Don't be too high-tech!!! Re: VAX/VMS & NCBI's _Entrez_: text interface desired

[Reinhard Doelz]

In article <C6ons3.4G7 at murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, wrp at cyclops.micr.Virginia.EDU (Bill Pearson) writes:
|> In article <930507104042.214062a7 at JAGUAR.CSC.WSU.EDU> THOMPSON at JAGUAR.CSC.WSU.EDU ("Steve Thompson: VADMS genetics") writes:
...
|> 
|> >Yet few of our users have X-window server software on their machines,
|> >furthermore, many of our users ONLY have access to text or at most
|> >Tek graphics terminals.
|> 
|> It is hard to believe that there are more terminals than Windows compatible
|> PC's at many universities today.
|> 
|> >Has anybody developed a text only interface to _Entrez_ ?!
|> 
|> No, nor should they.
|> 


It is reality that the current infrastructure in Universities is that 
workgroups of 5-15 persons have rarely access to Workstations or 
ethernetted environments. Some even use modems to access a vt100 type 
server. My surveys indicate that, in Switzerland, the number of 
users who currently have vt100 type serial access to molecular biology
computing is considerable and will stay considerable in the next 
years due to low economy -> shrinking budgets -> no money to recable
buildings. This is also true in most parts of Germany and other 
countries where I know the environments. 

Despite my believe that a GUI is what all biologists should have 
it is a severe mistake to neglect all non-X or non-ethernetted biologists. 
A certain fraction doesn't even have access to the central facility 
but need to walk (or even travel) to get to a place where a access point
is on the desktop. So lests behave as generous as possible and stick 
to also line-oriented interfaces. 
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