9.324 on Nota Bene

Humanist (mccarty@phoenix.Princeton.EDU)
Tue, 28 Nov 1995 21:33:19 -0500 (EST)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 9, No. 324.
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/

[1] From: Joseph Godfrey <jgodfrey@SJUPHIL.SJU.EDU> (98)
Subject: NotaBene developments

[2] From: marc bregman <msmarco@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il> (13)
Subject: NotaBene update

[3] From: "James K. Tauber" <jtauber@tartarus.uwa.edu.au> (12)
Subject: Nota Bene: conversion of Greek

[4] From: alan ryan <AJRYAN@pucc.Princeton.EDU> (3)
Subject: Re: 9.319 Nota Bene

[5] From: Harry Gaylord <galiard@let.rug.nl> (3)
Subject: Re: 9.319 Nota Bene

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 NOV 1995 14:20:37 -0500
From: Joseph Godfrey <jgodfrey@SJUPHIL.SJU.EDU>
Subject: NotaBene developments

On Sunday late afternoon I had an hour and a quarter
conversation with Pat Kelley (James Patrick Kelley), General Manager of
NotaBene. We met in Philadelphia at the annual joint convention of the
American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature;
NotaBene had a booth in the book exhibits area. Steve Siebert was also
at the booth, as was Steve Semple, but I did not have time to meet
them.
My conversation with Pat became scheduled for a time when the exhibit
hall had closed for the day, and it took place at some remove from the
NB booth. I asked Pat questions that denizens of the Internet NotaBene
list sent to me, and some that I remember from the list or from users at
my university. I regret that I did not have more time to talk with him
and with other NotaBene staff.

Windows. A version of NotaBene for Windows 95 is in the works. NB
bought rights to XyWrite for Windows, and has farmed out programming
components to five programmers. The timetable and the budget are set.
NB's commitment is to "maximally use all improvements in Windows '95."
Such 'maximal use' is Pat's response to questions about 16 or 32 bit.
[I do not know enough about such differences for NB, and I understand
that Windows 95 is a hybrid in this regard. I can surmise important
further questions.] Release date: "certainly in 1996." The first
release of NB for Windows may not include Lingua. Windows95's
abandoning of standard alphabets has compounded problems for Lingua.
Pat Kelley outlined the procedures and timetabling for development of
NBfWin95, and to my unpracticed ear it sounded like plausible planning;
he also indicated that the programmers are not behind timetable
expectations. It is too early to indicate pricing for this substantial
upgrade.

NB and high memory use. Pat Kelley told me that at the booth the NB
staff had on display a version of NB for DOS that made use of high
memory. It is nearly finished. They had hoped to have it available
for the AAR meeting; it will be the next upgrade offering. Pat told
me, for example, of the wonder of having the F7 key report 2,836k of
available memory [!]. [Since our conversation took place well away
from the busy NB booth, and I did not have time to spend at the booth
itself, I did not see this.]

IBID, version 2. IBID version 2 will be implemented for Windows 95.
There is not a commitment to implement IBID 2 for DOS. Pat regrets
that this is an unfulfilled promise, but does not see an easy way to
fulfill this promise of past years. Those of us who have paid for an
ungrade to IBID version 2 for DOS should be able to get a credit for
what we paid for that upgrade.

NB for OS/2 and OS/2 Warp. Pat did not have any advice about what I
could say to those who sent me several questions about NB and OS/2. He
would welcome advice about what could be done to make NB easier to run
under OS/2, especially what is an ideal configuration of OS/2 is to
make NotaBene work best. [I think there has been some discussion of
this on the list.]

Web Page. A World Wide Web page for NotaBene is being set up. It will
permit people to download a fix; it will give access to NB people for
technical support. It will make information available for sales. The
plan for launching this is before the end of 1995.

IPA fonts. International Phonetic Alphabet fonts were advertised at
the booth. I did not take time to glean how to get these, and at what
cost.

Lingua monospaced fonts for laser printers. With the IPA fonts done,
this is the project those workers are now turning to. I did not ask
the timetable. Pat observed that NB is now developing a methodology
for developing printer drivers.

