robertj@tekgen.bv.tek.com (Robert Jaquiss) (06/13/91)
Index Number: 16024
I scanned in the following item. I think I caught all the scanning
errors but I have missed some.
Robert S. Jaquiss Jr.
Internet: robertj@tekgen.bv.tek.com
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Special Interest Group on CD-ROM Applications & Technology
June 13, 1991, Meeting
Greetings once again from SIGCAT. It's spring, and CD-ROM is
popping up all over! One agency after another is bringing out a new
application on CD-ROM. A few years ago, agencies were planning for
only a disc or two to be produced during the year; we now see
projects that are gearing up to produce dozens, if not hundreds, of
titles over the next 12 to 18 months. As an example, the U.S.
Geological Survey is about to produce a series comprised of 28
titles containing digital mapping data for the entire Nation at the
1:100,000 scale. The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration's Magellan project is projected to use 50 discs to
hold all of the data collected from the radar mapping of Venus.
The Defense Mapping Agency should easily produce over 800 titles
this fiscal year. The magnitude of these Government CD-ROM efforts
implies disc replication figures in the millions. As a result,
mastering costs are now consistently under $1,000 (5-day
turnaround), and replication costs are typically less than $2.00
per disc.
In addition, several excellent "royalty-free" software packages,
together with $399 CD-ROM drives, continue to fuel the fire and
push predictions of an installed base of CD-ROM drives to two
million this year and six million by the end of 1992 (source: J.B.
Schwerin, InfoTech).
The next meeting of SIGCAT will take place on Thursday, June 13,
1991, in the main auditorium of the U.S. Geological Survey near
downtown (yes, we now have a downtown) Reston, Va. This meeting
will live up to the SIGCAT acronym and offer presentations on a
variety of CD-ROM applications and technology. The applications
range from the new version of the award-winning Compton's
Multimedia Encyclopedia to new Government information products,
including the National Trade Data Bank, the Federal Register, and
three new discs from the U.S. Army Publications and Printing
Command. The technology presentations will include three authoring
software packages (SmarTrieve, BRS/SEARCH, and Dataware) as well as
a complete demonstration (including an on-stage production of a
write-once disc) of Sony's exciting new product known as the "Data
Discman."
We often hear that the global economy looks to the United States
for innovation and to Japan for fabrication. This view, although
suffering from over simplification, probably has some validity
based on the divergent cultural characteristics of individualism
versus group participation. However, there is one outstanding
exception to this generalization--the Sony Corporation. This
company embodies both technological innovation and unparalleled
production expertise. Recognized around the world, Sony has
achieved an international reputation for quality in everything it
does--including CD-ROM. Not only did Sony cofound the compact disc
industry, but it also revolutionized portable audio technology in
1979 with its 'Walkman" product line. Since then, Sony has
introduced a continuous set of breakthrough technologies, including
the portable TV (the 'Watchman'), the portable CD player (the
"Discman"), and now, just in time for the June SIGCAT, its latest
achievement the portable CD-ROM computer called the "Data Discman.'
The Sony Data Discman is a hand-held "Electronic Book" that plays
8-cm optical discs in both CD-ROM and CD Audio format and includes
built-in retrieval software along with a high-resolution LCD
display to provide a completely portable, self-contained database
access device. Capable of holding around 200 megabytes of
information, this incredible piece of technology opens the way for
a whole new genre of CD-ROM applications.
Greg Smith, International Sales and Marketing Manager for the Sony
Electronic Publishing Company (SEPC), will be keynoting the Sony
announcement. Greg will unveil a US-based software toolset for the
Data Discman and will make the first U.S. application developed
with the new toolset on stage with the Sony CD Write Once system.
Greg will also introduce other members of his management team (Bob
Hurley, Eastern Regional Sales and marketing Manager, and Keith
Dalton, Manager of System Sales) to provide updates on the complete
spectrum of Sony CDROM support Bob will discuss 8-cm CD mastering
and replication, and Keith will talk about how the new CD format is
compatible with existing Sony CD-ROM drives sold through the
current Defense Electronic Supply Center II (DESCII) contract. For
a comprehensive overview of the Sony Corporation's contribution to
the CD-ROM industry, as well as a fascinating glimpse of the
future, make sure you're on time for the first presentation of the
June meeting.
Our next presentation should be both informative and entertaining.
