universities

concerned with computing and communications issues in higher education. Further information about EDUCOM

'93 can be obtained through anonymous ftp from the EDUCOM server at educom.edu, or by sending an inter­active message or mail to listserv@bitnic containing GET

EDUCOM93 BROCHURE.

Supercomputing '93 The Conference on High Performance Computing and Communications, will be held in Portland, Oregon on November 15-19, 1993. A full slate of papers, panels,

minisymposia, and an exhibition are planned for attendees.

Workshops will bring together leading researchers for roundtable discussions of new challenges in computing technology and applications. Informal, interactive research

presentations will be given at the poster and video poster

exhibits. Center directors' roundtables, open to all attendees, focus on topics of interest to supercomputer

center managers. The conference will be sponsored by ACM SIGARCH and the IEEE Computer Society. Current conference information is available through anonymous ftp at SC93-info.llnl.gov or by phone or fax at (800) 462-7293.

Other Meetings of Interest Conference and Exhibition on the Emergence of Elec­

tronic Books: September 28-29, 1993, New York City.

Focus: the growth of palmtop electronic media, legal and commercial issues, market size and development

trends, and future perspectives, among other things. Sponsor: Meckler. For info, contact Meckler at meckler@jvnc.net or (800) 632-5537.

International Conference on Refereed Electronic Jour­nals: October 1-2, 1993, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Focus:

the Internet as a medium for dissemination of aca­demic research.Sponsor: the Medical Research Coun­cil, the Natural Sciences and Engineeriri.g Research Council, the University of Maitoba, et. al. For info, contact Ms. Helga Dyck at umih@ccu.umanitoba.ca or (204) 474-9599.

Matlab Conference: October 18-20, 1993, Cambridge,

MA. Focus: the productive uses of Matlab and Simulink. Sponsor: Math Works, Inc. For info, contact Karen Tuttle at (508) 653-2452 ext. 437.

The 8th Annual Northeast ACR/INFO User Group Conference: October 18-20, 1993, Burlington, VT. Focus: information about and uses of ARC/INFO Sponsor: NEARC. For info, contact Eileen Powers at

epower@moose.uvm.edu or (800) 639-3188. IEEE Visualization '93 Conference: October 25-29,

1993, San Jose, CA Focus: interdisciplinary methods

and supports collaboration among the developers and users of visualization methods across all of sci­

ence, engineering, and commerce. Sponsor: the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Com­puter Graphics. For info, contact Ross Gaunt, Law-

rence Livermore National Laboratory II

46 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Fa.II '93 a.t the BEF

Index to the Schedule of ACF Instructional Sessions

ATLAS*GIS- Displaying Geographic Data 54

ABC's of Computers 49

Choosing Your Computer 49

Computers and Operating Systems 50 - 51

CWIS-An Introduction to the Campus-Wide

Information System

dBASE IV - Introduction

DOS-MS-DOS

E-Mail - ACF E-Mail and Information

52

55

50

Services Account 51

E-Mail -the DEC Mailer, FAXmail, and

Other Advanced Topics 51

E-Mail - Eudora 51

E-Mail-FAXmail 51

E-Mail - NUPop 51

Eudora

Excel- Introduction

FAXmail

Getting Started on Your New Computer

Graphics and Multimedia

H yperCard - Introduction

Lotus 1-2-3-Introduction

Mac - Painting and Drawing Mac - Troubleshooting and Maintaining

Mac - Using a Macintosh at an ACF Lab

Mathematica

Microsoft Word

MS-DOS Network Administration at NYU

Network Services Available at NYU

NUPop Painting and Drawing on a Macintosh

PC - Troubleshooting and Maintaining

PC - Using a PC at an ACF Lab

RISC Farms and Other Supercomputer

Resources

SAS - Introduction

Scientific Computing and Visualization

Scientific Visualization at the ACF

SPSS - Data Entry for SPSS and other

Statistical Packages SPSS - SPSS for Windows

Statistics, Spreadsheets, and Databases

51

55

51

49

53

53

55

53

50

49

54

55

50 52

52

51

53

50

49

53

55 53-54

53

54 54

54-55

Supercomputer Resources and RISC Farms 53

UNIX - Using UNIX at the ACF 49

Uploading and Downloading 53

Using the ACFcluster 49

VM/CMS 51

VMS - For Instructors Using VMS at NYU 50

VMS - Topics in VMS 50

WordPerfect 55

WordPerfect Graphics 53

WordPerfect Resume Preparation 55

Word processing 55

WYLBUR - Using WYLBUR at the ACF 49

WYLBUR -An Overview 51

What's New at the ACF Helpline HelpLine is a computer user's support service pro­

vided by the Academic Computing Facility to mem­

bers of the NYU community. It provides a single

telephone point of contact for clients of ACF services.

Callers are welcome to inquire on any topic relevant to

academic computing at NYU, and in particular to the

services of the Academic Computing Facility. The

Help Line's business hours are 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, Mon­

day through Friday.

After September 1, calls to the Help Line outside of

business hours will be answered by an automated in­

formation service, providing pertinent information on

various ACF services. This new feature will provide

menu-driven information about events and classes

sponsored by the ACF, hours of ACF computer labs,

software distributed by ACF, and information on dial­

ing in to NYU-NET. If the automated service does not

answer your question, you can leave a message with

voice mail, a feature of NYU' s telephone system, and

an ACF staff member will call back during the next

business day.

The Help Line number is 998-3333. We welcome your

calls and comments.

-Vincent Doogan doogan@nyu.edu

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 47

All members of the NYU community are welcome at the ACF's classes, workshops, and talks. This semester, we've tried to make our schedule less confusing. That has involved several changes, so some definitions seem to be in order (see column at right). There is no charge for any of the ACF Instructional sessions, but partici­pants should have a current, valid NYU ID. In some cases, as noted just after a course description, a reserva­tion or an appropriate computer account is required.

