- eI.ECer'RiC WoRD .

ST E P R GHT TH S WAY

Editor/ Publishe r Louis Rossetto Invest in EW Contents Art Director Henri Lucas Executive Editor It's always a crap shoot, you never ACCESS GUIDE TO RICHARD SAUL WURMAN by Jonathan Beard 1 7 JulesMarshall Associate Editor knowhowanissue is goingto turnout. For 25 years, RSW has used his reserves ofignorance to help America understand itself JaneSzita Just coordinating all the elements is a Software Editor better. AsJonathan Beard found outwhen he met the author, architect, cartographer, Colin Brace task only slightly less humbling than creative director of a design agency on each coast of the US and chair of this year's . Editor-at-large Oenise Penrose trying to align all the planets. No epochal TED2 conference, there's plenty more where that came from. SeniorCorrespondent Andrew Joscelyne wonder it's become a standing joke 11ruedeI'Esperance around the EW office: that moment HELP! by Col in Brace 2 3 75013Paris France Tel.+33 (1) 458891 79 each issue when we start laying out When Ford consolidated its worldwide product design and engineering information Correspondents Claude Bedard pages and I get to see the magazine in into one huge online system, it created the world's largest private database. T he 2705RueEd. Montpetit, #11,Montreal, Quebec, its final form for the first time, when I problem: how to get everyone to use it without losing precious production time. The Canada H3T1J6 proclaim in genuine surprise, hey, this solution: create an online help system and interactive training modules. But how to Tel. +1 (514) 738-8861. MikeMarklew (Japan) , issue isn't so bad - in fact, it's even trans late all 72,000 help screens into four European languages? Tel. +81 (3) 760-2871 . Steve Rosenthal better than the last. (USWestCoast) What makes it doubly gratifying THE DEATH OF PRINT by David Henry Goodstein 2 9 Writers MarkOols, Richard Evans , this time is that this is the first issue of We know you've heard it before, but this time you better really pay attention. Ray Girvan , Charles Hugo , Jeffrey S. Mann , Brock the rest ofour lives. Thirty six months Electronic Media is about to wreak an astonishing transformation on the printing Meeks , JefRaskin , Ezra Shapiro, JohnSeifarth , Or. andtwo publisherslater, ElectricWord industry. The days ofprint are numbered - though this won't necessarily mean the NickBeard , Tony is independent. end ofpaper. Whitecomb Proofreading That means that this summer we Andrew Rogers ContributingArtists will be devoting our energies fulltime THE ORIGINAL CYBERPUNK: TIM LEARY by Louis Stiller 3 4 Ryu Tajiri, Max Kisman , to raisingnewfunding, and!orfinding Dr. Timothy Leary is converting his vision ofa cyberdelic future, where people use Henri Lucas Photographers a new publisher. We believe strongly thought applicances to free there own minds and change the world, into software OyanaVan Campen lanPatrick that the world needs a magazine like reality. Director of Marketing Jane Metcalfe Electric Word, one written not for an FulfillmentDirector utterly mythical corporate CEO ready HACKING THE BRAIN by Nick Beard 3 7 Ada m Eeuwens FulfillmentAssociate to buy5,000 computers at a throw, but After a false dawn, neural networks are winning back an increasingly large slice ofthe IngridBerk for the thinking computer user research cake. Nick Beard reports how natural language processing is benefitting. © 1990by language involved in the global revolution of Technology, BV. All rightsreserved . information technology and word­ WRITERS RIGHT NOW by Jane Dorner 4 3 Electric Word (ISSN 0921­ crunching. And we are very optimistic The British Library commissioned a survey ofover a thousand writers to find out their 2787) is published by Language Technolo gy BV, that the commercial potential of the use ofand att itude toward information technology and writing. The first report on at Amsterdam , TheNether­ least boringcomputer magazine in the the results of the survey, plus a poll ofpublishers, specially for Electric Word. lands , bi-monthly(6 a year). world will attract new investors. Subscription price US$50 for individuals, Thank you for all your calls, faxes WORDWORKER: NICHQLSON BAKER by Mark Reid 6 4 US$95Corporationsl Institutions. and letters ofconcern and!or congrat­ Former technical writer Nicholson Baker has become a cult phenomenon, with his Exclusive Italian agents ulations, as well as your offers ofhelp first two novels drawing hot reviews. Logos SRL, viaCurtatona 51 2, 41100 Modena. Tel+39 and equipment. And while we are al­ (59) 280802. ready doing our utmost to line up new USPostmaster LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY section Send all address changes to backing, you can certainly help: ifyou Electric Word ,clo Expedit­ ersof thePrintedWord Ltd. know anyone, or any company, that News You Can Use 3 2323Randolph Ave. , Rahway, NJ07001 USA. would like the opportuntity to invest Lingua Franca 9 Second Class PostagePaid at Rahway, NJ. in ElectricWord, we would appreciate Vie ws and Abuse 11 All inquiries your informing them and us. My per­ Stars 13 Emmalaan 21, 1075 ATAmste rdam , NL sonal number is +31 (20) 123 731. Sue Atkins, star lexicograp her Tel. +31 (20)6646551 Fax: 755091. See you in the fall - with yet again Paul Brai nerd, thefather of PageMaker Change of Address our best issue ever . MikeRyan, author of a powerful new typesetting prog ram for book production Please provideaddress from lastissue andnew - Louis Rossetto Revie ws You Can Use . address . Allow six weeks. Submissions Hardcopy Revi ew 56 Wewelcome submissions. Pleasemake surethey'reon Cal en dar 60 disk, andaccom panied by CyberLex 60 hardcopy. Type, lithosandprinting Clas-si fieds 61 Henkes Senefelde r, Purme rend , NL Ask Dr. Writestuff 62 A-GEVAERT N.V. Additional typesetting Niek vanOijk rot e Steenweg 224 Special thanksto COVER PHOTO Peter Rutten , without whose help andsuppo rt RichardSaulWurmanattheTED2 conference, shotby a participantwitha Sony this issue would not have 00 Berchem (Antwerp) been possib le. Mavica electronic camera. Image then manipulated usingAdobe's PhotoShop. BELGIUM Electr ic Word #20 KE NEW S YOU C ·A N USE INTELLIGENT NETWORKS HYPERDOC LANGU~_- Gasps at DRUPA: Direct-to-paper press The propaganda machines have been REVAMPED pounding away for years about how in­ The new 2.10version Following the reduction of the Berlin Wall to a telligent networks are finally coming, but of Hyperd oc, from UK­ i~s is theLeading Supplier based Hyperdoc PLC, in fact DRUPA was the first time that paperweight, the walls ofthe print and publishing allows IBM/clone users llingverifier correctors in Engli: products to implement distributed net­ 1 industries could be the next obstacles to free move­ to build complete multi­ " l ~h e , best selling electronic the: works looked real. A few advanced users media presentations ment to go. Interoperability was the name of the have had multi-site, even multinational, withmoving or still ~ , We use a powerful ' ~ A n" n """i''' , game at the recent DRUPA '90 high-end print and linkups in operation for severalyears, but images fromvideo or f~~RC), to squeeze the enti publishing fair. Held once every five years, the suppliers now intend to make this the camera, scanned im­ norm, rather than the exception. ages and drawings, text entries and 220,00 jungle that is the world's largest single trade exhibi­ and graphics from English spelling 1 Networks were the hottest news from tion featured a plethora of products designed to Scitex, which ran what it described as computer databases, and audiomaterial. It Italian lexicon tak compression techniques, ours require "the world's largest prepress configura­ 10K break down the walls between systems, companies, also supports touch under of 1 I J ,",\.IVll 1IJJ \;,');:)1011 is instantaneous. Our new phonetic tion" from its booth. Remote scanning, industries, individual country markets and even screen technology and tion algorithms are unsurpassed in the industry. proofingand recordingwere in operation multiple textfonts , as ur customers include Ashton-Tate, Claris, Lotus, MicroPro, Microsoft, Symantec, Xerox, between media for delivery ofinformation. withcustomers alloverEurope viaSciNet. well asSharp JX300/ Xy uest, and many others. Word Finder is the thesaurus bundled in ~i,~rosoft Word",::WprdStar This product runs on a very high speed 450colorscanners . All 4.0, FullWrite, Manuscript, and XyWrit~. Our ;.SQ~!~~r,w~n PC ¥if~{J,Zine Editor~S ii~hoice in David Henry Goodstein between the systems ofdifferent vendors. link, butusesonly a partofthe bandwidth function keys are now ~yWrite a,;;fi~ld Contone images, linework, and page de­ for digital data transmission. Remaining programmable, and 1987for the implementation in III PluS;,compared to of 32 products with there is improved sup­ spelling technology from -every vendor !1! the industry.I,l ~!S also used in FullWrite The entry of computer technology into scription files will be handled, as well as transmission space is available for video and voice teleconferencing, allowing op­ portfor GEM, Ventura !~l.. ~r . the global print and publishing business high resolution edge/contour informa­ and full color TIFF . )i;&; and MacWrite 5.0. erators as well as machines at communi­ pro~id~ tec~n~gy Sel~~Tronics Wqr.}t~inder originally served to deepen lines offrag­ tion. graphics format. We the in the WF-220 handheld mentation caused by differences in lan­ Obstructions to the free flow of in­ cating sites to be linked to each other in dicti<>narv/thesaurus ~ {tOther ann1icatiG9~ ~f oU~ H~.~~~~ ology Hyperdoc nowcomes include OCR and guage, culture and labor. With programs formation from desktop publishing to real time. with new graphics or Te,.,can customize for any requirement. created on different hardware, in differ­ full color systems appear to be melting Following its deal for exclusive mar­ libraries. program that works without indexing ent software languages, the problem of away too, as manufacturers adopt the keting rights to the Prepress Express ser­ From UK£1800. \ ; ~nother of our products. A powerful the last few years hasn't been with getting new religion of interoperability. Com­ vice ofGTE Spacenet in the USA, Scitex Hyperdoc PLC. Tel: m outperforming anything else on the digital data from Paris to Melbourne, but panies that once refused to recognize that also becomes the first of the printing +44(81)5411877. r less overhead, will be available soon. from aHell system to aScitex, Dainippon programs like Xpress and PageMaker equipment suppliers to cross the line from selling applications and products to RADIATION Screen or Crosfield computer next door. could do the layout job properly are now . . . Apple shares fell1-1/4 ;\?"