This database opened in January of 1994. It covers filings by U.S. public companies made to the SEC. It covers such things as 10K, 10Q, annual, quarterly reports, and many other items. In all, the SEC receives 10 million pages a year of such data. Plans were for 3,000 companies to file electronically into EDGAR by the end of 1993, with all 15,000 companies required to file with the SEC eventually required to file into EDGAR.
Previously, this database was available only through Mead Data in either inconvenient locations or at very considerable expense. In an experiment, it is now available at no cost over the Internet. This service is provided and funded by the NSF, the NYU Stern School of Business, and the Internet Multicasting Service, run by Carl Malamud, who I understand is (was?) an economist at the Board of Governors.
This database only covers filings made in 1994 and 1995 for public consumption, when made electronically by the filing company. Thus, it does not cover earlier years, current paper fillings, or non-public ones. Even so, the data is extensive; there appear to be more than 6,000 filings for January of 1994 alone.
As the experiment progresses, there will be many changes in the design of the database. Be sure to read the appropriate files for the latest information.
The gopher and the web interfaces make searching for information much, much easier. For ftp access, the files "form.idx" and "company.idx" in the main directory list the filings. The first is ordered by the type of form, and the second by the company (both contain the same information, just in different order). Entries in both of these files list the file in the "data1" directory with the relevant filing.
ftp://town.hall.org/edgar
http://www.town.hall.org/edgar/edgar.html
gopher://town.hall.org:70/11/edgar
Bill Goffe <bgoffe@whale.st.usm.edu>