The SIGCAT audience will have an opportunity to see the latest
version of the award-winning Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia
CD-ROM. This product was created by using one of the first
authoring software packages to incorporate a "natural language"
interface, which allows a user to enter a complicated query without
having to know Boolean logic. Larry Van Cantfort, Director of
Technical Services for Britannica Software, along with Carl
Beckman, Vice President at Alan Sarfaty and Associates, will
demonstrate the Compton's Multime&a Encyclopedia and discuss
Britannica's sophisticated CD-ROM search and retrieval engine
called SmarTrieve, which was used to create this product. In
addition to demonstrating the natural language interface, Larry
will also discuss and demonstrate the 1.2 million-word "semantic
network" inherent to SmarTrieve, which further enhances its ease of
use. CD-ROM developers will be particularly interested in the
SmarTrieve Toolkit, which allows for building applications that
incorporate SmarTrieve's natural language capabilities, along with
other advanced functions such as relevance ranking, fuzzy spelling,
and multimedia links. Larry will provide a technical overview on
many of these capabilities and relate them to project
requirements.
At the April SIGCAT meeting, Counterpoint Publishing distributed
copies of its new Compact Disc Federal Register product called the
CDIFR. Sandy Friedman, President of Counterpoint, told the
audience that he would be back at the June meeting to present the
CDIFR in more detail and to report on the feedback from the user
community, particularly the reaction to the user interface. Well,
Sandy's back, and he has lots of interesting things to discuss
concerning the CDIFR.
Counterpoint's CDIFR is produced weekly. Each disc contains 6
months of the full text of the daily Federal Register as well as
all of the software necessary to use it. Use of the Federal
Register spans the spectrum from the infrequent user seeking to
find an article on a specific page number to the very sophisticated
user who must constantly monitor the activities of multiple
agencies. This wide range of users, together with the inherent
complexity of the Federal Register itself, presented a set of
formidable requirements for the design of the CDIFR's user
interface. Sandy will discuss this design effort and how it was
influenced by the current users of the Federal Register.
Our next presentation is significant for two reasons. First, it
represents a major information product on CD-ROM from the
Department of Commerce called the National Trade Data Bank (NTDB).
Secondly, this product incorporates one of the first applications
of the "client/server model" using the Romware (Nimbus Information
Systems) Data Base Server.
The NTDB, a new service from the Department of Commerce, selects
the best international trade and economic information available and
provides it in a consolidated and convenient electronic format
Updated monthly, the NTDB CD-ROM contains over 100,000 documents
related to U.S. export promotion and international trade, collected
from 15 Federal agencies. A total of 48 individual databases are
used, including a mixture of text and tabular data. The NTDB is an
invaluable resource for businesses making crucial decisions about
exporting in today's complex and competitive international
markets.
Ken Rogers, Director of dx Business Statistics and Information
Systems Division at the Department of Commerce, will discuss the
design philosophy of the NTDB, including the issues of data
conversion and production scheduling, as well as NTDB's conception
as a "warehouse of trade data." Ken will also provide a
demonstration of the latest NTDB retrieval software. The NTDB has
been available monthly on CD-ROM since October 1990; a single disc
can be purchased for $35 and a 12-month subscription for $360.
Call the NTDB Help Line at (202) 377-1986 for more information.
The client/server software being used on the NTDB is very relevant
to the interoperability initiatives presented at the last SIGCAT
meeting. The idea is that, once circulation of the NTDB disc
reaches a "critical mass," third-party developers will write their
own specialized applications. To that end, Commerce is providing a
developers' toolkit to anyone interested in writing their own
search and retrieval program. Addressing these and other technical
aspects of the NTDB will be Jerry Reid, Director of the Integrated
Systems Group at Phoenix Systems. Jerry will also discuss the
programming considerations relative to the use of the Romware
database server.
In keeping with the trend of recent SIGCAT meetings, we will have
yet another industry announcement for an external CD-ROM drive
priced at $399 for SIGCAT members. This offer will also include a
"bundled" version of this drive in which six top-selling CD-ROM
titles can be purchased with the drive for a total price of just
$569. Make sure you're here for this announcement--you just may be
able to do some early Christmas shopping this year.
