PETERR@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK (04/25/91)
I would be grateful if you could post the following message on your bulletin board. If it has already appeared there, kindly disregard this message Message is: **** **** * * * ******* ***** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *** * * * * * ******* * * **** **** ***** ***** * * * ***** Version 1.0 of Collate -- a new program for the collation of large textual traditions -- is now available. About Collate ---------------- Collate aims to help scholars in the preparation of a critical edition based on many sources. It can collate simultaneously up to a hundred texts. It can deal with richly marked-up texts (with special treatment for editorial comments embedded in the text, location markers, editorial expansions and separate collation of punctuation). It provides powerful facilities to allow the scholar to tailor the collation and it can output in many different formats. Collate works interactively with the collation being written to a window as the scholar watches. The scholar may intervene at any point to alter the collation, using either of the tools RSet VariantS or RRegulariseS. RSet VariantS allows the scholar to over-rule the collation offered by Collate and impose his own collation, even writing a variant that does not appear in the sources into the collation. RRegulariseS enables the scholar to intervene to regularise any word or phrase in any source at any point. The regularisation can be set for a particular word at every point in every source, or for that word only at that place in that source, or various other combinations. Collate will record all variants set and every regularisation made and remember them next time it runs. The scholar can adjust the collation in other ways, switching the base text, suppressing agreements with the base text and collating punctuation tokens separately. The collation may be output in various critical apparatus forms (including several formats recommended by the Text Encoding Initiative), or scholars may dictate their own format. Through an interface to the EDMAC macros, developed by John Lavagnino of Brandeis University and Dominik Wujastyk of the Wellcome Institute for the production of complex critical editions with the typesetting language TeX, editions with up to five levels of apparatus can be created direct from the output of Collate. The EDMAC macros and an implementation of TeX (OzTeX) are provided with the program. Automatic generation of hypertext electronic editions from the output is also possible. Texts Collate can Process ----------------------------- The length of texts Collate can process is limited only by the storage capacity of the computer. The only requirement is that the text be divided into blocks containing no more than 32768 words each. Collate works on both prose and verse and has been tested successfully on texts in many languages (including Malay, Sanskrit, Latin, Middle English and Old Norse). A set of Guidelines for Transcription, provided with the program, explains the format transcription files should have so that they can be processed by Collate. The transcription files must be plain ASCII files and can be prepared on any computer. A simple word-processor, Transcribe, is also provided with Collate: this includes various functions specially designed to help transcription. The History of Collate -------------------------- Collate has been developed as part of the Computers and Manuscripts Project, funded for three years from 1st September 1989 by the Leverhulme Trust at the Oxford University Computing Service with support from Apple Computer. Collate has been written by the Research Officer for the Project, Peter Robinson (PETERR@AC.UK.OX.VAX). The Project Director is Susan Hockey. Program Availability and Requirements ---------------------------------------------- Collate 1.0 runs only on Macintosh computers (Classic or higher) and requires one megabyte of memory to operate. A hard disc is recommended. It can be ordered from: The Computers and Manuscripts Project Oxford University Computing Service 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN England. (Phone: 0865 273200; fax 0865 273275; email PETERR@AC.UK.OX.VAX). The program costs 2#0 pounds UK, 40 dollars US. Cheques should be made payable to the Oxford University Computing Service; cheques in pounds must be drawn on a British bank. A demonstration disc of the program is available, free, from the above address. Documentation, sample files, Transcribe (version 1.1) and the OzTeX implementation of TeX for the Macintosh, together with the EDMAC macros, are provided with the program.