NCSA Mosaic is a client program for WWW (World-Wide_Web).

I would love to have anyone who has experienced this to add to what
I know about it. My understanding is that WWW brings together all
of the internet protocols into a meta-protocol. If this is true,
a client program for it would be capable of replacing client
programs for all of the other protocols.

I do not know for certain which client platforms Mosaic has been
ported to, but I certainly do know that there is a Mac version. It
can be found (as I recall) in /afs/umich.edu/group/itd/mac/util/comm
or by ftp from mac.archive@umich.edu in util/comm

It requires MacTCP, of course, and if your Mac is not on the
internet, you must gain access via a LAP/mdev like PPP.
Anonymous PPP will not cut it for using this program, so I am out of
luck and have never used it and cannot tell you how cool it is.

I have posted this partially because rcurl prompted me to do so, and
partially in hopes that someone (perhaps even rcurl) will get a
copy and go surfing with it. If anyone does this, or has used it,
please post any comments they have.

By the way, we will not see a Mosaic program here on Grex, because
you need a full graphic interface. (Maybe one day when we all dial
into a PowerPC 620 - based Grex via ISDN lines and all use X servers.) 

104 responses total.

I found Mosaic in ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu   along with all the associated
viewers. 

Yesterday I downloaded an example "movie" and "sound", and also
easyplayer, via the U AppleShare backbone, by means of ARNS (AppleTalk
Remote Network Server). The folder was 1.3 MB and took 80 minutes to
download (FTP runs at ca. 1.2KBps for me, normally). The "movie" ran
for about 45 seconds, as did the music. And the "movie" was really a
"slide show" (of art from the 1920s), which didn't look so hot on my
B&W powerbook. I may not have the technology needed to take advantage
of Mosaic.

I guess I was assuming you had a color Mac with high-speed internet
connection in your office. Sorry.

I do, but what I'm supposed to be doing in my office is something else
;-). Well, anyway...I've run Mosaic, and can see that I'll have to
devote a dayay (or more...) to it. I'll also have to get all the "viewers"
(GIF, TIFF, MPeg, AUSound, etc) to have everything work. Mosaic connects
automatically to the mosaic server (somewhere...), and presents narrative
menus pointing you to many options ala libraries, exhibits, etc. You
can choose main sources, or just click on underlined phrases, and mosaic
then *downloads* the material relative to your selection - from servers
someplace around the world - and presents it to you. The new material
has new general and "underlined" options - and so it goes. The available
material does not appear to be highly technical, but the sort of things
you would find on exhibit in libraries, museums, etc - general education.
I can see many possible applications for general education.

drool

(srw slinks away convinced he has contributed to the delinquency of
 a chem-E prof.)

I suppose I should tell someone when I enter mosaic, so they'll know
where to come look for me. Well, I have the viewers now, so soon.....

Rane, how are you connected to the internet?  Through Grex or through
the University?  I was under the impression that Mosaic requires a
direct connection.  I'm guessing that Mosaic is not accessible through
Grex--do you know if that's right?

I know that you're right carl. rcurl has a Mac that's on the internet.
That's partly why I drooled on my keyboard while reading his response.

I have MichNet access by virtue of being a UM employee. My powerbook
becomes a host on the Internet by virtue of dialing in with MacPPP. I
even get assigned an IP number when I sign on -though its different
each time. 

Anyone can do the MacPPP trick, but only to access MichNet hosts.
I do this too, but my Mac won't run Mosaic, as it needs to go beyond the
MichNet perimeter. Since I am not a UM employee, they want $35/month
for the service, and that's too steep for me.

I was playing on mosaic, and encountered a limit on what I can do: my
PB has "only" 4MB RAM, and System take 2MB, and Mosaic 2MB, so no
viewers will open. I suppose I could load only MacTCP, MacPPP and prefs,
and recover a little from INITS - but it looks like one needs a machine
with 8MB RAM for really surfing mosaic.

  (or you could use virtual memory)

Thank you. I had completely forgotten about virtual memory, since I have
not had any need for it previously (even though I had seen mention of
it in the manual - it said it slowed things down, so of course I didn't
want *that*.) I guess the time has come.

VM on a PB drains the battery, too, 'cause the disk runs all the time.
It's still a good way around your limit if you are using AC while surfing,
and I don't know see how it could be otherwise. You aren't surfing
by cellular phone, I presume.