The courses are grouped in categories that are largely self-explanatory. Those in the first category, /1 ABC's of Computers," are intended for both computer novices and people new to the ACF facilities, and should serve as introductions to the computers and their operating systems, as well as the other parts of the mix - net­works, printers, file servers, and so forth - that the user will be dealing with.

The format of each entry, shown below, helps clarify the information:

Title of the Course or Software (Platform--the machine the program runs on) A brief description of the course, the

software or machines used, and the main topics covered. Instructor's

name.

Requirements, such as account or reserva­tions; whether workshop, class, or talk; special arrangements, etc. Building and room

Days and Times Dates

Classes are introductory, walk-in, hands-on training ses­sions about an hour long. Reservations are not re­quired; simply arrive a few minutes early at the classroom.

Classes by Arrangement: Faculty members may some­times arrange special classes for a specific course or research group. These do not necessarily have to be given at an ACF site. For classes in IBM WYLBUR or VM/CMS, call John Lee (998-3406); for statistics, call Frank LoPresti (998-3398); for other applications, call the ACF HelpLine (998-3333).

Workshops are more intensive sessions that run about three hours. They are held in computer classrooms where each participant can work on a computer (occasionally shared by two participants), so reser­vations are required.

Talks cover more advanced topics in greater detail, usu­ally with a demonstration of relevant software and computer screens. They generally run about an hour and a half.

Reservations: To reserve a place, please call the ACF HelpLine at 998-3333 during the week of the work­shop.

Computer accounts: There are several kinds of ACF accounts, which give the holder access to different types of machines and services. For details on accounts for computer lab access, see the box on page 60. For electronic mail accounts, see page 30. All are available through the ACF Accounts Office (Warren Weaver Hall, room 305; 998-3035).

Platform: The type of computer a certain type of soft­ware runs on.

Unix: Several types of computers use variants of UNIX -AIX on some IBMs, Ultrix on some DEC comput­ers, IRIS on Silicon Graphics workstations.

DEGVMS: Digital Equipment Corporation makes several types of computers; its VAX minicomputers use the VMS operating system.

PC: Desktop and portable computers based on the architecture of the original IBM PC-also called clones or DOS machines, 386, 486, etc.

Mac: Apple's Macintoshes IBM mainframe: Runs the VM/CMS operating sys­

tem and WYLBUR, an interface.

48 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Choosing Your Computer (Mac and PC) This talk is intended to help you select

the best personal computer for your needs. It will cover the basic compo­

nents of a computer, as well as the other hardware required for various tasks. We will also discuss how you can assess your particular needs to

establish your criteria for selecting computer tools. Staff from the ACF and the NYU Computer Store. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Main Building, room 509

Tuesdays 2:00-3:00

Sept. 14, Oct. 12

Fridays 12:00-1:00

Sept. 24, Oct. 29

Getting Started on Your New Computer (Mac and PC) This introductory talk will help famil­iarize you with your new computing

equipment. It will focus on such basic operations as setting up your com­puter; setting up a printer; and config­

uring your operating system with the fonts and tools you need.

This talk will be particularly help­

ful to recent or prospective purchasers

of computing equipment. Taught by staff from the ACF and the NYU Computer Store. For more informa­

tion, please call Kevin Edwards at the Computer Store at 998-4659.

Using a Macintosh at an ACF Lab (Mac:) A hands-on introduction to the

Macintosh computer. Topics include working with the graphical user inter­face, understanding the file system,

choosing printers, file servers, and

other devices, and launching software applications. ACF staff.

Limited seating; first come, first served; hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Tuesdays 11:00-12:00

Thursdays 2:00-3:00

Sept. 9 through Sept. 30

Third Ave. North Res. Hall, level C3 Tuesdays 2:00-3:00

Thursdays 11:00-12:00

Sept. 9 through Sept. 30

Using a PC at an ACF Lab (PC) A hands-on introduction to the PC -

the "IBM-type" personal computer. Topics include working with the user menus on the PCs in the labs, under­

standing the file system, choosing

printers and file servers, and launch­

ing software applications. ACF staff.

Limited seating; first come, first served; hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Wednesdays 11:00-12:00

Sept. 15 through Sept. 29 Third Ave. North Res. Hall, level C3

Wednesdays 2:00-3:00

Sept. 15 through Sept. 29 14 Washington Place, basement

Tuesdays 11:00-12:00

Thursdays 2:00-3:00

Sept. 9 through Sept. 30

Using the ACFduster (DEC/VMS) An introductory class on using the VMS operating system on DEC mini­

computers that make up the ACFcluster, as accessed at ACF labs through PCs, Macs, and terminals.

The basics will be covered: logging

onto the cluster, organizing files, edit­ing text, printing files, and using ap­plications. ACF staff. ACFcluster account required; limited

seating; first come, first served; hands-on class. Third Ave. North Res. Hall, level C3

Wednesdays 11:00-12:00

Sept. 15, 22, 29

Using UNIX at the ACF (UNIX machines) An introductory class on using the UNIX operating system, variants of which run on several different classes

of computer at the ACF. Most are accessed at ACF labs through PCs, Macs, and terminals, but the SGI

workstations also use UNIX. The basics will be covered: logging onto the host machines, organizing files,

editing text, printing files, and using

applications. ~CF staff. ACF UNIX account required; limited seating; first come, first served; hands-on class. Third Ave. North Res. Hall, level C3

Thursdays 2:00-3:00

Sept. 9, 16, 23, 30

Using WYLBUR at the ACF (IBM mainframe) Introduction to accessing and using

WYLBUR, the text editor on the IBM mainframe, from the PCs in the ACF

Tisch Hall Lab. ACF staff. WYLBUR account required; limited seating; first come, first served; hands-on class. Tisch Hall, room LC8

Mondays 5:30-6:30, 6:30-7:30

Sept. 20, 27 Oct. 4, 11

Thursdays 5:30-6:30, 6:30-7:30

Sept. 23, 30 Oct. 7, 14

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 49

I!