\t' key implementationsin both software PostScript worked a miracle for supporting them. selling total environments, Scitex hopes» points when Wall Street are, and welCome OEM and distributor inquiries. We interoperability of information in the heard onCNN thatMac support'the IBM PC, Macintosh, Intel 8031, 8051, monochromeworld ofpublishingsystems monitors emitted "wor­ 8088/8086, the Z-80, and 68000 machinecode. a few years back. Scoop: First portable CD-I player risome" levels of ex­ et: Unfortunately, Adob e didn't deal so tremely low-frequency completely with color data. Color Post­ (ELF) electromagnetic Hog Script is coming, but much more slowly radiation. CNN picked upthestoryfromthe than users had hoped. The DDES inter­ Julyissue of Mac­ change format proposal has been around World, which ran tests forever, and is in the ISO /ANSI stan­ on10common indus­ dardization process. But that could take try monitors two another decade to finalize. months after EW broke For a wide variety oftechnical, com­ thestory (EW #19 mercial and cultural reasons, it has been news). almost impossible to move information Meanwhile, theEuro­ between color equipment from different pean Commission has published proposals to vendors. So Scitex's announcement ofits restrict theuse of soft­ Intercompany File Exchange Network, ware thatmonitors IFEN, ought to gladden the hearts of employee workrates ­ prepress users. unless they agree be­ IFEN includes standards for hard­ forehand thatthey ware, software and data file encoding should beused . Other which will be adopted by Hell and safety measures Crosfield as well as Scitex itself. Itwill be planned bythe EC based primarily on opening and en­ include hourly breaks for computerworkers hancingfurther the Handshake protocol. Sony demonstrated this functioning portable CD- I player at the Philips­ and allowing pregnant H ardware and interfaces for machines women to workaway sponsored"MultimediaConference on Interactive CD," held in London inJune. will be based on the emerging Fibre fromscreens without Distributed Data Interface, DDFI. Unlike Philips, which is pouring money (through its Polygram and American loss of pay. The moves, Basic mode operation will link sites Interactive Media subsidiaries) into developing CD-I software, Sony believes supported bytheEuro­ with only one type ofequipment, while a that the market will be hardware-driven. Sony senior general manager Nobuyuki pean Parliament, will more sophisticated inter-systems mode Idei told Electric WOrdthat Sony expects its first player to carrya $500 price tag. require approval by (involvin g a DDES-like encoding "When we introduced CD audio," Idei stated pointedly, "there were only 25 national governments. scheme) will be used to transfer data titles available."

LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 3 NEWS YOU CAN USE a NEWS YOU CAN USE a

MOUSE ON A «to bring the Spacenet product to n ur rosfield, Scitex, Hell and others retailer contacts. Oxford Dictionary of KEYBOARD thereby creating a cost-effective and n:l' that Unix is good, that Suns, Macs Invasion of the CD·I snatchers CDTV's strength, according to Quotations or KeyTronic Corp (Spo­ technologically unified high-bandwidth nd 1)( \ are very nice, but that the only Bettletts, butit's mak­ kane, WA) offers PC Brown-Martin, is that it's a simple ad­ network for printers, trade shops and at products can be built with suf­ ersclaim it's faster users thepoint-and­ aptation ofan existing product (it's based publishing companies worldwide. do nn ance for graphic arts ap­ than plowing through draw capabilities of a around the Amiga 500) using mature Networks were also flavor of the lun.n I\'II ~ is t.o have bunches of custom a book. Quotemaster mouse withouthaving technology. Furthermore, "development month, with Dainippon Screen, whose in under the hood. Plus costs $89and is to take their pinkies off l1 c1,nl equipment is cheap and out there in the new multi-protocolserver-based network, between a Ford available in IBM and thekeyboard. Pressing lifTc l'c llu: thousands. Anyone competent at Amiga OmegaNet, provides support at 148 Mac versions. the"AIt" key allows "'1H.J\'Vo l'l'h I-<.l l d Sierra, trans­ programming can develop for CDT~" thekeyboard's J key to Mbits per second to up to 32 nodes f( 'l l ' l'n ~ l's h a \'C f h c s ; ll n e s h cl l, b ui adifferent he said. The Amiga can also be used to RATTUS pivotand actlikea sharing over 60 GB ofmagnetic disk and NEXT: THE TRANSFORMERS .uri m .i ] insit author CD-I applications. CYBERNETICUS mouse: push it to the another 180 GB of optical storage for While many new systems were intro­ I'he hrilIiHlH ne\' rightand thecursor Also, CDTV will have the home One for all you cyber­ Ethernet, T 1, T2 and a variety of other duced at D RUPA on standard platform perhaps the b<: 'lr ncv punks: researchers at moves to the right. market to itself for a year, though con­ standards simultaneously. The concept is computers such as Sun SPARC or Apple tool in th e business, 1 ~ . 1 p,ood exnnl ll IC. It' S California's Stanford KeyTronic expects versely,saysBrown-Martin, this may help not totally new, but the emphasis that Mac, there was a counter-trend towards a software could be poricd to :111) Unix University have im­ Home Row technology CD-I too by introducing interactivity to Dainippon is placing on 'networking for group of systems sometimes called hardware. But on its own hardware, it i ~ planted asilicon chip to bemostuseful in the public in advance ofits own launch. its customer base, manyofwh om arevery transformers (since they looklike standard one fast mother, setting a high level riddled withtiny holes portable computers , A future development that may where space and traditional (and often smaller) businesses, platforms above, but have non-standard, expectation for users and a blist erin g pac intoa labrat. Accord­ Commodore added to its growing repu­ told EW NextTechnology are producers muddy the waters yet mo re is that a CD­ ingto AI Expert, nerve weight are limited. just getting started with electronic page high powered board and display com­ for competitors. tation as a "CD I-killer" by unveiling an of the first European disks for CDTV I emulator could be created for CD~ axons can beinduced composition, is very telling. ponents beneath). The DRUPA show also sugg ests Amiga-based multimedia CD player for (and authors ofCD-I disks). "Interactivity especially if Motorola, who makes the to growthrough the BLUE LASER The next development is to build Transformers can run standard soft­ customizationwill becomea majortrend. holes and beindividu­ When Japan 's Ibiden release in the fall for "under US$I,OOO." is a red herring here. The world doesn't CD-I chips, owns the copyright. Com­ more intelligence , such as dat a format ware as well as their own packages , but Numerous productdevelopers from vari­ allyaccessed. The Co. announced in May This would ma ke the Commodore know if we're ready for interactive tech­ modore might be able to license these for transformations, into the phone lines. A they are most often closed systems, like ous companies were voicing the same nerve chipis partof a it had developed a Dynamic Total Vision (CDTV) player nology. Everyone is bankingon the semi­ its own system. step in this direction is the new UK- Linotype's LinoColor. opinion: high performance, especially in project to create achip blue semiconductor the first consumer-oriented product to mythical 'typical family.' " color imaging systems, requires custom­ containing active laser, its stock became combine CD technology and a personal The key will be marketing, he says. eINTERACTUS INTERRUPTUS circuitry thatsends so popular theTokyo ized and proprietary technology. Commodore plans to sell through high­ computer in a single, simple to use, af­ Polygram'sAmerican Interactive Media ­ biological signals to Stock Exchange sus­ fordable unit, beating Philips's CD-I by end audio outlets, upmarket department brought into existence to produce pro­ pended trading . Now artificial limbs. atleast six months to a year. stores and selected retail chains, though grams for Philip's imminent CD-I player Stanford says theyare IBM has developed The CDTVlooks like a standard CD this may prove more difficult for a com­ - has indefinitely postponed the previ­ still 10 years from one 20times more powerful than Ibiden's. audio player (and plays CDs and CD puter manufacturer to arrange than they ously announced "TheSexual Universe." putting such a chipin humans. A blue beam's shorter ROMs) that plugs into a TV set and hi­ expect. Philips, Sony, Matsushita and the ElectricWord'sinformants have not been wavelength could read fi system to become an interactive other CD-I makers, on the other hand, able to verify a rumor that this was due to CD GUIDE - ON CD much smaller grooves infotainment and education center. obviously have much better consumer a lack ofavailable hardware. CD Guide, themaga­ ona CD, quadrupling However, it reportedly has only partial­ thestorage capacity of zine outof New Hamp­ screen full motion video. ' shire, USA covering ­ infrared laser-based It can be converted into an Amiga Computer recognizes typist you guessed it - the discs nowused. A home micro by adding a keyboard, 3.5in commercial version is CD world , is now floppy drive and mouse or joystick, all available on CD ROM . at least three years off. cordlessly connected by infra red. The computerized equivalent of the signature is finally with us in the form of a The quarterly CD POSTSCRIPT 2 Commodorehopes to have 100 titles program that can recognize individuals by their typestrokes - a characteristic version is packed with Adobe has announced available by launch date and 200 by apparently jus t as unique in each individual as handwriting is. 40,000 product list­ ings, 4000 reviews , thefirst major update Christmas, on topics such as cooking, The innovation, by Dutch company GRIP (General Recognition and Identifica­ sample audio tracks of PostScript since it foreign languages, sports, games and tion Program), could end the primacyofthe signature, for centuries the onlysure way and other goodies. was introduced over learning packages for kids. of identifying the author of a document, or proving that a document is authentic. fiveyea rs ago . New Should you lose your "CDTVis the next logical step in the Although the computer has been taking over the tasks ofpen and typewriter for some way among allthis features inclu de im­ evolution ofconsumer electronics," said years, there has been no real computer equivalent of the signature up to now. proved form handling , information, youcan Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Passwords and codes have to be memorized by the user, all too often to be forgotten colorsupport and search for a particular pattern manipulation. now general manager of Commodore's shortly afterwards. Even more problematical is the fact that they have proven easily CD by name, disklabel In addition , transmis­ new Interactive Consumer Products di­ breakable by hackers. number - even its sion timefor Post­ vision. "It provides capabilities far beyond Eindhoven-based GRIP's approach is the first real innovation in the quest for a rating. A single issue Script language pro­ any currently available entertainment or computer signature. Gerrit Lebbink discovered that no two people have the same is $99, a subscription $259. grams has been re­ computersystem, yet isremarkablysimple typing rhythm. He developed a program that registers the length ofpauses between WGE Publishing. duced. Adobe is now to use. If you know how to change TV the pressing and releasing ofthe various keys on the keyboard and the time taken to writing drivers for the Tel: +1 (603) 525­ channels with a remote control, you can move from one key to the next. Lebbink applied this pattern-recognition algorithm 4201 . Macintosh, Windows take full advantage ofCDYV" to produce Keysign, a program for access control. 