Interesting. The manual says in one place to use VM only when the power
adapter is plugged in, and in another place that VM reduces battery life,
and in neither place why. But I don't see the connection with using a
cellular phone for surfing - a cordless phone, maybe ;->.

With a cordless, you'd still be around your own place and could probably
keep your PB plugged in, so VM would still be OK.
With a cellular phone, batteries would seem essential.
What do I know? I don't even own a portable computer!

I am back (temporarily) from another trip into the m o s a i c .. ..
Virtual memory broke the jam. It is difficult to know where to even
browse. Randomly, I guess. I spent a little while wondering around the
natural history museum at UC Berkeley. The images are pointilistic -
fair, but not scientific, representations. However including the images
makes things really slow, over just 14.4KBps and MacPPP, so I turned off
the image downloads, and went looking for interesting text. There is
a large section of university gophers to choose among, but when I tried
to open one, it said it could not open Telnet - good heavens, Telnet too
over Mosaic. My Telent is Versaterm, so its no wonder it couldn't open
it. Looks like another download - of NCSA Telnet. Is there a Mosaic
Guru here, to provide hyperguidance, for us as yet enlightened mosaics?

I think you're showing *us* the way on Mosaic, Rane.
I use NCSA Telnet daily at work, so if you need help there I can help.
I have also used it with MacPPP from home too, on occasion.

I downloaded NCSA Telnet 2.5.1B, but haven't read all the little docs
that came with it (600K worth). I use it at the office, but haven't
learned its configuration stuff. What are the minimum set of instructions
for a) configuring for MacPPP, and b) creating a sessions file? (I learned
that one can use other Telnet tools in Mosaic, from one of the menus,
but haven't looked at that yet).
,

I haven't gotten back into the Mosaic yet (though I hunger for it....),
but thought I'd report on one or two things. Virtual Memory  is great,
and it does *not* cause the HD to run continuously, at least when one
isn't occupying any. I opened RAM (fixed+vitual) to 8 MB. This has also
cured a problem I had of a game quitting with an error when I tried to
restart it. Also, with the help of Steve and others, I installed NCSA
Telnet, and look forward to exploring the world-wide-gophers again.

Its been a while. But the time was ripe, so I got on my board and took
off down the Mosaic trails. I started out with no particular objective
in mind, but found a page listing hypertext maps, but Michigan wasn't
among them, so I settled for New York. The full-page map showed the
location of all SUNY sites, so I found Oneonta, where I know someone,
and looked around there. I noticed a lead to IRS tax forms, so browsed
that, and settled on a 2688 (extension of time to file), which we need.
It was only 2 pages, but 89Kbs, and arrived in *PDF format*, whatever
that is. There was a little apology in the list header, about the less
than friendly format. Does anyone here know how to decode this into the
form? Here are the first few lines of the file, opened in WORD 5.1a:

%PDF-1.0 
19 0 obj
/Length 20 0 R
/Filter [ /ASCII85Decode /LZWDecode  ]

There was some code that was untranslatable to ASCII, which did not
come through there, and some translations, but it gives the general idea.

i was wondering if the grex dialins support ppp or slip?
THen we could run mosaic on our home machines.

No, they are just serial modems. However anyone at the U can get an
account to MichNet - and there are other local SLIP or PPP providers,
though that starts to cost money. 

Grex cannot supply packet services because of contractual requirements.
Msen offers it for $20/month + $2/hour
Michnet charges $35/month + $0/hour 
There are others, too.

Steve, so I can understand this better, what would Grex have to get
to offer PPP internet access?

An Internet connection from a different service provider, with
a contract which allowed us to provide direct IP connections.  This
would likely be much more expensive than our current connection.

Would we need anything different at the user side - like a high-speed
modem with compression and error correction? 

You'd need software that can communicate via PPP, of course (or a
packet driver that does).  I've used PPP (KA9Q) with my 2400 baud
non-compression, non-error correction modem, and it works fine.

But like molasses in winter? ;-). I use the 19.2Kbps serial Michnet
number in preference to the 57.6Kbps NAS, for telnet, because the
PPP link is the slower. I would think it would really crawl at 2400.

