Latest modification 1 May 1993 by T.W.Tan
3 March 1993 by T.W.Tan
27 December 1992 by T.W.Tan
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              HYBROW version 1.3
                          Copyright (c) December 1992
                                     by
                         Derek K.B.Kiong and T.W. Tan
                       National University of Singapore


HYBROW is a Unix program for directory browsing, software interfacing and
hypertext.  It is written in the C language and has been tested on the
following platforms: Ultrix version 4.2, SunOS, CONVEX, AIX and SGI.  A
hypertext-like approach has been taken in the design of this program.

It has been designed primarily for biocomputing software and network
information retrieval but the program is general enough to be used for other
types of software.

The program presents itself as a user-friendly menu system for integrating
most non-graphics activities that a biocomputing user would wish to carry
out on a networked Unix computer.

As the software which may be interfaced using HYBROW are many, and
copyrighted, we only distribute the HYBROW program as it is, without menus
or programs. For an example of what can be done with HYBROW, potential users
are requested to contact the authors (see details below).  Bona fide users
or system managers may wish to contact the authors for a temporary guest
user account.  Alternatively, biocomputing users from reputable institutions
in Europe may wish to contact Fredj Tekaia (tekaia@pasteur.fr) to enquire
about their implementation of HYBROW.  

Other potential users may refer to the set of menu templates and
instructions accompanying HYBROW for a guide on how to set up their menus,
after they have installed the program (see the INSTALLATION file).

At some stage in the future, we shall endeavour to incorporate a database of
menus which can be used with HYBROW, covering as wide a range of biocomputing
software and information retrieval systems.  Currently, we have interfaced
CLUSTALV, FASTA, BLAST, GCG, PHYLIP and other miscellaneous biocomputing
software, and WAIS wide area information servers, GOPHER distributed file
retrieval system, ELM email reader, TIN internet newsgroup reader, HYTELNET 
- telnet of library catalog and information services program, anonymous FTP
sites, email server program MAILBLAST etc.

References
----------

The authors would appreciate very much if you cite them appropriately (first
reference below) if you do make use of this program in your research and
subsequently publish in a journal.

Kiong KB and Tan TW.  A general unix interface for biocomputing and
information retrieval software. Comput.Applic.Biosci (CABIOS) accepted.

Kiong KB and Tan TW.  A hypertext approach to navigating through the GCG
sequence analysis package. Comput. Applic. Biosci (CABIOS) 9(2) 211-214.

Tan TW (1992) Global networking: An important resource to basic research in
the biomedical sciences. In: MEDINFO'92: Proceedings of the Seventh World
Congress on Medical Informatics, Geneva.  Eds. Lun KC et al. pp 66-71.

Copyright
---------

Users are free to make copies of or minor amendments to this program
provided that the copyright headers bearing the name of the authors and
their affiliation is retained.  If you are giving a copy to somebody else,
the authors would appreciate if you could drop them an email at
bchtantw@nuscc.nus.sg or bchtantw@NUSVM (see below).

Disclaimer
----------

The authors shall not be liable for any damages as a result of the use of
this program.

Where to get this program
-------------------------

Anonymous FTP to nuscc.nus.sg.  Retrieve the binary tar compressed file
/pub/biocomp/hybrow.tar.Z (or the latest update) in binary mode.

Electronic mail to the authors to inform them you have retrieved it.
(bchtantw@nuscc.nus.sg)


Acknowledgements
---------------- 

This program has been developed from the Unix port of HYTELNET by Earl Fogel
and Peter Scott, University of Saskatchewan. We thank Fredj Tekaia of the
Service d'Informatique Scientifique, Institut Pasteur, Paris for testing out
earlier versions of HYBROW on their Sun machine.  We thank the director and
staff of the Computer Centre, National University of Singapore for their 
support.


Dr Tin-Wee Tan                             Dr Derek Beng-Kee Kiong
Department of Biochemistry                 Dept of Information Systems and
National University of Singapore              Computer Science
Kent Ridge                                 National University of Singapore
SINGAPORE 0511                             Kent Ridge
Tel: (65)-7723678                          SINGAPORE 0511
Fax: (65)-7791453                          Tel: (65)-7722785
Internet: bchtantw@nuscc.nus.sg            Fax: (65)-7794580
Bitnet:   bchtantw@NUSVM                   Internet: isckbknuscc.nus.sg
