10.0555 early days of e-text?

WILLARD MCCARTY (willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk)
Fri, 3 Jan 1997 09:58:08 +0000 (GMT)

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 10, No. 555.
Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (Princeton/Rutgers)
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
Information at http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/

[1] From: Mavis Cournane <cournane@curia.ucc.ie> (15)
Subject: Early days of electronic text

Dear Willard
I have just started the writing of my Diss on the application of
TEI to historical text, but I find I know very little about the
early days of e-text processing.

I know that e-text has been around since the sixties, but what could be
done with it? ie. how much could it be analysed, using what software etc?
I have heard some whispers about SNOBOL, perhaps someone could help me out
and tell me what it was and how it worked?

I would be also interested to know if HUMANISTS agree with my idea
that one of the primary reasons for creating browsable texts today is
a desire to make difficult-to-obtain texts more accessible. It is only
following this that issues such as retrieval, navigation, viewing
and analysis, come into play. This in turn may change how we teach and learn.
Do people have other views on this?

Happy New Year!

Mavis Cournane