mcli@joker (Maurice Ling) (12/11/90)
Hi everyone, I'd like to just tell everyone about a program I found at the panarthea archive earlier this year. I have wanted to post something about it, but never had time to write a formal review. This is more or less an informal review. The program is called the Spiritware Concordance program. It is a Freeware program written and supported by a church in Seattle, Washington (the Fifteenth Avenue Bible Church, I think). They call the software they write "Spiritware". Good name, huh? The Spiritware Concordance program comes free with the King James Version of the Bible, since the KJV text is in the public domain. The New International Version is also available. They get it directly from the Zondervan publishers, and it is *not* in the public domain. So you have to buy it. Time doesn't allow me to go too deep into describing the program features, but I will highlight the features that I think are the most useful: - selective searches of the books of the Bible. -you can limit your search to one book, or any books. - you can search using wild cards. -for instance, bapt+ would search for baptism, baptist, baptize, etc. - exclusive or inclusive searches. -verses with [word1] and [word2], or [word1] or [word2], plus combinations of and's and or's. - exporting of Biblical text to file, or printer. - a notepad to take notes on. - footnotes (for NIV version) - the words you are looking for are bold faced. - you get three windows, one for inputting the words you want to search for, one which lists the verses that contain the search words, and one that contains the actual text. Moving down the list of verses, the text window goes to the appropriate verse, and it's context. - Other features include bookmarks, going to a specific reference or book, etc. This program is really superb and is fairly fast. I don't have any time comparisons, though. It's excellant for those who want to study the Bible or lead Bible Studies. The program runs on any ST computer with any drive configuration. A hard drive is recommended but not required. Each version of the Bible is about 2.5 megs, and comes on 4 disks. If you register your program, you get impeccable support from FABC. They send you a manual for the program, and any future updates for free. I forget the registration fee, but It's something like $15.00 or something. Since I've registered in June, I've received the manual and one update, which was updated again because of a small bug. Inf fact, you don't even need to ask them to send you the update. If there's an update, they send it to you right away. I believe that they are working on a Greek version of the Bible also. If you're interested, I can post the address of FABC and send the program to atari.archive. -Maurice * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** BITNET : MCLI_SS@UORDBV \/ UUCP : ...rochester!uhura!mcli >--< ====================== Internet: mcli@joker.optics.rochester.edu /\
randyh@hpsad.HP.COM (Randy Hosler) (12/12/90)
Tried to mail this but it bounced: Please post this to atari.archive. I have a version of this that I got from the binaries group but all it has are the books of Paul. If you can't post it could you tell me the exact name of the ftp site where you got it? Thanks, Randy Hosler
REEVES@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Terry Reeves) (12/13/90)
The best way to obtain SpiritWare's concordance program is to contact
SpiritWare directly at Fifteenth Avenue Bible Church, 15211 15th Avenue N.E.,
Seattle, Washington 98155. While the New Testament with program may fit on
on 720k diskette, the full KJV fills four. If, at any point, you have to
download at 1200 or 2400 baud, you will die of old age before the files are
complete. :)
In any case, you really do want the support that they offer. A decent manual
is worth many times its weight in whatever precious metals you can dream of.
And if you want to automatically receive the latest version, SpiritWare needs
to know that you exist.
Terry Reeves
My only association with SLAC and Stanford Univ is as a user/visiting scholar,
and as such, any opinions expressed by me are not to be thought of as having
anything to do with the official policies of SLAC or Stanford Univ.klute@tommy.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) (12/13/90)
In article <10994@ur-cc.UUCP>, mcli@joker (Maurice Ling) writes: |> The Spiritware Concordance program comes free with the King James |> Version of the Bible, since the KJV text is in the public domain. The |> New International Version is also available. They get it directly |> from the Zondervan publishers, and it is *not* in the public domain. |> So you have to buy it. For I am working with a German bible it would be really interesting for me if I could use the concordance program with a German text. Is it possible to feed it the ASCII version of a German bible, perhaps run some initialization across it, and than work with it just as with the King James Bible? -- Dipl.-Inform. Rainer Klute klute@irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de Univ. Dortmund, IRB klute@unido.uucp, klute@unido.bitnet Postfach 500500 |)|/ Tel.: +49 231 755-4663 D-4600 Dortmund 50 |\|\ Fax : +49 231 755-2386
mcli@joker.optics.rochester.edu (Maurice Ling) (12/15/90)
In article <2862@laura.UUCP> klute@tommy.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Rainer Klute) writes: >For I am working with a German bible it would be really interesting for me >if I could use the concordance program with a German text. Is it possible >to feed it the ASCII version of a German bible, perhaps run some >initialization across it, and than work with it just as with the King James >Bible? > >-- > Dipl.-Inform. Rainer Klute klute@irb.informatik.uni-dortmund.de Since there were a lot of people interested in the Spiritware concordance program, we might as well use the news to discuss it. I was surprised to recieve an email from the author of the program, Don Clifton. Dirk Husemann sent me email mentioning the same issue of having a German version of the database to be used with the Concordance program: * Is it possible to include other bible versions into this system? * E.g. here in Germany the Elberfelder text (a translation that tries to * keep a close to the original texts as possible and thus pretty good for * bible study) is PD. The - christian - publishers decided to place the * ASCII text in the public domain to get the word spread. So it'd be * kind of nice to have this Spiritware system for the Elberfelder text. I asked Don this same question and his response was: % A port to the German Bible shouldn't be too difficult, but I am not % familiar with the German keyboard, or how umlauts are handled. Anyway, % I would be willing to try to make it work. If someone can help Don with these problems, it will facilitate the port of the German Bible. About putting the entire KJV on atari.archive, I, and others, feel that the 2.5 Megs of data is just too much to upload/download. The address for Spiritware was already posted previously, so I would recommend those who would like the program to just order it from them. The cost of *both* NIV and KJV is the same (or less) as only one version of a commercial concordance program for the IBM PC/Mac. Plus, you get their outstanding support. I'm sure the question that is burning in your mind is what Don Clifton's email address is. Here it is: don@milton.u.washington.edu If you want an order form or more information, you can email him. If you want an unbiased objective opinion ;^), you can email me. :-) BTW, I have both the NIV and KJV versions of the Concordance. -later, Maurice * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** * ** \/ >--< ====================== Internet: mcli@joker.optics.rochester.edu /\