3.0and OS/2 environ­ Afteryou've typed a word or pass phrase as little as three to 20 times using Keysign , ments thatwill take NINTENDO AND MIT AUDACITYORBLIND OPTIMISM? the program has enough information to recognize your typing rhythm. GRIP advises Video game giant full advantage of Post­ I ...., . . However, although CDTVuses the High spreading the learning over several sessions so that your typing rhythm will be Nintendo is giving Script level 2. rol'rcss created incredible ex­ Adobe Systems Inc. Sierra CD RO M standardand the CD+G recognized both early on Monday morning and late on Friday afternoon. $3mn to researchers ment ar DRUPA and is sure to launch at MITto study how Tel: + 1 (415)961 graphics system (CD audio plus video), it Keysign can register the "signatures" ofmore than 40 typists, and in tests so far I I L1 ~h of development, as competitors video games can be 4400. won't support existing DOS or Apple no one has been able to imitate someone else's typing style closely enough to fool the scramble to match the achievement. By used to teach children . Mac CD ROMs, or CD-I. Neither will it program. And if the program doesn't recognize the right typist, it simply announces Print '91 in Chicago, th ere should be Learning specialist QUOTEMASTER play discs created for Fujitsu's FMTowns "not recognized" and refuses to proceed further. So from now on you can tell your thre e or four othervendorswirh produ cts Seymour Papert will Lostfor words? Try or NEC's PC Engine, both already well­ password to anyone around, even to the Hamburg Chaos Computer Club. Quotemaster Plus, a or announcements ofsimilar systems; by workontheproject established in Japan, or Sorry's new Data GRIP has applied the recognition algorithms used in Keysign to several other withAI pioneer Marvin new package from DRUPA '95, every m njo: I-)(" C ~ :-' supplier D iscman (see page six, this issue). programs. One ofthese is the Identivox, which recognizes people by their voice. This Minsky and the Media Houston-based Penn­ could have some W ~ l )' o f- gcc ring from Comp Software. It'sa "This is nota problem. I don't believe program was developed in close cooperation with banking organizations to prevent Lab's Nicholas Negro­ prepress cornpoviuct f1 s )'S t C ln ~ to th e computerized quote there will be a single standard for inter­ fraudulent financial transactions by telephone. ponte. Papert devel­ moving sheers 01' webs wirho u: plates, data base containing activity," Graham Brown-Martin of Keysign and Identivox both run on IBM PCs and compatibles. oped thecomputer film or deln\. language Logo , used 3,000 gems - this may Cambridge, UK-based NextTechnology GRIR PO Box 233, 5670AE Nuenen, The Netherlands. Tel: +31 (40) 447820. seem paltry next to the in one-third of US elementary schools. 4 HOL OGY # 2 0 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 5 e NEWS YOU CAN USE NEWS YOU CAN USE e

lished by two different printers, George MAC ARCHIVING MITis notobliged to This is in part the result ofthe graph- Computer discovers Shakespeare's poems Eld and Richard Read, and marked dif­ Archis is a document create video games for Is your Mac makin u s-oriented Macintosh user-interface. ferences from other works - even those management and Nintendo, butis ex­ She believes that the emphasis on graph­ archiving system from pected to develop Your Mac could be making you stupi c] , Computers are being used in an attempt plausible author ofShakespeare's plays), printed by the same printers. icsdiscourages students from developing Belgian developer ideas which designers to solve the most famous literary enigma and Queen Elizabeth I. Professor Elliott hopes to see his re­ according to recent research conducted io u \, analytical attitude towards text. SoftCore Creative can then apply to of all: the question of who really wrote Elliott and Valenza conclude that search refined and continued by other at the University ofDel aware by Marci.i Id ll·jOIl, Mac-produced text may Technology. Running commercial games the plays and poems attributedto William Shakespeare was indeed the author ofthe scholars as well as his own team. "Com­ Peoples Halio, assistan t director or the lv lookso good tha t it fools students onanAppleTalk net­ programs, notneces­ works, as no other writer so far tested English Department's writing progra rn. klna rhcir work is better than it Shakespeare. The latest development in puters can reveal things which the naked work, Archis combines sarily educational in It all started when she noticed a marked c ~ n ) a ll screen of the the four hundred year old controversy is matches his stylistic profile. He uses many eye misses," he says. Or, as Shakespeare software modules with nature. the claim, made by ProfessorWardElliott more compound words, exclamation might have said, they "make the truth difference in quality between the wa d ll'h scanners, video digitiz­ and Professor Rob Valenza of Clermont marks, open lines, feminine endings and appear when it seems hid." (Measurefor ersand a WORM drive E-MAIL: AFTER produced by first year writing prOQ:ran1 for document storage. X.400, X.500 students using IBM PCs, on rh McKenna College in California, that 'long sentences, andfewer relative clauses, Measure, V, i, 66) SoftCore Creative A year ago, theAero­ hand, and thoseworkingon Macint computer analysis "proves" Shakespeare than his contemporaries. Technology. Tel. +32 space Industries Asso­ to have been the onlyauthor ofthe works In addition, the computer "discov­ Multimedia Shakespeare is on its on the other. (2) 6474000. ciation (AlA) warned Even though the two groups ofstu ­ attributed to him. / ered" eight new Shakespeare poems, way. The innovative Voyager company, e-mail suppliers: either dents were ofequal (average) ability, and Data Discman: Dawn ofthe electronic bo Some 58 Elizabethans have beenheld previously thought uncharacteristic of whose multimedia CD-ROM version of connect yourincom­ were given the same amountofcomputer up, at various times and with varying the Bard. The Passionate Pilgrim was a Beethoven's Ninth Symphony stunned patible systems, or training and the same choice of assign­ degrees ofconvincingness, as contenders collection of20 poems first published in participants at the recent TED2 confer­ Random risklosing theincome in the "real Shakespeare" stakes. The 1599. Although the collection has ence, is currently testing the viability ofa fromthe150mn e-mail ments, the Mac writers consistently claims have been based on what is per­ Shakespeare's signature, only five poems multimedia series ofShakespeare's plays. Random messages sent byAlA produced work ofinferior quality. T hey ceived in some quarters as the unlikeliness in the book are attributed to him, and These would combine text with au­ members every year. showed less ability in spelling, punctua­ E-mail companies tion , vocabulary, sentence structure and, ofWilliam Shakespeare - from a humble four to other poets. The other 11 are dio (BBC radio), and possibly film , ver­ Random woke up,scramb ling most disturbingly, in development of background and with no university anonymous, and few scholars think they sions ofthe play, plus annotations, glos­ to adopt theXAOO thought. education - being the creative genius have anything to do with Shakespeare. saries, and other relevant material. The Random standard for intercon­ witha knownvocabularyofl7,000words But the computer has earmarked eight as contentwill be selected by Shakespearean Even the subjects they chose to write RANDOM TYPE nection. The world about revealed less sophistication and (twice that of Milton) behind the plays bearing his linguistic signature. scholars, following along the lines ofthe Are you ready for applauded . Now major that bear his name. Professor Elliott reports that criti­ Beethoven disk, which was overseen by random PostScript players likeIBM , maturity than the IBMers, though both Professor Elliott's Shakespeare Clinic cisms of his computerized dissection of Robert Winter, Professor of Music at fontsfor yourMac, AT& T, MCI and others groups were given the same selection of fed three million words of Elizabethan Shakespeare have been flooding in. One UCLA. specially programmed are hurrying along the possible topics. The Mac users tended to English into a mainframe computer. To ofthe most serious concerns the tests for Voyager's Bob Stein stressed that the to change shapes? development of the pick the rnosj superficial and ephemeral Every character looks logically-named, next­ of topics - dating, fast food, television the Shakespeare corpus researchers added punctuation, hyphenation and com­ project is still at a theoretical stage, butwe different every timeit step X.500 standard. 