Chinese-Japanese. With Windows 95 dropping Unicode, there is no
short-term prospect of NotaBene including Chinese-Japanese. NBfW95 is
dependent on what Win95 includes.

Biblio 2. There is a feature of Biblio that is not well documented (or
undocumented), to enable a user to send and receive text files over the
Internet. [I have not yet acquired Biblio, but I understand that
Internet access is already part of that program. I did not get the
full import of this feature, but it seems to permit accessing Internet
from within Biblio, and sending and receiving text.] It was described
as the ability to save unformatted text off the Internet--I presume
from within NB.

Biblio and various libraries. Libraries have customized Notis, and
this necessitates introducing customizations in Biblio, so as, for
example, not to lose or misposition a field. If NB users have effected
a customization that the NB office could incorporate, please let the NB
office know.
Biblio is also available for Citation; Citation is a
bibliography program for WordPerfect and for Microsoft Word.

Support and Sales in the UK and Europe. There is a new support
arrangement in the planning for the UK, involving support from New
York; details will be announced to UK users. In Europe, the
difficulties in reaching Mr. Werner Go"ken (Goeken) should ease; keep
trying; his facilities are undergoing some construction.

Pat Kelley indicated that suggestions and needs of those on the list
are not reaching him in the most effective way. Communications should
be sent to his attention. This is especially true for expressions of
what NB users need, such as a printer driver for the HP 5L printer, or
the HP DJ 560 printer. If one of us knows just what is needed, for the
DJ 560, for example, please let Pat Kelley know. [I am aware of the
list discussion in the HP DJ 560, and I myself am interested in this.]

From:
Marc Bregman
Hebrew Union College -- Jewish Institute of Religion
13 King David Street
Jerusalem 94101
Israel
Voice E-Mail
(+972-2) 203-234 (office) msmarco@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il
203-333 (messages) FAX (+972-2) 251-478
724-049 (home)

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 07:33:15 +0200 (WET)
From: marc bregman <msmarco@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il>
Subject: NotaBene update

> I was looking forward to more contributions regarding NOTABENE, alas,
> there were very few...I used to be on the
> Notabene list, where such things used to be discussed, but since most
> list members upgraded to ver. 4 + Lingua I was reading too much
> irrelevant junk, and disconnected. Is there hope?
>
> Ron Kuzar
> Dept. of English, Haifa U.
> kuzar@research.haifa.ac.il

There is hope and its still worthwhile to check the NotaBene list from
time to time -- you can get it on Usenet [bit.listserv.notabene] or Digest
the incoming messages so you only have to deal with one message a day.

Here's some of the latest on the list that might be of interest to you
and others

--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 19:35:37 +0800 (WST)
From: "James K. Tauber" <jtauber@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: Nota Bene: conversion of Greek

I have a number of Nota Bene (+ Lingua) files that contain Ancient Greek and
need to translate these into a particular transliteration scheme.

The problem is that I have no idea how Nota Bene / Lingua transliterates
Greek. The files I have look gibberish. (I'd like to say they're all Greek
to me but the problem is they're not! :-)

Does anybody know how the transliteration scheme works? Failing this,
perhaps someone could send me a NB-Lingua file containing the complete
Greek character set with names in Roman so I can work it out that way.

Thanks in advance.

James K. Tauber <jtauber@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
University Computing Services and Centre for Linguistics
University of Western Australia, Perth, AUSTRALIA
finger for PGP key

--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 95 23:57:52 EST
From: alan ryan <AJRYAN@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: 9.319 Nota Bene

Apropos of Nota Bene, it seems to me that it still goes on developing slowly,
but it has always been so vastly superior to Word and Word Perfect that it is
far from obsolete even now. I certainly wouldn't swap; the latest version is
fine.

--[5]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 10:33:43 +0100 (MET)
From: Harry Gaylord <galiard@let.rug.nl>
Subject: Re: 9.319 Nota Bene

Re: Nota Bene

I spoke with Steve Siebert and Werner G&ouml; on the phone a few weeks ago
in Germany. They are planning to SGMLize it which is even better news.

Harry