&0m1mt;ers anCI IJmeraling S1slems

MS-DOS (PC) DOS is the operating system used by all "IBM-type" PCs; it underlies MS

Windows as well.

I. Introduction to DOS Basics of DOS: Command-line opera­

tions, formatting and copying disks, installing software, and so forth. ACI:'

staff. Limited seating; first come, first served; hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Fridays 2:00-3:30

Oct. 8, 22

2. Intermediate DOS ACF Staff.

Limited seating; first come, first served; hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Fridays 2:00-3:30

Oct. 15, 29

Troubleshooting and Maintaining Your PC (PC) Discussion will include troubleshoot­ing techniques and other strategies for

dealing with problems you might encounter while using your PC. ACF

staff. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 12:00-1:30

Nov. 17

Troubleshooting and Maintaining Your Macintosh (Mac) Discussion will include troubleshoot­ing techniques and other strategies for

dealing with problems that you might encounter while using your Macintosh. ACF staff.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 12:00-1:30

Nov.10

For Instructors Using VMS atNYU (DEC/VMS) An introduction to the special features

of accounts provided to instructors and classes using the ACF's VAX/ VMS computers.

Under the ACF Course System,

teachers of classes with VMS accounts have both "library" and "teacher" directories. Other features include

class bulletin boards, direct instructor access to students' computer work, and (at the request of the instructor)

electronic submission of students'

completed homework. Shared elec­tronic workspaces can also be set up,

either for the entire class or for sub­

groups of the class. Stephen Tihor. For more information, please call the ACF HelpLine at 998-3333.

Topics in VMS (DEC/VMS) This intermediate-level, four-part

series of talks will be of interest to

users of the VAX/VMS systems at NYU. Stephen Tihor. Attendees are expected to have taken an ACF introductory class in VMS; see listing under ABC's.

I . After You log In: Messages, Bulletin Boards, Mail, and News A review of early system messages,

including password expiration and choice, last login, scheduled down­

time, incomplete startup, stopped queues, closed sites, announcements

SO September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

of interest, BBoard, Comment, other BBoards, E-mail, and NEWS. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Tuesday 2:30-4:00

Oct. 12

2. Files and Commands Topics will include file names, file types, version numbers, purging, ARCHIVE, RECOVER, remote file

access, directory trees, class accounts, scratch disks, loan disk, structure of

the cluster, and shared devices. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:30-4:00

Oct. 19

J. Networking, Printing, and Command Files Topics will include DECnet, BITnet, the Internet, PHONE, SEND, talk,

relay, ire, SET HOST, TELNET, RLOGIN, COPY, SEND /FILE, FTP,

NFS, E-mail, mailing lists, LISTSERVs,

CHOOSE, printers, PRINT, IMPRINT, SHOW ENTRY, creating simple com­

mand files, and SUBMIT. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:30-4:00

Oct. 26

4. Everything Else The final session of this series will

cover selected advanced topics of interest. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:30-4:00

Nov.2

VM/CMS (IBM mainframe)

VM/CMS is the operating system of the IBM mainframe. Various available software will be discussed and dem­onstrated, and mail, file transfer, and

Xedit editing functions will be cov­ered. John Lee.

Upon request, by appointment; call John Lee at 998-3406; requires IBM account.

WYLBUR: An Overview (IBM mainframe) Various editing commands of the

WYLBUR full-screen editor on the

IBM mainframe will be discussed and demonstrated, and there will be a run­

through of procedures for logging into WYLBUR from home. John Lee. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk.

Warren Weaver Hall, room 313 Fridays 6:00-7:30

Sept. 17, 24 Oct. 1, 8, 15

For More Information: Call the ACF Helpline at 998-3333.

Elec:t:ranic: Ma.ii a.nCI i=~~ma.il

Electronic Mail: Using the ACF E-Mail & Information Services Account (DEC/VMS) This series - a talk and a hands-on class-deals with the ACF EMIS (Electronic Mail and Information Services) Account.

I. Introduction This talk-demonstration will introduce

new and prospective holders of an EMIS account to its menu interface

and components. Initalization of the account, and elementary electronic­mail concepts and commands will be explained and demonstrated. The

EMIS account runs on a cluster of

DEC/VMS minicomputers and is connected to NYU-NET. Vincent Doogan.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk.

Warren Weaver Hall, room 313 Wednesdays 12:00-1:30

Sept. 15 through Oct. 27

2. Troubleshooting Your EMIS Account This session provides practical help to holders of ACF E-Mail & Information

Services accounts and general users of the DECmail utility. At a hands-on question-and-answer session, account

holders will be able to resolve difficul­ties in determining the characteristics of their accounts, navigating the EMIS

menu structure, and using common electronic-mail commands. ACF Staff. E-mail (EMIS) account required; lim­

ited seating; first come, first served; hands-on class.

Education Building, 2nd floor

Thursdays 12:00-1:00

Sept. 16 through Oct. 28

Eudora (Mac)

An introductory class for new users of Eudora, an interface for handling elec­tronic mail on Macintoshes connected to NYU-NET.

For further information, please call the ACF Helpline at 988-3333.

NU Pop (PC) An introductory class for new users of NUPop, an interface for handling electronic mail on PCs connected to NYU-NET.

For further information, please call the ACF Helpline at 988-3333.

Using The DEC Mailer at NYU: FAXmail and Other Advanced Topics (DEC/VMS) Advanced selection commands, mes­sage extraction, sending faxes via E-mail, and other advanced topics. The DEC mailer runs on the

ACFcluster of VMS computers. It is

the mail program used by holders of

ACF E-mail and Information Services Accounts (see introductory EMIS talks above). ACF staff.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk.

Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Sept. 29

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 SI

llet3wcnd<is aml llet3w010I< 9e10viees

An Introduction to the Campus-Wide Information System (NYU CWIS) The NYU CWIS, developed by the

ACF, is a growing system for dissemi­

nating and retrieving information in

electronic form. This talk will focus on

what is contained in the NYU CWIS

and how it is organized. Other topics will include a discussion of the under­

lying Gopher software and a demon­

stration of tools for searching

Gopherspace. David Ackerman.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Tuesdays 2:30-4:00

Sept. 21, 28

Oct. 3

Network SeNices Available at NYU NYU's campus-wide network, NYU­

NET, provides access to a growing

array of online and network services,

both within NYU and at institutions

worldwide. This four-part series will

focus on some of these services.

I. Internet Services This session will include a discussion

of several procedures by which indi­

viduals using computers at NYU can

connect to other computers and ser­

vices on the Internet, an international

network connecting over 1.3 million

computers in the United States and

abroad. Topics will include file trans­

fers and issues in connectivity. Jeffrey

Bary.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Oct. 6

1.. library Information via Internet Many universities have made their

online library catalogs available on the

Internet. RLIN, a union catalog of

many libraries, is also available on the

Internet. This session will cover how

to access and use these resources.

Topics will include how to connect

from on- and off-campus, what types

of information are available, and iden­

tifying resources for locating materials

at other libraries. Jeffrey Bary and

Bobst Library staff.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Oct. 13

3. BITNET and Its Services BITNET is an international network of

over 2000 large computers at universi­

ties and research centers.

In this talk, many of the features of the

BITNET will be demonstrated. Topics

will include BITNET "file servers" and

"listservers," file transfers, connectiv­

ity and electronic mail, relays, elec­

tronic magazines, and online "White

Pages." Jeffrey Bary.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Oct. 20

4. Communicating: Kermit, Telnet, and FTP A variety of machines and networks

are connected to NYU-NET, NYU's

campus-wide network, and users can

communicate with them via an assort­

ment of communications protocols

and packages.

In this session, four communica­

tions software packages that are com­

monly used at NYU will be examined,

to clarify which should be used in

each sort of connection possible when

communicating via NYU-NET. Such

52 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

issues as file transfer and terminal emulation will also be addressed.

Larry Mingione. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Oct. 27

Network Administration atNYU This series, designed for departmental

network administrators, will touch

upon Ethernet, routers, the Inte~et,

LANS, Packet Switch Networks vs. Circuit Switch Networks, TCP (Trans­

mission Control Protocol), Domain

Name System, legal implications and

ethics. It will include discussion of the

uses of networks in education in gen­

eral and at NYU. Gary Chapman and

ACF staff.

I. Overview of NYU-NET The speaker will present an overview

of NYU-NET and the place of depart­

mental networks in the larger scheme

of things.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Nov.3

2. Network Configuration TCP /IP, NetWare, and Appletalk

network configuration for departmen­

tal networks at NYU will be dis­

cussed.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Nov.10

3. Novell Networks Novell networks for IBM and Apple

microcomputers will be discussed.

The speaker will focus on this micro­

computer network in use at the ACF' s

instructional labs in the Education

Building, the Third Avenue North

Residence Hall, 14 Washington Place,

and Tisch Hall. He will describe some of the essential tasks and concerns for

administrators of small networks, and

will demonstrate basic network man­agement routines and commands. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk.

Warren Weaver Hall, room 313 Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Nov.17

Uploading & Downloading A useful class for those who want to do their wordprocessing and other

work on their desktop PCs or Macs, and then send the files by E-mail or

upload them to VMS or UNIX ma­

chines, or need to download files from distant machines to their own comput­ers. Telnet, ftp, and LISTSERV access will be discussed. ACF staff.

Limited seating; first come, first served; Account is required; hands-on class.

I. for PC Users Education Building, 2nd floor

Fridays 12:00-1:00

Oct. 8, Oct. 22

2. for Macintosh Users Education Building, 2nd floor

Fridays 12:00-1:00

Oct. 15, Oct. 29

lira111Jiczs anC:I llaltimeC:lia

Introduction to HyperCard (Mac)

HyperCard is a software package for organizing and presenting information as text, graphics, sound, and anima­tion. ACF staff.

Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class.

I. Introduction to HyperCard Education Building, 2nd floor

Fridays 2:00-3:30 Oct. 8, 29

2. Intermediate HyperCard Education Building, 2nd floor

Fridays 2:00-3:30 Oct. 15 Nov.5

Painting and Drawing on a Macintosh Computer (Mac)

An introduction to painting and draw­ing on the Macintosh computer, using SuperPaint 3.0. Howard Fink.

Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class.

Education Building, 2nd floor Friday 1:30-3:30

Oct. 22

WordPerfect Graphics (PC)

Using the graphics capabilities of

WordPeifect to enrich your documents. Henry Mullish.

Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Friday 9:00-12:00 Oct. 22 Nov.12

Sczientiflcz lh>m1ating anC:I ~isualization

RISC Farms and Other Supercomputer Resources (IBM RISC farm; NSF supercomputers) An introduction to supercomputer resources available to NYU faculty

and students, both local resources and those accessible via the Internet.

Local resources include a cluster of high-performance RISC-based

RS I 6000 workstations that has

recently been acquired as part of a new Center for Applied Parallel Computing that the ACF, in collaboration with the IBM

Corporation, is setting up at NYU. The

discussion will cover the RISC farm's intended uses and software, as well as the availability of additional resources for computationally intense applications.

The speaker will then focus on the

use, from NYU, of high-performance systems at the National Science Foun­dation supercomputing centers. NYU

researchers and students have been given access via the Internet to these

centers as well as to supercomputing centers operated by NASA and DOE.

(A kit available from the ACF in

Room 305, Warren Weaver Hall, de­

scribes how to apply to some of the NSF centers.) Edward Friedman.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk.