34 works from 18 pretenders to the Bard's pound words. We have no real idea how could see the first multimedia play ­ and rock music - while the IBM toting appears. Available in This will allowmes­ crown, including time-honored favorites Shakespeare used any of these, as his probablyMacbeth- asearlyasnext spring. students went for the weightier matters three levels of weird­ sages to beautomati­ like the Earl of Oxford, Francis Bacon, works have not survived in manuscript Meanwhile, DIY Shakespeare schol­ ofcapital punishment, teenage pregnancy, ness: Beowolf 21,22 cally passed to a mail­ nuclear war and drunk driving. Christopher Marlowe, Queen Elizabeth form, and the punctuation of the early ars may be interested to know that his (which thebrochure boxonanye-mail I, and Sir Walter Raleigh. printed versions may only reflect the works are now available on disk. A CD­ describes ashaving "a system , worldwide. To test her observations, aconcerned Halio decided to run twenty essays, Finally, the Shakespeare Clinicadded preferences ofhis editors and printers. In ROM from CMC Research Inc. contains mind of its own")and 16 works by non-claimants to the title, fact, only one short piece ofmanuscript Shakespeare's 37 plays, five narrative 23 ("hectic, which WORDPERFECT2.0 randomlyselected from both user groups, beautifully represents FOR THE MAC through the Writers' Workbench Text and the King James Bible. The resulting thought to be by Shakespeare's hand has poems and 154 sonnets - in both the thehurryand stress of WordPerfect 2.0for Analysis programs on the VAX main­ ping to revolutionize our reading habits corpusis the largest collectionofmachine­ survived - a speech by Sir Thomas More Queen's English and American English modern life").Avail­ the Mac is coming this readable Elizabethan and Jacobean texts which is skimpily and carelessly punctu­ versions. It comes with DiskPassage re­ frame. The results confirmed her ini tial rem arkabl e new product, due forJapanese release able from Eric fall. New are aninte­ ever, though it is far from definitive. ated. trieval software andcosts US$99. Requires impressions. Only30% ofthe M acwriters alled Data Discman, it's a portable data retrieval Spiekermann 's grated drawingpro­ The database was created by Profes­ On the other hand, the computer IBM XT with 640Kb RAM. used complex sentences, as ooooscd t .he po stcard-sized (4" x 7") player reads 3-inch FontShop in Berlin. gram (allowing users 50% ofth e IBM users.T he M rnpact disks. An LeD screen on the outer lid displays 15 sor Elliott and his colleague Rob Valenza, revealed distinct similarities in the inci­ CMC Research Inc., 7150 Southwest Tel. +49(30)24 11 29. to editand drawfiles of computer sciences. The program, de­ dence ofcompound words and exclama­ Hampton, Suite C-120, Portland, OR Ll characters horizontally and 10 lines vertically at a time, in PICT, PCS , and also scored a much hiaher vised by Valenza, runs every text through tion marks in Shakespeare works pub- 97223, USA. Tel: +1 (503) 6393395. FIRST WINDOWS WPG file formats ), the verb s (32 0/0as op scrolling its way through what ever text you are reading. If a number oftests designed to establish its GRAMCHECKER ability to manipulate IBM users), a sign your eyes can't take the strain, a video adapter lets you stylistic profile. The result is then com­ The first grammar and graphic images em­ pr ose, accordi ng t display your text on a TV screen. style checker for Mi­ bedded withina docu­ th eorists. There's also a tiny Roman-alphabet keyboard, on the pared to the Shakespearean mean. The active document crosoft Windows is ment while in "edit" The main test, modal analysis (aka Sentence length averaged 16.3 words top cover ofthe disk-loading mechanism, to help you make Reference Software's mode (i.e. without the Valenza test), divides a text into blocks Electronic publishing leader Interleafrecently announced the active document, among the Mac writers, but 22.6 words searches. Retrieval software integrated into the circuitry of Grammatik Windows. having to enter "page and counts for 52 keywords in each block. which it claims is a major breakthrough in controlling and speeding the flow of with the IBM writers. And far more M ac the Discman allows various methods ofdata retrieval: w It retails at US$99, preview" mode), a information within an organization. students (800/0, as opposed to 67% IBM search, keyword search, menu search and multi search, Then it measures and ranks relationships witha network ver­ macro editor, pro­ among others. Users will also he abl e to listen to regular 3­ between the keywords. In Shakespeare, Active documents are "aware" oftheir contents and those ofother files, and sion, supporting five grammable macros , writers) resorted to the use ofthe sentence the test reveals a very few strong interre­ can evaluate information and act on it. They include a vast range ofpossibilities users, at US$189. and customizable style subjectas theirsentence opener-another inch audio C Os by us ing the earpho nes. lationships, or modes, tailing offquickly - memos that mail themselves, interactive trainingmanuals that customize their Withsales of over sheets. $395 . indication of unsophisticated writing scma n will cost around US$380. Athough ini­ technique.AlthoughninepercentofIBM ,tc<1 in J apan only, sales overseas are expected in into many weak modes. "Preliminary next chapter according to how you did in a test at the end of the last chapter, 300,000 sofar, Gram­ matik is a best-seller in CULTURE FOR MS! sentences used subordinating conjunc­ 'are Data D iscm an currently comes with a CD modal testinghas shownhigh consistency database documents which update the source database ifyou make any changes both the DOS and Mac DOS between each block ofShakespeare's po­ to the extracted documents, interactive novels, documents which tailor them­ tions, none of the Mac sentences did. ifTcrent dictionari es: three Japanese, and markets. Reference Culture, the ', n g l i s h-J ~l pall es e . ems andShakespeare's poems as awhole," selves to the amount oftime the reader has to read them, and so on. And Mac users made poorer proofread­ Aswords are enteredwiththeRoman plans to release XENIX hypermedia guide to says Elliott. "It has also shown high dis­ The active document promises to automate many tedious tasks (sending ers, averaging 15 missp ellings per rard, they are automatically converted into Japanese and SUN operating civilization from Cul­ memos, informationgathering), reactto differentcircumstances (create different compared to four per IBM llragana or katakana characters. crimination between Shakespeare and system editions inthe tural Resources Inc., Assisting Sony in its ambitions is the Electro nic Book other poets - not as high as fingerprints, contents for different dates, people, choices - even the time ofday), and adapt fall. Foreign language is nowavailable for Readability scores, reckoned a but perhaps as high as hat sizes." to different users (presenting them with appropriate interfaces and sets of versions are expected MS-DOS/IBM com­ ing to the Kincaid scale, averaged 1/. 1 ommittee - a consortium of28Japanese bo ok publishers functions). The machine does all the work, freeing the harried information laterthis year. patibles for $175 . The (first year college level) for the IBtvl working in cooperationwithSonyto develop theformat. 18 CRITICISMS professional for other jobs - ifthere are any left! Reference Software. DOS driver is a new writers bu t only 7.95 for the Mac writc rs, CD electronic booktitles are due for release in July, in clud­ Tel: +1 (415) 541 hypermedia product which is below high schoo l level, ing reference books and guides to travel, entertainment and So far, the modal test has established only Initially, says Interleaf, the active documentis intendedas a productivitytool two writers with results in any way for documentation creation. Butit has wider implications. The active document 0222. called Hyperwriter, In an articl e on her research in medicine. Costing around US$20 t o $ ~l3, each electronic comparable to Shakespeare's: Fulke could serve as an application or an expert system, as a control panel, or as an from Connecticut­ demic Computing M agazine, 1Ialio high­ book CD can store around l OO,O()() n :H!(:S of text - that's ATEX based Ntergaid , which Greville (ironically never considered as a expert editor enforcing corporate, industry or government standards. lights several contributory facto rs for th e over 300 paperbacks. Atex Publishing Sys­ comes bundled with tems attacks the theproduct. LANGUAGE TECHN~LOGY #20 7 6 CHN OLOGY #20 e NEWS YOU CAN LINGUA FRANCA <~] lower-end DTP market are anxious to foster communication and TRANSLATORS OF with new publ ishin g S It real, 0 Global language industries survey results synergy amongEuropean researchers and OZ . systems: each new help promote technical standards for lan­ The myth of a reso­ system provid es infor­ MI T 's Media Lab has br Ink International has delivered its year­ Another project is a study of the guage data in machine-readable form ." lutely monolingual Oz mation sharing be­ ofwatchingMondayNi long Language Industries Survey to the demand-side - on document processing "The Commission would like to see has justtaken a tween departments , as your living room floor Commission of the European Commu­ bottlenecks within companies and orga­ the countries of Europe compile stan­ knocking. Australia­ well asproviding based translators and the announcement that they've SlI nity. nizations. dardized public electronic wordlists and users with profes­ interpreters nowhave sional publishing fully developed an electro-optical dcvic The survey is part of an ongoing Sprangers: "We're looking at the other linguistic data for use by private theirown journal for applications . Writer capable ofdisplaying computer-generated initiative by the Commission to raise document production process of 15 companies. Otherimportantfieldswhich thefirst timeever, Software incorporates holograms in real time. awareness ofthe advantages with regard companies - how it's done, what the should have standards are terminology published bytheAus­ atext-editor, reputed The lab's Spatial Imaging Group says to natural language processingofa uni ted stages are, what's currently being done by and lexicography." tralian Institute of simplicity of use, and the development is central to progress in yet linguistically pluralist Europe. hand, what can be improved. But no According to Guille, the Commis­ Interpreters and thepower of theAtex fields such asmedical imaging, computer­ Survey questionnaires were sent to product recommendations, of course," sion also has to sort out the complicated Translators. front-end for a stand­ aided design and navigation, which de­ more than 4,500 companies and organi­ Rabier quickly adds. "The role of the copyright situation with respect to Australian