Intro

The RESOURCES Network Database System was a specially tailored application, developed entirely in Interact to run on EIES. The application was integrated directly into the conferencing system: typing +RESOURCES at an EIES prompt brought you into RESOURCES, typing ++ while in a database brought you into EIES. While there were many unique features regarding this system, it suffered from many limitations and restrictions, so the use was not widespread. According to Robert Michie, Storage was a major issue that kept many people away. Due to space limitations at the time, there were charges for not only database storage and use, as well as the normal EIES access. Actually, the only product of the CCCC that did sell was the X.25 interface, which was more advanced than the commercial option available from Perkin-Elmer at the time (Though that is an entirely different subject).

RESOURCES was designed for synonymous use with a conferencing system, so many of the unique features facilitate efforts within the system. All objects within RESOURCES have keyword associations with a THESAURUS. So you can retrieve objects by a very flexible keyword association. Keywords can be Greater Than or Less Than other keywords, for example, ENERGY being greater tha SOLAR. This type of index is very interesting in light of modern database systems in which only data matters. RESOURCES is a fascinating solution to that problem.





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