Warren Weaver Hall, room 313 Wednesday 2:00-3:30

Sept. 22

Scientific Visualization Resources at the ACF (Silicon Graphics, Mac, and PC) An introduction to the various scien­tific visualization software systems available on the ACF and other NYU

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 SJ

computing systems. They include the NCAR-GKS software system, a popu­

lar two-dimensional graphics library

featuring color fill, contouring, and maps of the earth; A VS from Ad­vanced Visualization System, Inc.;

Khoros, a system from the University

of New Mexico; Minneview from the University of Minnesota; and scientific

image processing systems from NYU, NIH, and NCSA. This talk will in­

clude discussion of the options avail­

able for obtaining output from these systems - printed images in color or black-and-white, or moving images on

laserdisk or videotape. Additionally, the speaker will talk

about the content, structure and fu­

ture directions of the most popular two-dimensional graphics software

package in the world. The NCAR

library is based on two ISO standards, GKS and CGM, and is operational on systems from microcomputers to

supercomputers. It contains utilities for a range of graphic applications, from drawing simple X-Y plots to

creating complex color images that allow overlaying and masking. Dem­

onstration will include examples of

the capabilities of the package and how it has been used by researchers at NYU. Edward Friedman.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Tuesday 2:30-4:00

Nov.9

For More Information: Call the ACF HelpLine at 998-3333.

Mathematica (Mac, PC, and UNIX) Mathematica is a general system for

doing many sorts of mathematical computations by computer. It can function as a calculator, programming

language, or tool for scientific visual­ization in two or three dimensions. Howard Fink.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Education Building, 2nd floor

Friday 2:00-3:30

Nov.12

Displaying Geographic Data with ATLAS*GIS (PC) An introductory discussion of this

geographic information system soft­

ware that runs on IBM PCs and work­stations at NYU. The talk will focus on using the mapping software to

analyze or present geographic data, doing plots on maps, how boundary and data files are managed with Data

EDIT, and other topics. Frank Lo Presti.

Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Hall, room 313

Friday 10:00-11:30

Nov.12

54 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Statistics, SpreaCl­sFaeets, anCI E>atalr>ases

SPSS: SPSS for Windows (PC, VMS, and WYLBUR) SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is a comprehensive, inte­grated system for statistical data analysis. While this hands-on presen­

tation will use the new Windows ver­

sion of SPSS, the programming

concepts are applicable to all versions of SPSS.

I. Introduction to SPSS Data input, transformations of vari­

ables, creation of "system files," and other manipulations of data will be

discussed. Frank LoPresti. Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Tuesday 6:00-7:30

Sept. 28 Wednesday 6:00-7:30

Oct. 13 Thursday 6:00-7:30

Nov.11

2. Intermediate SPSS Elementary statistical procedures for the analysis of data will be covered.

Frank LoPresti.

Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Tuesday 6:00-7:30

Oct. 5 Wednesday 6:00-7:30

Oct. 20 Thursday 6:00-7:30

Nov.18

Data Entry for SPSS and Other Statistical Packages (PC) A discussion and demonstration of

data-entry techniques and related considerations for researchers in the social sciences and other fields. SPSS/DE, Lotus and other software which might be used for data entry will be demonstrated. Verification techniques and outlier searches will be discussed. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Warren Weaver Halt room 313

Friday 10:00-11:30

Oct. 8

Introduction to SAS (PC, WYLBUR, CMS, and VMS) An introduction to the analyses of­fered by the software package. Discus­sion will include such topics as program structure, language syntax,

data handling, and running programs written with the particular package. ~obert Yaffee. Limited seating; first come, first served; talk. Main Building, room 509

Friday 10:00-12:00

Oct. 15

Introduction to Lotus 1-2-3 (PC) Lotus 1-2-3 was the first major PC spreadsheet, and it remains a central performer. Its concepts and many of its commands are applicable to other spreadsheets. Henry Mullish Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Friday 9:00-12:00

Sept. 17

Introduction to dBASE IV (PC) The program dBASE was the first major database for the PC, and dBASE IV is now in version 2.0. Henry Mullish.

Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Friday 9:00-12:00

Sept. 24

Introduction to Excel (Mac) Microsoft's Excel is a major spread­sheet for the Macintosh. Henry Mullish. Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Friday 9:00-12:00

Oct. 1

Wordprocessing

Microsoft Word (Mac) Microsoft Word is a major word­processing program on Macintosh computers and is especially strong on typography and formatting. Henry Mullish.

I. Introduction to Microsoft Word Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Wednesdays 1:00-2:30

Oct. 6 through Nov. 10

2. Intermediate Microsoft Word Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on class. Education Building, 2nd floor

Thursdays 1:00-2:30

Oct. 7 through Nov. 11

WordPerfect (PC) WordPerfect is the most widely used PC wordprocessing program, with excellent control of such scholarly tools as footnotes, tables, and equa­tions. Henry Mullish.

I. Introduction to WordPerfect Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on workshop. Education Building, 2nd floor

Wednesdays 9:00-12:00

Oct. 6 through Nov. 10

2. Intermediate WordPerfect Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on workshop. Education Building, 2nd floor

Thursdays 9:00-12:00

Oct. 7 through Nov. 11

WordPerfect Graphics (see under Graphics and Multimedia)

Using WordPerfect to Prepare Your Resume (PC) If you wish to exploit your knowledge of WordPerfect in writing a resume, this workshop will show various approaches to making your resume both attractive and informative. Henry

Mullish. Reservations required (998-3333);

hands-on workshop. Education Building, 2nd floor

Friday 9:00-12:00

Oct. 29 Nov.19

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 SS

Users of ACF facilities should be aware of the following dates and deadlines, when schedules change, accounts expire, and files must be archived. For schedules and dates of operation of the ACF facilities, see the inside back cover; for details on registering for computer accounts, see the box on page 60.

September

Current Current Sept. 4-6 Sept. 8 Sept. 8 Sept. 8 Sept. 16 Sept. 25

October

Wed. Wed. Wed. Thur. Sat.

