Editing Wide area information server (section)

{{Internet history timeline}}
'''Wide Area Information Server''' ('''WAIS''') is a [[client–server]] text searching system that uses the [[American National Standards Institute|ANSI]] Standard [[Z39.50]] Information Retrieval Service Definition and [[Protocol (computing)|Protocol]] Specifications for Library Applications" (Z39.50:1988)  to search index [[database]]s on remote computers. It was developed in 1990<ref>{{Cite book|title=A powerful wide-area information client {{!}} Proceedings of the 40th IEEE Computer Society International Conference|url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/527213.793548|access-date=2020-08-10|website=dl.acm.org|date=5 March 1995 |page=13 |language=EN|doi=10.1109/CMPCON.1995.512357|isbn=9780818670299 |s2cid=6337694|quote=WAIS has kept growing since its start in 1990, and presently, there are over 500 WAIS sources, ...}}</ref> as a project of [[Thinking Machines Corporation|Thinking Machines]], [[Apple Computer]], [[Dow Jones & Company|Dow Jones]], and [[KPMG]] Peat Marwick. 

WAIS did not adhere to either the standard nor its [[OSI Model|OSI framework]] (adopting instead [[Internet protocol suite|TCP/IP]]) but created a unique protocol inspired by Z39.50:1988.