About these HTML pages
HTML
HTML stands for hypertext mark up language and it is used used by
the World Wide Web. The WWW runs on the
internet which is an international network of computers which communicate
information with each other in a standardised way. It does not matter what
type of computer you are using to access the information so long as both
systems conform to a standard language for transmitting the text and data.
You may be familiar with Hypertext applications running on desktop
computers. Unlike a conventional page description language, HTML does not
define how the text is to appear. Instead, parts of the text are marked as
having certain attributes, such as being a title or a heading. The actual
appearance of these styles is set by the viewing program to give
consistency between all documents. You would be surprised at how easy it is
to set up a document like this! Members of staff who would like to
contribute are encouraged to contact us. If you have documents and pictures
already in a computer readable form then it may be fairly easy to edit them
and link them into this system.
I have access to and use many different computer systems for my work,
including UNIX (Silicon Graphics, Sun &
DEC), Apples and Acorns. As such I have formed my own opinions on the merits and limitations of each system.
However as these documents show the world of computers is starting to
develop a common language for communication of data and you may be
accessing this server from almost any type of computer. Most of my own work
is carried out using Acorn computers and
these pages have been edited and set up using a combination of Computer Concepts "Impression Publisher" DTP
software with Ben Summers' "html loaders
and savers" as well as R-Comp's
HTMLEdit. Drawings have been produced using Acorn's "!Draw" and Computer Concepts "Artworks". Molecular modelling
is carried out using a Silicon Graphics
"Iris Indigo" workstation running Molecular
Simulations "Quanta, Charmm and Modeler" packages and the images generated are
again processed on an Acorn "RiscPC600"
using Spacetech's "Photodesk"
imaging and photo retouching package. The resulting pages were then
previewed on the RiscPC or an A5000 using either the freeware package ArcWeb by Stewart Brodie or the excellent
Fresco from ANT Ltd .
The Acorn RiscPC is also fitted with a !PC486 coprocessor currently running
applications under Windows 3.1 and
this allows me to run some specialist software not available under Acorn's
RISC OS operating system. Data can be readily exchanged between DOS/Windows
and my preferred RISC OS applications. During the course of this work I
have also spent some time setting up and using Apple Mac systems and in particular a "Quadra
840av" for use by the Part II Pathology students to access and use this
information locally as well as to access the Internet. I personally find the
Mac operating system to be very clumsy and innefficient in use compared to
Acorn's RISC OS and despite the fact that software on the Mac platform
often is better featured, the user interface means that I take longer to
complete a task than I would under RISC OS. It is interesting that Apple are currently making a lot of noise about
the introduction of RISC technology in their PowerPC range of computers,
after all Acorn have been marketing their own RISC based computers since
1987! You may be aware that recently Apple and Acorn joined together to form
a joint company called Xemplar
marketing computers into educatation. The RISC OS RiscPC computers are
designed and built by Acorn who also do
contract design work using their expertise in ARM RISC technology for other
organisations such as Oracle eg in the design of the new low cost Network
Computer
This page is from 
Mike Clark.
"An antibody engineer who also enjoys the mountains."
mrc7@cam.ac.uk
Mike's home-page
11th June 1997