Individual computer account renewal applications are being accepted for fiscal year 1993/94. Instructors apply for Fall 1993 computer Class Accounts as early as possible. Labor Day* Weekend ............................................................................................................ all sites closed Students with Class Accounts register for computer use for fall semester, starting today. ACF' s summer hours end; regular fall hours resume ......................................... see inside back cover Fall Semester begins. Rosh Hashanah ........................................................................................................................ regular hours Yorn Kippur ............................................................................................................................. regular hours

Oct. 11 Mon. Columbus Day ......................................................................................................................... regular hours '

November

Nov.2 Nov. 11 Nov. 25-28

Tues. Thur.

December

Dec. 6 - Jan. 18 Dec. 6-22

Dec. 8-22 Dec. 15-22 Dec. 22 Wed. Dec. 23- Jan. 1 Dec. 23 - Jan. 18

January

Jan. 3 Mon. Jan. 15-17 Jan. 19 Wed.

* University holiday

Election Day ............................................................................................................................. regular hours Veterans' Day .......................................................................................................................... regular hours Thanksgiving Day* Weekend ............................................................................................. holiday hourst

Instructors apply for Spring 1994 computer accounts for their classes. Students who expect Incompletes in fall semester courses should apply for computer account

extensions. (Instructor's signature required.) Students with fall semester Class Accounts should archive all files they wish to keep after Dec. 22. Fall Semester final examinations .......................................................................................... regular hours Student Class Accounts issued for the fall semester expire. , Christmas*-New Year's* Recess .......................................................................................... all sites closed/ Winter Recess ........................................................................................................................ holiday hourst

ACF Offices reopen after Christmas -New Year's Recess ............................................... regular hours Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day* Weekend ....................................................................... all sites closed Spring Semester begins. Instructors, please apply for Spring 1994 Class Accounts, if you have not

already done so .............................................................................................................. regular hours

t Please note: confirmed holiday schedules will be posted via our online news and bulletin board facilities, or can be obtaine by calling the ACF HelpLine at 998-3333.

56 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

September I -- cto er 3 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Sat./Sun.

Applications to Instructors apply for I SEPTEMBER 2 l 415 renew Individual Fall 1993 computer computer Accounts Class Accounts as are being accepted early as possible.

Labor Day for fiscal year

weekend-all 1993/94.

sites closed

6 7 8 9 10 11112 Using the Mac at the Fall Semester Using the Mac at the ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 begins. ACF' s ACF, 11 :00, 2:00

summer hours end. Using PCs at the Regular Fall hours ACF, 2:00 resume. Students Using UNIX at the register for ACF, 2:00

Labor Day-all computer use sites closed starting todav

13 14 IS 16 17 18/19 Using the Mac at the Using the Using the Mac at the Intro to WYLBUR,

ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 ACFcluster, 11 :00 ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 6:00 Using PCs at the Using PCs at the Using PCs at the Iritro to Lotus 1-2-3, ACF, 11:00 ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 ACF, 2:00 9:00

Choosing a E-Mail Part I, 12:00 Using UNIX at the Computer, 2:00 ACF, 2:00

E-Mail Part II, 12:00 Rosh Hashanah

20 21 22 23 24 25/26 Using WYLBUR, Using the Mac at the Using the Using the Mac at the Choosing a

5:30, 6:30 ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 ACFcluster, 11:00 ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 Computer, 12:00 Using PCs at the Using PCs at the Using WYLBUR, Intro to WYLBUR, ACF, 11:00 ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 5:30, 6:30 6:00

Intro to NYU-CWIS, E-Mail Part I, 12:00 Using PCs at the Intro to dBASE IV, 2:30 RISC Farms, 2:00 ACF, 2:00 9:00

Using UNIX at the ACF, 2:00

E-Mail Part II, 12:00 YomKimmr

27 28 29 30 I OCTOBER 2/3 Using WYLBUR, Using the Mac at the Using the Using the Mac at the Intro to WYLBUR,

5:30, 6:30 ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 ACFcluster, 11 :00 ACF, 11 :00, 2:00 6:00 Using PCs at the Using PCs at the Using WYLBUR, Intro to EXCEL, ACF, 11:00 ACF, 11:00, 2:00 5:30, 6:30 9:00

Intro to NYU-CWIS, E-Mail Part I, 12:00 Using PCs at the 2:30 Using the DEC ACF, 2:00

SPSS for Windows Mailer at NYU, Using UNIX at the Part I, 6:00 2:00 ACF, 2:00

E-Mail Part II 12:00

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 57

October 4 - November 7 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Sat./Sun.

4 5 6 7 8 9/10 Using WYLBUR, Intro to NYU-CWIS, E-Mail Part I, 12:00 Using WYLBUR, Uploading and 5:30, 6:30 2:30 Network Services 5:30, 6:30 Downloading on the

SPSS for Windows Part I, 2:00 E-Mail Part II, 12:00 PC, 12:00 Part II, 6:00 WordPerfect Intro, WordPerfect MS-DOS Intro, 2:00

9:00 Intermed, 9:00 Intro to WYLBUR, MS-Word Intro, 1 :00 MS-Word Intermed, 6:00

1:00 Data Entry for SPSS , 10:00

HyperCard Intro, 2:00

I I 12 13 14 15 16/17 Using WYLBUR, Choosing a E-Mail Part I, 12:00 Using WYLBUR, Uploading and 5:30, 6:30 Computer, 2:00 Network Services 5:30, 6:30 Downloading on the

VMS Mail and News, Part II, 2:00 E-Mail Part II, 12:00 Mac, 12:00 2:30 SPSS for Windows WordPerfect M~DOS Intermed,

Part I, 6:00 Intermed, 9:00 2:00 WordPerfect Intro, M~ Word Intermed, Intro to WYLBUR, 9:00 1:00 6:00