Institute alone or networked mandeasy,rapid and accurate perception zations worldwide. Of the 600 respon­ Commission isclear with respect to that." translated materials and terminology in of Interpreters and IBM PS/2. It includes Translators. Tel: +61 ofcomplex structures in depth. dents, most came from the US and the A third project is a brochure to public databases. anextensive library of (3) 8774369. editing commands, Atpresent, 3-D data for interactive, UK. ''As is usual with computer-related heighten awareness among end users, Summing up, Emmanuel Rabier spelling checker, the­ animated or real-time display is limited activities," Ink notes, "English-speaking highlighting the gains possible withsome notes: "Information has become a prod­ TYPESETTING IN saurus and to 2-D rendering display on a VDU. countries dominate." of these new technologies. uct, and most ofthe world's information URDU AND FARSI customizable headers. Progress beyond this has been hampered Did INK get the response they Bernard Guille at the Commission's is in the form of human language. The Nastalique Nizami is a Page Makeup Soft­ by the limited information bandwidth wanted? DG XIII puts it this way: "We are doing countries that develop skills in language new software package ware provides compo­ available in current electronic, comput­ Survey coordinator Kick Sprangers: preparatory work for policy decisions on technologywill have a distinct advantage from Pakistan Data sition and makeup. ing and communication systems. "We were desperately hoping the big the level ofthe Council ofMinisters. We doing busines s worldwide." Management Services A 10cm xl0cm hologram with a companies would reply. But manydidn't, for typesetting the PHOTONIC PHONE Information Age is already in museum lndo-Iranian lan­ viewing angle of30 degreescontains about for reasons ofconfidentiality. They'd get Justmonths afterits guages, Urdu and Bell Labs produced the 25 Gigabytes ofinformation. To update These near life-size figures by sculptor Stephen Hansen greet visitors to the innovative to a certain question and decide they Language revolution in Eastern Farsi. It runs ona first digital optical it at 60 frames/sec with 8-bit resolution and highly interactive "Information Age" exhibition at the Smithsonian's National didn't want to answer it after all. Interest­ Macintosh with mini­ processor (see would require a data transmission rate of Museum ofAmerican History (Washington DC). ingly enough, US respondents seemed Europ'e mum 1Mb memory EW#19), AT&T claims 12 Terabits/sec - well beyond today's The largest and most complex interactive exhibition ever mounted by the much more open." and requires a Post­ it will deliver a pno­ technology. Smithsonian, "InformationAge" examines how information technology has changed One of the discoveries of the '89 The recent far-reaching changes in Eastern Europe have Script printer for out­ tonicphone switch The Lab has reduced this to 1Gb /sec society over the last 150 years. Survey is that onlyvery small or very large brought about a language revolution, as the former Soviet put. based onthe research by eliminating vertical parallax before "Information Age" includes more than 700 artifacts, 700 graphics, period companies are involved in the language satellites rush to abandon their long-time secondlanguage, Pakistan Data Man­ within the next five computation, limiting the viewing angle settings, mannequins, as well as 78 computers and 40 interactive video stations. A industries. Russian, before the next century. agement Services, 87 years, rather than the D.A. C. H. S., Off to 15 degrees and reducing the picture computer network links together th e interactive workstations, video, films and radio "It's a risky business for investors," East European governments will be hoping to appoint 20first estimated. The Shaheed-e-Mi//at technology, known as resolution. recordings in the exhibit hall. explains Sprangers. "For large compa­ 100,000 new English teachers by the end ofthe century in Road, Karachi, Paki­ free-space photonics The calculations for the hologram "This exhibition is really about peop le and how the technological innovations of nies, 25 researchers on any given project secondary schools alone, the director general ofthe British stan. (FSP), allows light generation were done on a Thinking the past 150 years have changed their lives and become part of their culture," says ispeanuts; butmid-sized companies don't Counciltolda committeeofUKMPs inMay. AndifEnglish pulses to berouted to Machines Connection Machine model David Allison, curator ofthe exhibition. "We try to make the point that we don't live wan t to take the risk." teaching is extended to primary level, that figure could be HYPHENATE IN theirdestination with­ 2, which has 16,000 microprocessors in just a media age or a computer age - we live in the Information Age, which is a Ink's Emmanuel Rabier was quick to doubled. TONGAN outconversion to arrangedin a massivelyparallel hypercube combination of many techno logies. point out that while these results are for CD·I JAPANESE English now accounts for up to 80 per cent ofdemand Bedford Computer electrical impulses, as (Londonderry, NH) processing architecture. he $1Omn, 14,000 square-foo t exhibition will continue indefinitely. It's all been internal use of the Commission and in­ LEARNING DISK for foreign languages in Eastern Europe. Most ofthe new withfiberopticlines has justannounced a Objects up to 30cm x 30cm x 30cm possible by donations of cash and equipment from a number of prominent volved organizations, they pave the way This CD-I Japanese teachers will be retrained Russian teachers. The British today. In atotally FSP clutch of new foreign can be displayed with 64 lines ofverti cal rations - IBM,Unisvs, Hcwlctr-Packard, Apple, and other big players. for future projects. Rabier: "The next learning disk, is ajoint Council is looking for UK£6 million. in extra funds to network, we're talking language hyphenators venture between New trillionsrather than the resolution, almost flicker-free , in mono­ step will be proselytizing what we have ensure that English and not German becomes the first in Russian, Magyar Media Productions millions of bitsper chrome. discovered and helping design specific foreign language ofEast European children. (Hungarian), Tagalog, and Vektor, Ltd.A second currently pos­ Interactive holographi d ear that the average hacker represents recommendations to governments." A report in the Times Educational Supplement noted Tahitian , Samoan and workstill in progress, sible. A single network "almos t possible," th ou gh nUt'ur baCKS Tree any danger at all." Rabier explains why the EC got in­ that Czechoslovakia has virtually abandoned Russian Tongan. theapplication was could carry hundreds displ ay app lication will rcqui r volved in the first place: "The Commis­ Bedford Computer. He said enforcement agencies were based ontheVektor teaching overnight. Apart from a shortage ofteachers, most of thousands of tax oftwo ord ers ofmagnitud e in (electronic) speech casting their net too wide and the tactics sion, in particular the project leaders of English textbooks are in short supply, badly outdated and Tel: +1 (603) 668 connections, video interactive videodisk signal pro cessing technology. MI 'I they've used are inappropriate to the situ­ DG XIII (Innovation and Communica­ crushinglyboring (full ofcomplexwords, bits aboutBritish 3400. conference calls or course completed last parallelism and optical computers Lotusand ONTechnologyfounder Mitch ation at hand. Some young people have tion), perceived that Europe did not have year. Vektor's creative trade union structures and the shortcomings of colonial thousands of high­ TARGET FRENCH such an advance in the near future. Kapor has announced plans to raise a been arrested at gunpoint and had their the strongest technological position director Mike Picciotto rule). definition TVchannels. Target French is a new was a consultant on defense fund of"hundreds ofthousands computers seized by over-reacting agen­ compared to the US and Japan. The The British Council said there was strong competition language tutor pack­ the New Media disk. 12.9 MIPS FOR •A young London inventor has ofdollars" to help those accused in what cies. long-term (25 year) strategy is to build it from Germany to establish their own language in the age from UK-based Geared toward LESS THAN $5000 avoided high-tech hardware and silly he seesasoverzealous prosecution in some Kapor sees the issue in free speech up by focusing attention on the unique region. Target Languages business, theCD-I SUN Microsystems glasses in designing a 3-D TV called computer crime cases. and technological progress terms. Com­ opportunity provided by a united Eu­ Software for business application uses pre­ newest SPARC-based Deep Vision. James Ashbey's trick is to rope." people anticipating While he agrees that there are com­ puter bulletin boards "are electronic me­ scripted video dramas .Apple plans to begin selling the Macintosh, complete workstation, the SLC, 1992. For theMacin­ digitize a videotape and use a computer puter criminals who should have their dia. Ifthe governmentwas comingin and Sprangers and Rabier are eager to based on real life with Cyrillic operating system, in the USSR later this year. isfittedwith 8 to 16 tosh, Target French to add proprietary visual cues to each asses busted, much recent law enforce­ seizing printing presses, you would hear discuss some of the other projects the experiences anexecu­ Previously, restrictions on high-tech exports to Eastern MBof RAM and a 17 consists of audio frame. ment has abridged the free speech of the screams from coast to coast." Commissionhas planned. Rabier: "We're tivefaces onatrip to Europe meant that Russians couldn't legally buyMacs with inch 100dpi mono­ cassettes and a com­ When slightly different versions are innocentpeople who are often "grassroots He said the issue was also important currently compiling a directory of off­ Japan . The usercan 68030 processors. chrome monitor. The puter program. The the-shelf, language-oriented, commercial choose howto view SLC's processing beamed to each eye on playback, the technological pioneers." because young hackers, without com­ Even nowthat the restrictions have been lifted, Apple is latter gives youmis­ these dramas; either power is rated ata brain is tricked into "seeing" a 3-D im­ Kapor was approached by lawyers to mercial or government support, are pro­ products. The idea is if you are looking hardlylikelyto take Moscow by storm because the