jxh@cup.portal.com (Jim - Hickstein) (12/06/88)
A few weeks ago I got "The World Digitized" off of WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL and started playing around with a display program. Now that I can zoom to arbitrarily small areas, I can clearly see the "many but minor" errors in the database. Also, the database is quite limited: only coastlines, islands, lakes and national boundaries; and many islands and lakes are missing. I have heard of the National Cartographic Information Center (NCIC): are they on the net? I have heard of the Bureau of the Census (which maintains a tremendous database of DIME files containing, among other things, city streets for all the SMSAs (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area?) in the nation. Are *they* on the net? Is there such a thing as an SMSA for countries outside the U.S.? Which international organizations send out tapes of city streets for Beijing and prefectural boundaries for the USSR? Are *THEY* on the net? (Are prefrectural boundaries even very well defined? :-) Key areas of interest are: USA, China, Indonesia, Israel, Pakistan, Iran, Great Britain, Germany, and even Des Moines (so far: but our marketing guy moves rapidly and the list grows daily). In short, I WANT TAPES! I have money and time (in small amounts) and am willing to write lots of code to extract the interesting stuff from almost any scope of database available. My humble PC has a 6250bpi 9-track tape drive: bring 'em on! Telephone exchanges, annual rainfall, anything. ZIP codes would be interesting, too. If you have pointers to renewable sources of this kind of information (i.e. updated every so often), please send them to me. Thank you very much. -Jim Hickstein jxh@cup.portal.com ...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!jxh