MS-Word Intro, 1:00 Intro to SAS, 10:00 HyperCard Intermed,

Columbus Dav 2:00

18 19 20 21 22 23/24 VMS Files and E-Mail Part I, 12:00 E-Mail Part II, 12:00 Uploading and Commands, 2:30 Network Services WordPerfect Downloading on the

Part III, 2:00 Intermed, 9:00 PC, 12:00 SPSS for Windows MS-Word Intermed, MS-DOSintro, 2:00 Part II, 6:00 1:00 Painting and Drawing

WordPerfect Intro, on a Mac, 1:30 9:00 WordPerfect

MS-Word Intro, 1 :00 Graphics, 9:00

25 26 27 28 29 30/31 VMS Networking and E-Mail Part I, 12:00 E-Mail Part II, 12:00 Choosing a Printing, 2:30 Network Services WordPerfect Computer, 12:00

Part IV, 2:00 Intermed, 9:00 Uploading and WordPerfect Intro, MS-Word Intermed, Downloading on the 9:00 1:00 Mac, 12:00

MS-Word Intro, 1 :00 MS-DOS In termed, 2:00

HyperCard Intro, 2:00

Preparing your Resume with WordPerfect 9:00

I NOVEMBER 2 3 4 s 617 VMS Everything Else, Network WordPerfect HyperCard Intermed, 2:30 Administration Part Intermed, 9:00 2:00

I, 2:00 MS-Word Intermed, WordPerfect Intro, 1:00 9:00

MS-Word Intro, 1 :00 Election Dav

58 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

November 8 - January 23 Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Sat./Sun.

8 9 10 I I 12 13/14 Scientific Troubleshooting the SPSS for Windows Mathematica, 2:00

Visualization at Mac, 12:00 Part I, 6:00 WordPerfect NYU, 2:30 Network WordPerfect Graphics, 9:00

Administration Part Intermed, 9:00 ATLAS*GIS, 10:00 II, 2:00 MS-Word lntermed,

WordPerfect Intro, 1:00 9:00

MS-Word Intro, 1:00 Veteran's Dav

15 16 17 18 19 20/21 Troubleshooting the SPSS for Windows Preparing your

PC, 12:00 Part II, 6:00 Resume with Network WordPerfect, 9:00 Administration Part III, 2:00

22 23 24 25 26 27128 Thanksgiving Day- I Thanks~ving Weekend-I

all sites closed hours to e announced

29 Instructors apply for Spring I DECEMBER 2 3 415 1994 Class Accounts

6 (through Jan. 18) as early 8 as possible. Students ex-

9 10 11112

13 pecting lncompletes apply

15 16 17 18/19 for account extensions (through Dec. 22). Students

Final examinations begin.

20 with Class Accounts

22 23 24 25/26 archive all files they wish to keep after 12/22. Final examinations Christmas-New

end. Student Class Year's Recess Accounts issued for begins; all ACF the Fall semester offices closed expire. through Jan. 3.

Christmas Day

27 28 29 30 31 1/2 JANUARY New Year's Day

3 4 5 6 7 819 ACF Offices reooen

10 II 12 13 14 15/16 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend-all sites closed

17 18 19 20 21 22/23 Dr. Martin Luther Spring Semester

King, Jr. Day-all begins. Regular sites closed Spring hours resume.

Academic Computing and Networking at NYU September 1993 59

The F's icrocomputer

La oratories ... From its five locations, the ACF provides a wide variety of computers and related services for faculty, research staff and students. The map on the opposite page shows the ACF' s locations, and the hours of operation are listed beneath it.

For some ACF services, an account is required. Prior­ity access to ACF microcomputers is available; see box at right.

The ACF offers hundreds of computers for use by members of the NYU community. For a partial listing of what is available, see the box at right.

Access to the ACF's Instructional Micro Labs NYU degree and diploma students, faculty, and staff

may use ACF microcomputers, at no charge, as general users or by obtaining a priority account. Priority accounts are issued for specific academic purposes and allow

priority access to ACF computers (For hours of avail­ability to general users and to holders of priority ac­counts, see "Regular Fall Hours at ACF Sites," on

opposite page). Obtaining an ACF account. To use the lab as a general user, simply bring your current, valid NYU ID (please note that ID cards stamped "General" - which typically are issued to non-degree, non-diploma students - are not included

in this category, unless also stamped "faculty") to any of the labs listed at right. Priority access accounts (indi­vidual and class accounts) ·are obtained at the ACF's Ac­

counts Office (Room 305 Warren Weaver Hall, 998-3035). Once an instructor obtains a class account from the Accounts Office, students are eligible to regis­

ter for computer use at any of the labs. Students re­

questing individual accounts must have their application forms signed by an instructor.

What's Available at the Labs in the fall of 1993 The following microcomputer equipment is available

at the ACF' s instructional computer labs. All systems

are connected to local networks and are linked to the campus-wide network, NYU-NET, and are connected

locally to Novell-based file servers and laser printers. Over 100 packages of software are available. For hours

of operation, see opposite page. Third Avenue North Residence Hall, basement (86 computers): • 7 DEC 486 computers with 8 MB of memory, 120 MB

hard disks, and color monitors

• 30 IBM and IBM-type computers with VGA color

monitors • 19 Macintosh Ilsi computers with color monitors

• 30 Apple Macintosh SE computers, with two floppy drives

Education Building, 2nd floor (90 computers, excluding Arts and Media Studio): • 21 Macintosh Quadra 700 computers with 80 MB

hard disks, 20 MB memory, and 16-inch color

monitors

• 2 Quadra 800 computers with CD-ROM drives and color monitors

• 6 Mac IIVX computers with CD-ROM drives and

color monitors

• 16 Macintosh Ilsi computers with color monitors

• 21 Macintosh Ilci computers with color monitors, and 17MBmemory

• 24 IBM PS/2 computers, model 55SX, with VGA color

monitors Tisch Hall, Room LC-8 (58 computers): • 25 IBM PS/2 computers, model 55SX, with VGA color

monitors • 15 IBM PS/2 computers, model 30, with monochrome

monitors

• 18 Macintosh Plus computers 14 Washington Place (62 computers): • 25 DEC 486 computers with 8 MB of memory, 120