If you are a serious CD-ROMer, you should be aware of a publication
called the CD-ROM Professional. This magazine, published
bimonthly, contains a wealth of information for both the novice and
the experienced user. Many in-depth articles provide first-hand
user experience with new CD-ROM titles, software interfaces, and
many more facets of the technology. Adam Pemberton, Publisher of
CD-ROM Professional, will be on hand to briefly discuss recent
growth and future trends within the CD-ROM industry. The past year
has been one of great change in a number of areas, including price,
available tools, and distxibution. CD-ROM Professional has also
undergone tremendous change in the areas of editorial coverage,
graphic design, advertising, and circulation. A number of these
related issues will be discussed in the context of the future of
the industry. You'll also be able to pick up a free copy of the
magazine at the meeting.
One of the things accounting for the tremendous growth in the use
of CD-ROM over the past year has been the bottom-line savings in
the area of technical documentation. Applications abound in both
the public and the private sectors, but one of the most dramatic
examples of how CD-ROM is saving time and money can be found in the
airline industry. Many people are quite surprised to find that the
entire maintenance manual for the Boeing 767 aircraft is contained
on a single CD-ROM disc. This disc includes not only the text from
the manual but also the illustrated parts catalog as well as all of
the complex wiring diagrams and other related image documents.
This specialized application area requires software with very
sophisticated data-handling and display capabilities. Such a
package is BRS/SEARCH from Maxwell Data Management (MDM), Inc.
MDM has been in the forefront of aircraft maintenance manual
applications for several years. Its efforts have resulted in
significant improvements on the hangar floor in terms of
productivity and changed behavior. Carol Lehrman, Vice President
of Strategic Planning at MDM, will present an overview of MDM's
highly successful CDROM application in the airline industry,
including some interesting productivity improvements as viewed from
the customer's perspective. Carol will also discuss the
integration of text and graphics through hypertext links, the
"challenges" of working in an environment of unstructured data, and
MDM's customization efforts to meet specific customer needs. For a
fascinating discussion and demonstration of a real-world
productivity enhancement application, be sure to catch Carol's
presentation.
The success of most CD-ROM products is largely a function of the
software chosen to implement the application, particularly in the
area of sophisticated electronic publishing, where high performance
and versatility are a must. Versatility is deaned in today's
marketplace as the ability not only to handle text data but also to
combine this text with tabular, structured, and image data.
However, as the complexity of data types increases, the developer
is faced with a series of design tradeoffs as to the most
appropriate and effective retrieval mechanism to be used. Document
structuring paradigms such as the increasingly popular Standard
Generalized Markup Language (SGML) expand these tradeoffs even
farther by allowing retrieval based on structural information.
Only a few companies have developed authoring systems that combine
high performance and the versatility needed to handle highly
complex data types. Dataware Technologies, Inc., is certainly one
of these companies. The June SIGCAT meeting will provide one of
the first public showings of the new CD Atithor Hypertext
Development System from Dataware. CD Author Hypertext is optimized
for integrating text, structured data, and graphics and is based on
SGML as its underlying text format. David Wilcox, Vice President
of Sales and Marketing, will lead the Dataware presentation, which
will demonstrate the differences between an application optimized
for text retrieval and one optimized for data retrieval. The
subject matter of the demonstration should be of particular
interest to Government agencies, as it emphasizes the use of SGML
as well as CALS. David will be accompanied by Ed Black, Vice
President of Development at Dataware, in addressing the issues of
(1) matching content and retrieval requirements, (2) evaluating
search options, (3) evaluating delivery options, and (4) optimizing
CD-ROM performance. The information provided in the Dataware
presentation should prove invaluable to those looking to evaluate
and ultimately select a high-performance, versatile authoring
system.
Our final speaker represents one of the largest potential users of
CD-ROM in the world--the U.S. Army. Leo Pozo, Project Manager at
the U.S. Army Publications and Printing Command (USAPPC), will
discuss and demonstrate two CD-ROM applications recently
implemented by the USAPPC. The first, known as the "INDEX"
application, is the CD-ROM equivalent of the Consolidated Index of
Army Publications and Forms (also known as the PAM 25-30). This
application is currently distributed on about 34 microfiche to over
20,000 recipients. The other application is referred to as
"ARMYPLJBS" and includes about 750 administrative publications,
regulations, pamphlets, and circulars. Both of these applications
have undergone months of field testing, the results of which are
now being evaluated.