Macwill sions to accomplish dialog only, or with mouthwatering 12.9 age.Theprocess isvirtuallyinstantaneous, back a US-wide effort to defend those ducing "the most interesting and innova­ for a Chinese wordprocessor, you can retail at standard European prices (high compared to the which are typical (so sub-titles, (English or MIPS. Targetted atthe so could be used for live transmission. implicated in April's "Operation Sun tive things in telecommunications and find out who offers one." US) and payment will have to be in hard currency. theysay) of those Japanese, or both). X-terminal market, According to BusinessW7eekmagazine, Devil," the US Secret Service's two-year "To compilethis, we're sending out a business travellers computers...that will create these new The discis expectedto Software will also be a problem for Russian Mac users. Sun has priced it ata should encounter. "In a new version of Ben Hur, the hero's investigation ofcomputer fraud. media that will be very open, very cen­ questionnaire to companies in our data­ belaunched in late Aldus PageMaker, now available in the USSR in a PC highly competitive Prompt sheets can chariotpracticallyleaps offthe TVscreen. "When we talk about hackers, by tralized, very empowering. It's going to base for specific information on products 1990. version, will not be forthcoming for the Mac because Aldus US$5000. beprinted on personal Andwhen Charlton Heston's Moses parts and large, we're talking about teenagers," ben efit us all." currently available. Hopefully, the direc­ New Media. Tel: +44 doesn't know of any PostScript Cyrillic fonts and lacks Sun Microsystems. organizer paper for the Red Sea, it looks miles wide." Kapor told the UPI wire service. "It's not torywill be ready by the end ofthe year." (071) 4825258. confidence in Apple's East European strategy. Te/.: +1 (415)960­ you to study in spare 1300 moments. You can

8 L ANG UA GE TECH NOL OGY #20 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 9 ~ <~] LING UA VIEWS AND ABUSE test yourprogress and E-PRIME: BARKING UP A CHI­ which is indeed a fine tool for program pixels with a maximum of 40% hues . Want toget leave off and re-start Russian tuto GENEric LEXicon de MAERA development. "Realtime" live video using the Amiga justwhen you like, Editor, Not mentioned in the review was was first presented on US TV in 1986; it something off thanks to a resume Learning Russian to cap italize 011 thi s ag" nce How I agree with Robert Anton thatVq runs under both OS/2 andWin­ was used for the Max Headroom series facility. Price: £159.50. ofPerestroika?Now you can listen to ih Wilson about the beauties of E-Prime dows. For Windows, it can be configured and various other shows on international yO,ur chest? Target Languages language ofToIstoy without setting foot JUSI' c n m plcred is the feasibility study (EW#19). And how I only wish it were to run in 256 Kb ofmemory. TV Software, tel: +44 outside your own home - provided you ;1':N ELEX, a major French lan - true as well! ButI fear that in his eagerness Also, the reviewer mentioned In the multimediafield there are also Write to: (425) 472 753. own a Macintosh - with version 2 of I I H g l~ dicrionary-building proje ct. A to eschew the "is-ness" ofthe Aristotelian Magellan's fuzzy search algorithms but five or six Amiga applications already on world-view he is, to change metaphors in didn't mention that Vq allows users to the market, or due shortly, which allow The Editors, GLOBALlNK Russian NounTutor from the Hyperglot PC·KIMMO nsorrium of flvc national pa rtners will ~e l1(, J' i ( midstream, barking up a chimaera. create their own algorithms to control the Amiga user to produce interactive UPGRADE Software Company. hUlld :l j:rl'llch dictio nary for the Electric Word, Globalink has released HyperGlot hasadded digitized sound PC-KIMMO is a new two-level pr bngu

10 L ANGU A GE T ECH NOL OGY # 2 0 LANGUAGE TE CHNOLOGY #20 $ VIEWS AND ABUSE STARS ~

Newspeak

"There is a deep-seated banality and transparent helplessness inherent in and they have no way or fIndin g our. Under the new Official Secrets Act, all computerized equipment. The slavish, the slothful and the bland sit potential whistle-blowers arc prevent ed even from telling MPs ifa line has hunched and gormless over a plastic keyboard, clutching a push button been tapped illegally. Th e new System X installed by British Telecom mouse or an electronic pen and gazing balefully into a mesmeric screen of operates through digi tal signals which means that lines can be tapped faith and heavy investment hoping to find a reason for living, or ... " withoutleaving any physical presenceand w itho u t any physicalinterference. Ralph Steadman, noted illustrator(Fearand Loathingin LasVegas, etc.), Individual lines, including office switchboard extensions, can be tapped speaking at the IPEX93 launch breakfast. remotely from exchanges. Automatic call tracing provided by System X, logging calls and checking meters - ostensibly to ensure that customers get "The phenotypic effect of a gene is usually thought of as the body that the correct bills - could be used retrospectively against private individu­ carries the gene. But why stop there? Surely anything that results from the als." gene's expression can be regarded as the phenotype. Even something as Richard Norton-Taylor, writing in the London Guardian. large and inanimate as a beaver's dam is a genetic effect, and contributes to the beaver gene's chances ofreproduction. By the same token, could not a "For Reuters, real time means less than three seconds, so that anything computer virus evolve some sort of extended phenotype? Suppose, for giving news within five goes under the umbrella of 'Historical Informa­ example, that a mutated virus caused the host computer system to behave tion.'" in a way that prompted the user to indulge in some particularly vigorous Information World Review, reporting on Reuters Historical Division. file copying (perhaps it causes the system to crash a few times, which encourages the user to make more backup copies ofinfected files). Such a "Perhaps the most provocative application for new media is storytelling. virus could spread further, andwould do so because it, unlike other viruses, Traditional thinkingon interactive storytellingis thatyou get to choose the had evolved a mechanism for manipulatingthe world beyond the computer ending: ie., happy or sad (he wins her, he loses her, et cetera). As both a .... The underlying point is that life seems to be a matter ofinfo rmation , fiction writer and reader, I think this notion is inappropriate and probably and it is entirely possible that, with computers, we have created a new dumb. If you writ e a piece offiction about new romance that ends badly, medium for that information to spread . If we have, there is no reason why you rarely encounter readers who say, T his is how it really should have genes in the computer realm could not turn out to have just as big a ended. W hat they ask, given the opportunity, is, Why did he leave her? phenotypic impact on the world as those in the biological realm. " Why did she let him go?T his leads to an obvious conclusion in the brave Ben Woolley, writing in the London newspaperThe Guardian. new world of interactive fiction, which is not plot driven. Change the parameters: she had a happy childhood, or she came from a dysfunctional "Feedingthe appetite for information and entertainmentdoesn't satisfy the family, and see just how that alters the love story. In the interactive piece hunger, it increases it." offiction I'm writing now, the viewer's choices are character driven. Even Time Warner Inc., 1989 annual report. though I'm working with software rather than text, I still want to bound my story. The closest metaphor that comes to mind is kinetic sculpture: Sue Atkins: The art of dictionary (co)building "Consider working at home. Moving your work from the office to the you can push on it all you want, and it can do all sorts ofthings, but in the home is like emigrating from Romania to Ethiopia in search ofa better life. end the creator still controls the limits of the work." A dedicated lexicographer since the uncom­ native Edinburgh, followed by a masters "I see myself as Or take flexitime. As the office joke goes, it's for professionals who now can Newsweek senior writerMichael Rogers, writing in Smart magazine. puterized 60s, SueAtkins has edited the market­ in theoretical linguistics, she taught En- work any 60 hours a week they like ... Don't be fooled by the techno­ glish in Finland for a year before return- the cloth cap futurologists, whose predictions take work for granted. That's reason "A great product is deep, indulgent, complete and elegant. leading English-French Collins-Robert, helped ing to work for the British Council in enough to be skeptical. Theynever foresaw a future that came to pass. They Former Macintosh evangelist Guy Kawasaki, from his book The to set up the ground-breaking Collins and Bir­ London. Eventually, she started an em- and wellington talked ofmoving sidewalks and single-family air-cars, not computers and Macintosh Way. mingham University International Language ployment agency; when she sold it three recombinant DNA. Futurologists are always wrong because they are only years later she left her own name on the boots member of extrapolators, limiting their vision to more ofthe same. But historyis filled "One immediate imp act ofheuristic technology on education would be a Database (COBUILD) project - which united books. A year after, fate intervened and with discontinuities, with surprises such as Eastern Europe. Listen to the tremendous increase in productivity. Two decades of research show that lexicography and technology as never before ­ she was contacted- through the agency - the team!" utopians instead. Since they believe that life could be different, what they ven rather ordinary computer-assisted instruction (CAI) produces about then became lexicographical advisor to Oxford by publishing house Collins, -then re- say just might be true. What they say is that th e fut ure, if we have on 0% mor e learning in abo ut 40% less time and at 30% less cost than University Press (OUP) just as the Oxford En­ cruiting lexicographers for its Collins- belongs to the zero-work movement . . . Let's hope so.Now our wakin g conventional classroom instruction.T he widespread adoption ofexisting, Robert English-French dictionary. hours are divided between work and leisure - the latt er being nonwork for proven instructional technology could at least double the cost-effective ­ glish Dictionary (QED) was turning electronic, In those days, Collins was new to the the sake of work, a rest stop . Yet when we work, we produce without ness ofteaching, saving the US up to $100 billion annually ... Indeed, if dictionarymarket and lexicographers' aids pleasure so as to consume without creating - containers drained and filled, the power of applied educational technology had advanced at the same by lane Szita other lexicographers," she laments. Lexi­ were limited to shoeboxes and filecards, drained and filled. Work devalues life by appropriating something so pace over the past four decades as that of computer technology, a high cographers are the poor relations ofnatu­ though the Collins-Robertwas one ofthe priceless it cannot be bought back no matter how high the GNP is." school diploma- which still takes 12 or 13 years at a cost ofabout $50,000 "I'm very fortunate to be working with rallanguage processing (NLP) - many first dictionaries to be computer typeset. Bob Black, unemployed lawyer and author ofThe Abolition ofWork - could be produced in less than seven minutes at the cost offive cents!" computer scientists and linguists, just at NLP projects, even those explicitly con­ Norwas theory much advanced from the and Other Essays, writing in the Wall Street Journal. Lewis J. Perelman, senior research fellow at the Hudson Institute thin k the right time." Sue Atkins radiates en­ cerned with dictionary building, over­ days of the gentleman lexicographer. "I tank in Alexandria, VA, writing in Human Capital. thusiasm for her various projects. As well look them altogether. used to ring them up and ask, 'Do I put "We may be getting more throughput but no more output." as her key post with OUB she is a mem­ Sue Atkins is anxious to change all the transitive and intransitive verbs to­ Ronald E. Kutner, associate commissioner ofthe US Bureau ofLabor "The use ofcomputers in education is the most important single advance ber ofthe UK's SALT (Speech and Lan­ this . "I want to establish lexicography as gether?'" Atkins remembers. ''And they'd Statistics, commenting on the effect ofcomputers on the office. in pedagogy since the invention ofgrandmothers. Grandmothers are the guage Technology) steering committee, a profession in the same way that accoun­ say, 'Just do what you think fit!" Her oldest information-retrieval system in the world." and secretary of EURALEX (the Euro­ tancy or architecture is," she says. The commonsense and methodical approach, "In 1990, despite the development. of increasingly sophisticated and Tom Stonier peanAssociation for Lexicographywhich, idea is that lexicographers should have plus her obvious flair for general prin­ intrusive technology, politicians for the most part remain technically despite its name, is a worldwide body). their own institute and award their own ciples, resulted in her becoming the chief illiterate. MPs seem uninterested. Ministers are dependent on officials who "I said.l'Look, this is no joking matter. My state desperately needs this She travels widely, lecturing, attend­ professional qualifications. She believes English editor on the project. are in turn at the mercy of the experts. Whitehall kowtows to hi-tech guy.'" ing conferences and working with lead­ this would raise the status, pay and career Atkins started on the fledgling corporations offering their attractive wares, with no effective scrutiny by ChiefJustice Richard Neely ofWest Virginia's Supreme Court, who ing theoretical linguists and computer opportunities for lexicographers, as well Collins-Robert in 1966; she laughs as she Parliament. Technotyranny is beckoning.... The best example of how wants convicted computer hacker Robert T. Morris, fr. (ofInternetfame) to scientists. This kind ofactivity is rare in as reduce the yearly exodus of demoral­ tells how it wasn't finished until 1978. technological developments can render legislation virtually meaningless is develop a faster system to process child support payments as part of his lexicography- a profession better-known ized young blood from the profession. the 1985 Interception ofCo mmunicationsAct. Thetheoryis thattelephone community service requirement. Morris was sentenced to perform 400 hours for desk-bound, harmless drudgery than COBUILD: ATHEORETICAL taps are placed onlyafter a warrant issued by a Cabinetminister. But neither ofcommunity service. for high profiles. Sue Atkins is acutely THEACCIDENTALLEXICOGRAPHER Following the success of the Collins­ ministers, nor Lord Justice Lloyd, the commissioner appointed under the aware ofthis fact. Sue Atkins found her vocation by acci­ Robert, Collins placed Atkins on the Act, have anywayofknowingwhat isgoing on. Theyare unlikelyto be told, "Everywhere I go I meet very few dent. After a degree in French at her COBUILD project in 1980. Touted as a »

12 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY # 2 0 LANGUAG E TECHNOLOGY #20 13 ~ STARS STARS ~

« breakthroughin dictionary-building and with our new O ED. Now that the i exr and computer scientist) are sophisticated «graphic could reside in other locations. English teaching, COBUILD used an ncoding Initiative is prod ucing new technologists." At Aldus, our network locations now 8mn word corpus as the basis for study­ tandards for encoding text, all our text Having started her career before there include Seattle headquarters, Dallas, ing patterns ofuse. will be in SGML format. " were any computer tools to be had, Sue where we have a development site, San Working with her brother and head At kins is in the perfect position to evalu­ Diego (Silicon Beach), and sales offices of the project, Birmingham University' :l re its impact. "T he computer has totally in San Francisco, New York City and "All theNLP John Sinclair, Atkins did much work on transformed lexical analysis," she an­ Chicago. COBUILD's early stages, bu t left after nOLI nccs, "1couldn't possibly work with­ ''And we have high-speed links to our projects I've three years. She had reservations about ou t o ne any more! offices in Edinburgh, Hamburg, COBUILD, based on th e size of th HI think people entering lexicogra­ Stockholm, and Paris. So, literally from seen without a corpus and methodology - or lack ofit ­ hy now have got a marve llous career my computer in my office in Seattle, I involved. pportunity," she adds, "because at the can have realtime interaction with our lexicographer ''An 8mn word corpus is not a de­ heart ofNLP is lexicography. In teaching general manager in Paris by means of a finitive body of text," she explains. "It's computers to understand language, what X.25 packet-switching link - all possible would have done easy to see how a corpus ofthis size can be you're doing is building really subtle dic­ because the cost of these links has come skewed by justone text. One ofthe books tionary entries. All the NLP projects I've down by an order ofmagnitude. ahell of a lot was Sir John Hackett's Third World wa r, seen without a lexicographer would have "It's these kinds of things which are and a vast number of the occurrences of done a hell of a lot better with one!" really changing the dynamics ofcommu­ betterwith the word 'advance' came from that on nication as we know it. They make pos­ book. If you'd taken it ou t, 'advan ' sible new kinds ofservices and new ways one!" might have dropped hundreds of places ofdoing business which weren't possible in the frequency list." Paul Brainerd revisited before. Furthermore, COBUILD had no "How will this effect the publishing founding theory. "In fact, it wa s business? I would expect some new print­ atheoretical." The intention was simply Three years ago, a magazine called Language ing capabilities, particularly in regard to to note developments in language with­ Technology and a program called PageMaker printing technical documentation on demand. Your technical publications out any sort of theory - an intention saw the light of day at approximately the same which Atkins is highly skeptical about. would be stored in the computer, and if "Just calling a word a noun shows some time. Issue number one ofthe former featured a you need 25 copies, these are printed and kindoftheory." Andlack oftheorymeant profile on Paul Brainerd ("Mr. DTP"), who as bound in one operation. Your customer few ground rules for the lexicographers, CEO of the Seattle-based Aldus Corp was the would have them in a matter ofminutes. making their work more difficult. And it's current, up-to-date information. mastermind behind PageMaker. After-a name "Some companies don't want paper OED ON CD-ROM change, Language Technology went on to be­ copies ofmanuals all over the place. Take Atkins is now pioneering the O xford come the least boring computer magazine in the aerospace, for example. One oftheir big­ gest concerns is maintenance people us­ National Corpus (aka the British Na­ world,while Brainerdwentonto becomeheadof tional Corpus), a 100mn word monster ing an old version of a manual. In fact, corpus of British English (see EW#19), a $100 million dollar company. they number every manual that goes into to be funded in part by the UK DTI We had a chance to catch up with Brainerd an airline maintenance area and have to (Department ofTrade and Industry). recently, andhe was eagerto talkaboutthefuture account for getting each one back, be­ "The idea is to put it as much as cause the liability is so high if the wrong possible into the' public domain," says ofthe industry he created, desktop publishing, procedure is used. They use paper now ; Sue Atkins, "and to build a set oflexical aswell asnetworkingandthePostScript-TrueType but they're increasingly looking to tech­ tools that will go to people who take th e battle. nology like CD-RO Ms as an alternate corpus - for concordancing, frequency­ means ofdistribution. testing, collocations, tagging, and so on. " By Colin Brace mos t PC systems up to now. "New forms ofmedia - such as over­ "I'd like to avoi d any copyright "But we're finally getting the operat­ head projection - will become more and hassle," she adds. ''At the moment I'm ypesetting capabilities on PLSare now ing system software like OS/2 and PM, as more common. This is imperative be­ involved in talks with the DTI to s qual to that ofmost mini-based system s. well as networking software like Novell cause the amount of new information whether it's possible to get the clause in We're getting very close to the stan dards Netware and LAN Man-ager, that will we're generating with all these new elec­ publishing contracts on intellectu al oftraditional commercial typesetters.We give us the capability for very robust