MB hard disks, color monitors and 486DX processors

• 7 Gateway 2000 computers with 486 processors, 8 MB

memory, and Super-VGA monitors • 30 IBM PS/2 computers, model 70, with VGA color

monitors; 25 with numeric coprocessor and joystick

60 September 1993 Academic Computing and Networking at NYU

Important ACF Telephone Numbers ACF HelpLine

Account Information

Computer Documentation

Faculty Microcomputer Lab

Statistical Consultants

Computer Labs:

14 Washington Place

Tisch Hall

Education Building

Warren Weaver Hall

Third Ave. North Res. Hall

Dial-in Access to ACF Computers

998-3333

998-3035

998-3036

998-3044

998-3434

998-3457

998-3409

998-3421

998-3456

998-3504

(Via NYU-NET, NYU' s campus-wide network.)

If calling from Dial for (bps)

Off Campus 995-3600 300-2400

995-4343 9600,14400

995-4335* 300-1200 *This number is recommended if you are using an

older modem that has no error-correction.

Exceptions to regular hours: confirmed

holiday schedules will be posted via our

online news and bulletin board facilities,

and ACF offices in Warren Weaver Hall

are closed on University holidays.

Washington Square Center

Guide to ACF user work areas

and other facilities

ACF r7:l NYU LOCATION liliiliJ BUILDING

1. Warren Weaver Hall, 251 Mercer St., 3rd floor

2. Tisch Hall, 40 W. 4th St., lower concourse (Rooms LC-7 and LC-8)

3. 14 Washington Pl., basement

4. Education Building, 35 W. 4th St., second floor

5. 715 Broadway (IBM tapes only)

6. Third Ave. North Res. Hall, 75 Third Ave., level C3

ACF microcomputer labs are at (2), (3), (4), and (6). NYU Trolley and NYU Shuttle routes include (6): Mon.-Thurs., every 15 minutes (8:00 am-11:00

pm); Fri. and Sun., every 30 minutes (6:00 pm-1:00 am) during the aca­demic year.

Regular Fall Hours at ACF Sites Regular Hours (for exceptions, see above, left)

Sun. Mon.-Thurs. Fri. Sat. User Work Areas: 14 Washington Place* closed 8:30 am - 11:30 pm 8:30 am - 11:30 pm 8:30 am - 5:30 pm

Tisch Hall* closed 8:30 am - 11:30 pm 8:30 am-11:30 pm 8:30 am - 5:30 pm

Education Building* closed 8:30 am - 11:30 pm 8:30 am - 11:30 pm 8:30 am - 5:30 pm

Third Ave. North 10:30 am - 1:30 am 10:30 am - 1 :30 am 10:30 am - 5:30 pm 10:30 am - 5:30 pm

Consultant Hours: 14 Washington Place closed 9:00 am - 9:00 pm 9:00 am - 9:00 pm 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Tisch Hall closed 9:00 am - 9:00 pm 9:00 am - 9:00 pm 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Education Building closed 9:00 am - 9:00 pm 9:00 am - 9:00 pm 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Third Ave. North 10:30 am - 10:00 pm 10:30 am - 10:00 pm 10:30 am - 5:30 pm 10:30 am - 5:30 pm

'Available to general users from 8:30 am to 1:00 pm, Mon. through Fri., and to priority access account holders

during all hours of operation.

Life in Cyberspace

Scoring Films on Cue and Online Expanded Arts and Media Resources

The Powerbook as Musician's Rep

lmmersive Theater and Collaborative Learning

Manifold: Ribbons of Marble in Crystal

NYU Summer Computer Program for High School Students

The Communications Revolution Nominations Invited for Goldstein Prize

Report on Spring Colloquia

DYABOLA: A Bibliographic Database

for Classical Scholars

2 4

7

8 10

11 13

13 14

15

Newsbytes: The MLA on Computers • Medievalists Go Electronic • Medieval­Culture Software • E-Mail to the NEH 17

Information at Your Fingertips: NYU-CWIS 18

A Gopher-Based CWIS 20 NUPop: An E-Mail Program for PCs 22 Update on PSINet Dial-In Service 24

ACF Cluster Upgraded 24 Network Operations Center Publishes

NYU-NET Technical Handbook 25 Free NYU-NET Connections in Dorms 27

Scholarly Electronic Conferences 28

Newsbytes: White House E-Mail • Congress Joins Internet• Academe

• Flood Information 31

Published by the Academic Computing Facility of New York University 251 Mercer Street New York, N.Y. 10012

at Bobst

Data Base Archive

NIH Image: Scientific Image Display,

Enhancement, and Analysis XMOL: Displaying Molecular Images At the Scientific Visualization Center

Molecules in Motion

Metacenter Coordinates NSF Resources

CAPC Begins to Fulfill Its Promise

ACF's Convex to Be Retired

Gives Seminars Conferences of Interest

at

32

34

36 39 39

40

41

42 42

43

45 46

What's New at the ACF Helpline 47 ACF Classes, Workshops, and Talks 48

ABC's of Computers: 49 • Computers and Operating Systems: 50 • E-Mail and FAXmail: 51 • Networks: 52 • Graphics:

53 • Scientific Computing and Visualiza­

tion: 53 • Statistics, Spreadsheets, and Databases: 54 • Wordprocessing: 55

Important Dates for ACF Users 56

Calendar 57 ACF's Microcomputer Labs 60

Cover: Manifold, a work of Virtu Sculpture by David M. Geshwind produced at the ACF's Arts and Media Videographics Studio. For details, see page 11.