Leo will also mention the various issues that surfaced during the
development and field testing of these CD-ROM applications. This
discussion will also address a third application called FORMS,
which is similar to one demonstrated by Ron Kercheval of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers at an earlier SIGCAT meeting. Leo will
also comment on current expectations for CD-ROM at his command as
well as on his observations on the effects of computer technology
in general, and of optical technology in particular, for publishing
in the Army and other DOD organizations.
GIS Working Group Meeting
The technology of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is finding
application in a wide variety of fields, from logistics to resource
management. Most of these applications require large databases to
be stored, processed, and displayed. Since CD-ROM can provide such
large databases, a marriage of these two technologies seems only
natural. The GIS Working Group explores this combination of CD-ROM
and GIS and serves as a focal point for information and
applications. This group will hold its sixth meeting on Friday,
June 14 (rescheduled from a previously announced date) on the day
after the SIGCAT meeting. This meeting is scheduled to include
tours of the GIS facilities at both the Intergraph Corporation
(10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.) and the U.S. Geological Survey (1:00
p.m. - 2:30 p.m.). To sign up for these tours (first come, first
served) and obtain directions, please contact Dan Costanzo at the
Army Engineer Topographic Laboratories, (703) 355-2877 or FAX him
on (703) 355-3176.
CDOWG
CD-ROM Data Origination Working Group
Meeting
Many organizations in the Federal sector have now acquired
workstations that allow employees to perform inhouse all of the
operations associated with premastering a CD-ROM disc. A SIGCAT
working group has been established to network the people familiar
with the operation and use of these workstations. The objective is
to share solutions to common problems, useful techniques, and other
tips that are often vital to the efficient operation of these
systems. A CDOWG meeting is scheduled to take place after the full
SIGCAT meeting from 3:30 p.m. to approximately 4:30 p.m. Further
details will be provided at the full meeting. Please contact
Maureen Prettyman at the National Institutes of Health, (301)
496-1936, for further information.
That about rounds out the June meeting. With thee variety of
late-breaking applications as well as the presentations on some of
the latest authoring software and portable delivery platforms,
there should be something for just about everyone in the June
SIGCAT meeting. In addition, in case you didn't get a copy of the
SIGCAT Software Showcase disc at the last meeting (this disc
contains 12 different software retrieval applications), Disc
Manufacturing, Inc. (DMI), has been kind enough to press another
set and make them available to attendees at the June meeting.
For directions, please call the SIGCAT Info Line at (703)
648-4452. For any other questions, I can be reached at (703)
648-7126 or FI'S 959-7126.
EJ. (jerry) McFaul
Computer Scientist, U.S. Geological Survey
SIGCAT - June 13, 1991 - AGENDA
USGS Main Auditorium - Reston, Va.
9:00 a.m.- 9:15 a.m.
Introductory Remarks
9:15 a.m.- 10:15 a.m.
Greg Smith, National Sales and Marketing Manager Sony Electronic Publishing
Company - (408) 944-4027 Bob Hurley, Eastern Regional Sales and Marketing
Manager Sony Electronic Publishing Company - (603) 595-4331 Keith Dalton,
Manager, Systerm Marketing
Sony Electronic Publishing Company - (703) 620-1305 10:15 a.m.- 10:45 a.m.
Larry Van Cantfort, Director of Technical Services
Britannica Software - (415) 597-5555
Carl Beckman, Vice President
Alan Sarfaty and Associates - (301) 577-0894
10:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Break No. 1
11:00 a.m.- 11:30 a.m.
Sandy Friedman, President
Counterpoint Publishing - (617) 235-4667
11:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Ken Rogers, Director, Business Statistics and Information System Division
Department of Commerce - (202) 377-4450 Jerry Reid, Director, Integrated System
Group Phoenix Systems, Inc. - (703) 522-0820
12:00 p.m. - 12:45 p.m.
Lunch
12:45 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Adam Pemberton, President
CD-ROM Professional Magazine - (800) 248-8466
1:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Carol Lehrman, Vice President, Strategic Planning
Maxwell Data Management, Inc. - (708) 574-6713
1:30 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.
David Wilcox, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Ed Black, Vice President,
Development Dataware Technologies, Inc. - (617) 621-0820
2:15 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Break No. 2
2:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Leo Pozo, Project Manager
U.S. Army Publications and Printing Command - (703)325-6262