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CytometryNet with Gopher Servers CYTOGERM & CYTOESACP

1. Early communication in Cytometry

The foundation of the Society for Analytical Cytology (SAC) at Schloss Elmau near Mittenwald (Germany) in 1978 provided a formal structure for cytometry scientists having assembled previously in a series of meetings in Europe and the USA. The increasing need for communicaton prompted Paul Robinson in 1989, while still at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, to set up the Cytometry E-mail discussion list. This proved very helpful for the exchange of ideas about flow cytometer operation, assay configuration, data processing etc. Information about the activities of the various national cytometry societies either for their respective members or for interested members of other societies was, however, not sufficiently addressed in this way. Günter Valet set up in Sept/Oct 1994 the CytometryNet within the Gopher system as first cytometry society server for information exchange amongst the various societies and their members.

2. CYTOGERM and CYTESACP GOPHER Servers

The Gopher information system (Mark P McCahill, University of Minnesota (USA) 1991) was initially a textual system as shown in an early CYTOGERM appearance. A short extract of a log file shows the download of the various CYTOGERM ASCII text files. The Gopher system equally displayed HTML files (HyperText Mark-up Language) as did the newly developed MOSAIC browser (11/1993) for communication within the worldwide web (WWW). The MOSAIC browser displayed Gopher as well as HTML files. The ease of browser operation led to a migration of Gopher users to the WWW system.

3. Early Martinsried CELLBIO, CYTOREL & GROUP WWW-servers

The CYTOGERM and CYTOESACP servers files were transcribed into html-format and set up as the Martinsried Cell Biochemistry Server (CELLBIO) with the cytometry societies section CYTOREL and the cell biochemistry group information (GROUP). The historic MOSAIC browser (version 2.1.1 1996) is still functional in a virtual WINDOWS98 environment (VMWare player. Version 6.0.7 under Windows 7 professional, 64bit, service pack 1), and displays the 1995 files CYTOREL.HTM and GROUP.HTM from harddisk, but net access is no more possible due to changes in the communication with Internet servers since then. The successor browser Netscape Communicator 4.77 (1997), in contrast, has still network access for unencrypted (http:) files such as in the .com and .biz domains of the CLASSIMED server, so the historic files CELLBIO.HTM, CYTOREL.HTM and GROUP.HTM can be displayed over the net in their historic environment.

© 2024 G.Valet
1965-2006: Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, Am Klopferspitz 18a, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany
last update: Jun 1,2020
first display: May 17,2020