Survival, the second (reminder)

[Survival Guide Project]

Dear colleague, 
the Biocomputing Survival guide has been entirely reshaped. The 
idea of a new version is threefold and summarized as follows: 

o Allows the production of 
                        HTML, LaTEX, RTF documents
o With "include" and "ifdef" statements, 
                        allows for site adaption 
o If used in HTML, makes use of the 
                        HASSLE 'reflector' and 'receptor' schema


We did announce an alpha test of the software and are now proceeding to 
the beta phase. The startup of this will be a seminar at the BIOMOO, 
see below, and an announcement will follow at the weekend. 

Regards
Reinhard Doelz
Biocomputing Basel






S E M I N A R     O N    ' J A M '    L A N G U A G E 

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The Documentation of Biological Environments is difficult to achieve if 
several formats, styles and media (printed/electronic) are to be considered. 
The JAM language (Just Another Metafile) is a simple-to-use language to be
used in order to produce HTML, RTF or LaTEX format. As a special feature, 
the HTML version allows to have jobs executed on the client's (VMS/UNIX) 
machine, thus serving as 'menu' system. The purpose of the seminar is to 
introduce basic concepts and to discuss implementation matters. 

'JAM' is the language which has been used to create the Biocomputing Survival
Guide in version 2.0, which will be available in October 1994. The major em-
phasis of the HTML application is to introduce the HASSLE reflector system, 
which eventually extends to the HASSLE receptor later.

Date: September 30, 1994, noontime GMT 
Place: EMBnet Cafe @BIOMOO

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If you are unfamiliar with BIOMOO, telnet to bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il
on port 8888 and connect as 'Guest'. All you have to do, after connecting to
the moo at the correct time, is to enter the command '@go embnet' to go to 
the EMBnet cafe, and watch your screen. There are help files on the GOPHER
at bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il with all sorts of FAQ and information on 
MOO's. You might also want to point a Mosaic client to the URL 
<a href=http://bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il:70> there </a>.

If you are unfamiliar with what MOO is, 'MOO's are 'MUD's, Object Oriented. 
'MUD's are Multi User Dungeons, and if you are familiar with 'talk' or 'phone'
on your normal host computer, imagine that you have more than one person to 
talk to, and this can be done in several compartments called 'rooms' in 
between which you can move. MOOs developed further than that, and one of 
the features we use in the seminar is a 'slide projector' which shows a page
of previously prepared text, and the option to discuss the slides, and ask 
questions, by simple commands. I.e., if I show a slide in the EMBnet cafe, 
all you may type is 
"I don't understand that
and all others will see 
The Guest says, "I don't understand that".
Then, I might reply typing 
: nods and will try to explain this on the following slide 
and all others will see 
Biodoelz nods and will try to explain this on the following slide 

BioMOO is a text and image-based virtual reality (VR) system that serves
the world biology community. It was founded by Gustavo Glusman and Jaime 
Prilusky in 1993 and runs on the Bioinformatics server at the Weizmann 
Institute in Rehovot, Israel. BioMOO serves biologists as a tool for 
communication, teaching, and performing research.

Time permitting, we will try something new - work with 'slides' which 
have graphics in them. We'll se - come and pay a visit! 

Regards
Reinhard 


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