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Wide Area Information Servers

(WAIS) A distributed information retrieval system. WAIS is supported by Apple Computer, Thinking Machines and Dow Jones. Clients are able to retrieve documents using keywords. The search returns a list of documents, ranked according to the frequency of occurrence of the keyword(s) used in the search. The client can retrieve text or multimedia documents stored on the server. WAIS offers simple natural language input, indexed searching for fast retrieval, and a "relevance feedback" mechanism which allows the results of initial searches to influence future searches. It uses the ANSI Z39.50 service. Public domain implementations are available.

Other information retrieval systems include archie, Gopher, Prospero, and web.

Usenet newsgroup: comp.infosystems.wais.

Telnet.

Last updated: 1995-03-13

Wide Area Network

<networking>

(WAN) A network, usually constructed with serial lines, extending over distances greater than one kilometre.

Compare local area network, metropolitan area network.

Last updated: 1994-11-24

Wide Area Telecommunications Service

<communications>

(WATS) A special service provided by an inter-exchange carrier that allows a customer to use a specific trunk to make calls to specific geographic zones or to receive calls at a specified number at a discounted price.

Last updated: 2006-05-01

Wideband ATM

<networking>

An enhanced form of ATM networking that transfers digital data over local area networks, originally at 0.96 Gbps, now (Aug 1996) at 1.0 Gbps.

Last updated: 1996-08-23

Wide SCSI

<hardware, standard>

A variant on the SCSI-2 interface. It uses a 16-bit bus - double the width of the original SCSI-1 - and therefore cannot be connected to a SCSI-1 bus. It supports transfer rates up to 20 MB/s, like Fast SCSI.

There is also a SCSI-2 definition of Wide-SCSI with a 32 bit data bus. This allows up to 40 megabytes per second but is very rarely used because it requires a large number of wires (118 wires on two connectors). Thus Wide SCSI usually means 16 bit-wide SCSI.

Last updated: 1995-04-21

Nearby terms:

WIC ♦ Wide Area Information Servers ♦ Wide Area Network ♦ Wide Area Telecommunications Service

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