Internet and Mosaic

Information about nearly any subject imaginable is rapidly becoming accessible through the Internet. Data and data products, such as the images obtained by planetary and Earth-orbiting spacecraft, are no exception. In fact, the Internet became the primary source of news during July 1994, for millions of people around the world who were anxious to see the results of the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 at Jupiter.

K-12 schools around the world are hooking up with the Internet and using tools such as Mosaic and e-mail to share ideas across national borders, search for information, and exchange the results of class projects and events. For K-12 schools, most of this Internet activity has been ramping up only in the past 6 to 12 months. If you have Internet access, consult with your school or district computer specialists to show you how to access the World Wide Web using Mosaic. If your school does not have Internet access, now is the time to encourage your district to get on the 'net. The "Information Superhighway" is here.

The following is from a hand-out provided by Dr. Don Anderson, a TES science team member at Arizona State University. This information was presented at our third Arizona Mars K-12 Educators' Workshop in February 1994.

What is Internet?
A world-wide interconnection of computers
Used for email, file transfer, remote logins, bulletin boards, ...

What is the Information Superhighway?
A buzzword for futuristic uses of the Internet

What is Mosaic?
A revolutionary multimedia exploratorium
A tool to explore Internet through Gopher, FTP, WAIS, HTTP
A tool to be used in the classroom for knowledge exploration

How Can Mosaic be useful to me?
You can use it as a resource to enhance your 'library'
You can develop multimedia applications for use by your students
Your students can explore your courseware or such material on the Internet

How can I get on the Internet?
Arizona Department of Education
Guide Program-- ftp, gopher, email
contact = ?

Arizona State University
Connection through ASU at up to 1.5 Mbits.sec (T1)
Contact: William (Skip) Brand (602/965-8158)

How can I get Mosaic on my Mac/PC/Workstation?
FTP software from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Call Don Anderson (602/965-1789)

How can I learn to effectively used Mosaic in the Classroom?
Read the Mosaic Documentation
Call Don Anderson (602/965-1789)

Definitions:
ARCHIE:a way to find out on what machine(s) a certain item can be found
E-MAIL: electronic mail
FTP: file transfer protocol
GOPHER: a way to access files and directories around the world
HTTP: hypertext transport protocol
REMOTE LOGIN: logging in to another computer from your computer
WAIS: Wide Area Information Server - searching keywords on the Internet

Solar Images on the Internet and How to Set Up MOSAIC on Your Machine

The text below was taken from a flyer prepared by the NASA Solar Data Analysis Center. They provide daily updated images of the Sun taken by the US-Japan Soft X-ray Telescope aboard Japan's Yohkoh spacecraft. To look at the daily images of the Sun, use the instructions below to access them at the following address:

http://umbra.gsfc.nasa.gov/sdac.html

The address for the Arizona Mars K-12 Education Program is:

http://marsed.asu.edu/

NCSA Mosaic is a "new Internet-based global hypermedia browser that allows you to discover, retrieve, and display documents and data from all over the Internet." (From NCSA Mosaic Demo Document). If you do not already have NCSA MOSAIC, you can download it free from the Internet. Here's how:

However, you will need properly configured hardware and software. See also the following guide on Mosaic, or check with your computer resource person. Extra help is also available by e-mail:

To get Yohkoh images via MOSAIC, log into the Solar Data Analysis Center (SDAC) at Universal Resource Locator (URL) address: http://umbra.gsfc.nasa.gov/sdac.html Then click on images, and then on latest_sxt.gif

More on Mosaic for the Computer Specialist:

How do you Obtain Mosaic and other Software?

To access and display images of the Sun or many other documents, news, images, movies, sounds, and data available on the Internet, you need:

Mosaic and all software needed are available free at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The following commands are used to connect you to NCSA via ftp:

Now you are at the top level directory. Type a dircommand to show you all file and subdirectory names under it. Since there are three different versions of Mosaic for different computers you have to choose based on what kind of machine you have.

Mosaic for Macintosh

To run Mosaic on a Macintosh, you need to have (1) System 7.0 or later, (2) MacTCP 2.0.2 or later, (3) a hard disk, and (4) at least 4 MB memory. The Macintosh version of Mosaic is located in a subdirectory Mac/Mosaic which you enter by typing cd Mac/Mosaic. Then:

Now you can run Mosaic. However, you need to install additional software to watch movies, view images, and listen to music/sound. Mosaic for Macintosh is initially configured to use the following external viewers:

	JPEGView (~420 Kbytes)			for GIF/JPEG images
	GIFConverter (~450 Kbytes)		for TIFF images
	Simple Player (~110 Kbytes)		for QuickTime movies
	Sparkle (~375 Kbytes)			for MPEG movies
	SoundMachine (~65 Kbytes)		for AU sound
	StuffitExpander (~130 Kbytes)		for BinHexed files

All except Simple Player are freeware or shareware programs and are available via anonymous FTP from sumex-aim.stanford.edu or mac.archive.umich.edu or from the same NCSA anonymous ftp server discussed above (look for subdirectories Mac/ QuickTime, Mac/ Mosaic/ Apple, Mac/ Mosaic/ Documents. Mac/ Mosiac/ GIFS, and Mac/ Mosaic/ Helpers). Simple Player is a QuickTime viewer from Apple that generally comes packaged with QuickTime.

To download external viewer software from Mosaic, run Mosaic and the "NCSA Mosaic Home Page" will automatically open. Click on the NCSA Mosaic for AppleMacintosh, and wait for the connection to be completed. Then click on QuickStart and you will see the file names underlined. Click on the appropriate filename, and enter a filename into the Save File box.

Mosaic for X-Window Machines

The X-Window version is located in a subdirectory Mosaic/ Mosaic-binaries. You need to retrieve one of the executable binary files depending on your machine type. The following binaries are available:

To download and run Mosaic for X-windows:

To download a binary from Mosaic, go to the Mosaic-binaries directory and turn on Load to Local Disk using the Options menu. Then click on the appropriate filename, and enter a filename into the Save File box. Turn off Load to Local Disk. Perform steps 4-6 above.

The complete Mosaic source code distribution is located in subdirectory Mosaic-source. The distribution comes as a single compressed tar file, and can be compiled on most Unix systems. You must have the X11R4 (or later) and Motif 1.1 (or later) header files and libraries on your system to compile Mosaic. See the README in the source code distribution for more information on compiling Mosaic.

Mosaic assumes the presence of a number of external viewers-programs that Mosaic can use to allow you to view images, movies, PostScript files, etc., that are retrieved over the network. See the subdirectory for more information on these viewers.

Mosaic for Microsoft Windows (PC)

Mosaic for Microsoft Windows is located in a subdirectory of PC/ Mosaic. The Basics for installing Windows Mosaic are:

To run Mosaic for Microsoft Windows, you need a system running Microsoft Windows 3.1 in enhanced mode, a 1.1 compliant winsock.dll, and Microsoft's win32s software. Mosaic requires an absolute minimum of an 80386SX-based machine with 4 MB RAM. The recommended configuration is 33 MHz, or faster, 80486 with at least 8 MB RAM.

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TES 1994-1995 Curriculum Guide / Arizona Mars K-12 Education Program