EBB at the Commerce Department

      Charges for Internet telnet access are as follows.
          Timed Charges:
          Annual subscription fee       $45
          Credit for connect charges    $20
          8AM - noon (Eastern)          $24/hour
          noon - 6PM                    $18/hour
          6PM - 8AM (& holidays,        $3/hour
                     weekends)     

The current telnet interface is basically that used for the dial-up bulletin board. Thus, one must capture the information from the screen or use a bulletin board type download (such as Kermit). I have not tried the latter and can offer no advice. To capture all screen data on a Unix system, one can do "telnet ebb.stat-usa.gov | tee ebb.data" where tee takes the screen data and places it in the file "ebb.data" as well as on the screen with a plain ASCII download.

Interfaces other than telnet are currently under investigation.

Limited guest accounts are available; use "guest" as the password. You are limited to 20 minutes of connection time (but you can connect back immediately), and not all files are available.

Most information is in six areas: the bulletin system (which describes how to use the system), the file system (which contains files), the trade promotion system, the presidential system, the news system (on files and news flashes), and the utilities system (which sets passwords, terminal types, etc.). Basic information on the system can be found in the bulletin system (entered by typing "B") by typing "I", while a listing of files can be found in the file listing system (entered by typing "F")."

Data come in several formats. Some comes in DOS self extracting files, some in .PRN (so it can be used in spreadsheets or software that can import spreadsheet data), and some in a specialized format.

Gary Langer's BCI Data Manager, described below, is a Windows 3.1 program that lets you manage this database.

• telnet://ebb.stat-usa.gov