Sure it's slow, but you were asking if compression/error correction
were required.  They only are in the sense of getting a faster
connection.  For PPP, though, they are required, just nice to have.
Basically, with a 2400 baud PPP connection you can only have one,
maybe two max sessions going at once.

Oops, that should be "they aren't required" in the 3rd line of :29

And Mosaic is supposed to be the cyberspace sensation? If anyone has
been doing any surfing, how about some travelogues?

NCSAMosaic 2.00a8.68k has arrived. I suppose it does some new neat
things on a machine that can show them, but on this PB 145, it looks 
and acts much the same as 1.03. 

You probably saw the news splash about  www.whitehouse.gov. Its
true - you can tour the White House, hear welcomes from Clinton and
Gore, and get access to a plethora of documentation from all the
federal agencies (the latter in a gopher modality). 

However, the "First Family" documentation has been much
abbreviated. They were probably accused of taking political
advantage, or at least "exposure". And, Socks' statement to the
nation is gone too.

In truth, I find I use Mosaic mostly to impress friends that haven't
seen it. I can go "hunting" on the net more easily with TurboGopher,
but also I haven't found Web sites that I need to return to
frequently.

I'd sure like to know where you've been on the Web, what you've found,
and what you recommend for either fun or edification.

For those of you who who have been wondering about this Ann Arbor place
where Grex is, you can get a photo tour of Ann Arbor on
http://http2.sils.umich.edu/AnnArbor/AnnArbor.html

How does one use an address like the one in item #32 above from Grex?
I've noticed that http:// is a common beginning for addresses, but
are they addresses that can only be accessed with certain software?
(From an as-yet hopelessly ignorant Grexer)

Use those "http://" addresses in lynx (they're hypertext addresses).
You can also use "xxx://" address in lynx, but it's possible to
pull telnet, gopher, ftp, etc. informatioon from them for use with
the specific program xxx.

Due to limited bandwidth, although you could get the text at that address
from Grex, you would not be able to get the pictures.  A much better bet
would be to find a computer somewhere with an Internet connection and
Mosaic, and look at the pictures with that.

LeAnn, that kind of address is called a URL, which stands for
"Uniform Resource Locator". The part before the colon, which is often 
"http", is the protocol type. Http is hypertext transfer protocol.
Other protocols that can appear are 
ftp: (anonymous ftp), telnet:, gopher:, and
probably many many others. These are the hypertext pointers that the
World Wide Web uses. Behind every selectable link on a page of hypertext
is a hidden one of these URL's. Selecting the link delivers what the
URL points to.

The general form is...  protocol://host.domain/full/path/of/file.ext
Where the extension of the file name tells the browser what kind of
file it is, and thus how to format it.

A URL allows you to specify any document of nearly any type accessible
by a wide range of protocols, on any internet-connected computer
in the world. It's a nice little addressing scheme.

If you are a member and run lynx on Grex. You may type g (for goto)
and then enter the arbitrary URL, and lynx will fetch the contents,
then format and display it for you. If the URL points to something lynx
can't show (like sound, a graphic, a movie, or the like), then it will
ask if you want to download it to your PC, Mac, or workstation.

You can get pictures this way, but as scg says, Grex's bandwidth to the
net is slow, and life may be too short.

LeAnn, find someone with a IP/TCP link to MichNet (which requires
an authorization), and have a look at Mosaic itself in action. Lynx
pales (but is lots faster!).

Alpha 17 of NCSA Mosaic 2.00 has appeared. I thought it was more
polished than Alpha 8 (some irrelevant progress boxes were gone),
but it bombed on initiation on my Powerbook when it tried to
do something with "font widths". The font it didn't like was
DJ CG Times, one of a bunch of MacPrint 1.03 fonts for driving a
DeskJet 500 (PC-type), with a Mac. Probably encountered a control
sequence that wasn't "proper Mac". I've informed NCSA - which wasn't
easy as the README for Alpha 17 had an invalid e-mail address!
  
Has anyone here used HTML.edit? I need to be told how to get over the
get-my-feet-wet hurdle, to write HTML with it (not having written any
HTML without it - though I have looked at .html files).

I really don't see the point in an HTML compiler.  It's such an easy
language to learn that anything short of writing in HTML sounds to me like
cheating.  I found the best way to learn it was to look at other peoples'
homepages and see how they had done things I liked.  It only took an hour
or two to learn, and was well worth the time.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss