[LINK] VeriChip RFID Based Patient Identificaiton System

[Stewart Fist]

Adam asked
> 
> Is the "Orb" feature being pushed to mobile phone users a derivative
> of this "Orbit" you mention.  (I'm guessing no.)

No.  Dialog was a multiple-access database system run by Lockheed in Los
Angeles, and Orbit was a similar operation run by the SDC Corporation. I
tried to get the Australian rights to the SDC system, but progress overtook
me.

Both organisations provided access to about 30 or so major databases, and
they used different search-engines and languages.  Orbit used STAIRS, which
in my opinion, had some significant advantage over Google and the other
systems I use today (for real indexed-text research, anyway)

I started and ran the first non-university information retrieval company
(IMFORM).  We using both systems + a European version run by the Euro Space
Agency.  

To access they databases we had a Teletype 33 printer terminal, and after
about six months of negotiations and signing of long complicated documents,
Telstra provided me with a suitcase-sized modem which, at 300 baud, gave a
better connection than the acoustic coupler I'd been using across the
Pacific until then.

It was all very exciting stuff.

-- 
Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458