tronic means is overwhelming everyone. When I go home after being away for two property rights adapted, so that the elec­ stillhaven't gone quiteas far asthe Berthold workgroup publishingprojects. Aldus has DYANA VAN CA~ tronic version ofa text may be held in a system in terms ofthings like hungpunc­ customers in some countries with 100 to weeks, there'll be a stack oftrade publica­ made a major investment in PostScript, range ofwhat they call Em erald control­ national institute such as the British Li­ tuation, but in terms of quality of com­ 150 users on a network producing publi­ tions this high and maybe 300 e-rnail and many of them are concerned with lers - high-cost but fast, RISC-based brary, allowing it to be used for research position, the differences are getting to be cations with the PC. messages, and I won't be able to get developments that would lessen Post­ printer controllers - there are supposed purposes. Theonlyway to solve the copy­ very, very small. "At Aldus, we probably have 500 through it all. Script's position as a standard. performancegainsof three to seven time s. right problem is at the top - you have to ''Another area of technical develop­ Macs. We've had to go through a lot of "We have to come up with ways of "Nonetheless, it isa done deal. Clearly "Outline fonts work at the system change the system." ment is clearly in the network and network configurations. We now have bringing form and order to this barrage competition is changing Adobe - we're software level, so theoretically there is no The mark-up language in the text workgroup publication area. PCs have numerous AppleShare volumes, an ofinformation. The computeris going to seeing that in ou r relation with them . difference to the applications. But in creates an entirely new world ofinform a­ become thoroughlyaccepted in business, Ethernet backbone, various bridges, plus be part ofthat. Notjust text and graphics They're becoming a lot more open and reality, because our app lication s use type tion: you'll be able to search the full but it's very seldom that one person does PCs. When you move beyond that but sound and animation and video if cooperative now. They're working harder in such a full- mannered fashion, we have database for - let's say - the entry of the work. It's almost always a group activ­ workgroup size, then you do need a more properlyappliedwill give people the abil­ at their business and that's positive. The to work with TrueType vendors such as Dutch words into the language in the ity, particularly in publishing. industrial strength network software like ity to comprehend information more competitionwill undoubtedlymake more IBM, Apple and Microsoft , to make sure l Sth century. And this will take a matter "Typically, there's a writer, a graphic Nerware 3~6 or LAN Manager. quickly than they can today with just fonts available. and perhaps at a better that it does wor k transparently. ofseconds, rather than the years needed artist or designer, a layout person - it's a print medium." price, than would otherwise be the case. "For example, character width can to do it manually. group process. And you have to keep FAST LINKS "Technically, it'stoo earlyto tellwhich cause a lot of confusion. With Times, Meanwhile, the Concise OED has track ofall the elements in a publication. "If you've seen PageMaker 4.0, you've POST POSTSCRIPT solution will be better. It depends on the they've rationalize d their fon t width val­ been built on a database designed by Who has done what, and whether some­ seen we now have a linkfacility.This link "Microsoft and Apple's challenge to implementation ofTrueType. Obviously ues so that every character will be the Compulexis. "We are SGML tagging the thing has been through the proofreading can be over a network - even over a Adobe's PostScript - well, our customers PostScript has proven itself on the mar­ same width. But Adobe offers four or five Compulexis version, so it's compatible cycle. This has not been well done on telecommunications line. A given text or » sure aren't happy, to putit mildly. They've ket, and it's getting better. With the latest hundred fonts. Not all ofthos e are going »

14 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 15 ~ STARS

«to have the same names in TrueType, just barely fit might now run long and hyphens, justifying the pages, setting up running heads, page because of trademark restrictions. Nor wrap becausetheAdobe font has aslightly numbers and footnotes. And if you want a fatter or a thinner will they necessarily all have the same different character width." book, Teloswill rapidly compute a fresh solution, with different character width values either. "These kinds of problems concern pointsize, measure , etc. Thes e capabilities enable publishers to "Think about what impact that will me. We're trying to make this simpler, produce books at a fraction of traditional setting costs, and have whenyou've created your document not more difficult for our customers." many tim es as fast. with Apple's fonts and your service bu­ The program comes in two tiers: an inexpensive and user­ reau is using Adobe's fonts . Suddenly, By forgetting to use en-dashes, EWs soft­ friendly text editor, and a very powerful typesetting system. It neither the names nor the character widths wareeditor Colin Brace continues to trans­ is not, like many desktop publishing packages, a glorified light match. Line lengths will change. What gress the laws of typography and plague table which allows you to arrange a page without scissors and used to be a tightly cut headline which EWs designers. paste. Compared with the competition, Telos is perhaps un­ beatable for books of continuou s text - fiction, biography, academia, etc. In addition, for the skilled typesetter, advanced typographical features are also available within the program. This meant that Telos was recently chosen by Century H utchinson to produce their latest Hutcbinsons Encyclopaedia. Mike Ryan is aiming at the high end of book publishing. "That is why we are going for a powerful Unix version next and not moving down-market. We believe our price is competitive, given the kind ofproduct Telos is. It isn't just the software, it's us too! We spend a great deal of time with new customers, installing the system, training operators and answering queries. We are now worki ng on Version 3, and each new release incorporates more features that custom ers have asked for." Publishers already using Telos in Britain and the USA, apart from Century Hutchinson, include Canongate, David and Charles, the Greenwood Press, an d several divisions of Macmillan. "We tendered for H ansard too, " Ryan says wryly, "but Ferranti got the job." Why? "Maybe because there is still some prejudi ce against PC-driven typesetting. Typesetters are Mike Ryan: reluctant to throwaway their old equipment, but the situation will change. " Book-setting trendsetter POPULAR WITH AUTHORS Mike Ryan isn't a trained programmer or type­ Whatever Hansard thought, many authors regard Telos as the best book software available, for its ability to avoid duplicating setter, yet he has produced an electronic typeset­ keystrokes and present the author'stext, electronicallystored, so by Jonathan Beard ting program that outputs text as books in less that minimum work is required to produce camera-ready copy. time than it took Caxton to mix his ink. Jane Its greatest asset is the controlit offers. The program's AI capabilities let you specify your own Dorner and Hunter Steele met him at his "pagination parameters," which decide what limitations on the Edinburgh headquarters. ideal you will accept. According to the penalty values you assign, Telos weighs up the alternatives , rejects the least accept­ Ryan's system, Telos, is dedicated not to business reports but able, and produces the best possible compromise with the bookproduction. Early releases ofTelos were PC -based, but a others. Unix version, available later this summer, will make the advan­ All you need decide initially is which bits of text are tagesofTelos available to awidevariety of oth er computer users. ifferent. Insert a style marker, say"[a]," for "main text," then Telos could Also in the pipeline is a simplifi ed, and suitably priced, author "[i]" for "italics," and so on. The style values can be defined in version of Telos. This will enable self-publi shers to produ rids, and if small capitalssuddenly appeal more than italics, paginate War camera-ready copy at home, on any Postscript laser printer. a redefinition of"[i]" will effect the change throughout. So how, without any specialized training, did Mike Ryan Once you are pro ducing final, perfectly spellchecked text andPeace, come to produce this intelligent piece of software that looks set on disk, it isn't much further to pagination, then bromides; to revolutionize publishing practice? "I was trained as a physi­ then? Autho rs might soon produce their own books, with the incorporating cist," he says. "Then I worked in the oil business. We had a publisher dealing less with production, more with finance, requirement for technical documents, and I developed a very marketing and distribution.The producer (the Telos-equipped new typographic simple typesetting system on aVAX for output to a laser printer. author) is then much more in the driving seat than the vulner­ It was primitive, but fulfilled a need. able pencil-pusher ofyesteryear. preferences, in "I decided there must be a general market, and I spent the Anyone - author, secretary, company chairman - can get next six years developing the product. I bought myself a good results with Telos. Still, Mike Ryan points out, "It's a bit just afew typesetter and did traditional typesetting for publishers for like driving a racing-car: the best results are achieved by skilled RICHARD SAUL three years, attuning myselfto the problems. I'd also dabbled in typesetters." And he's convinced thatTelos will have an impact minutes. programming at college, and spent a further three years con­ on the number of titles a publisher can produce. "The Unix verting what I had learned from typesetting into the algorithms version is a complete redesign for the multi-user environment. that form the basis ofTelos logic. Then in March 1987 the first It will give the user even greater freedom." version ofTelos was launched." [ane Dorneristhe editor oftheScientificand TechnicalJournalof WAR AND PEACE - INSTANTLY the Society ofAuthors,and hasjust completeda research projectfor The product seems to live up to its name - Greek for ultimate. the British Library- seethefeature storyin this issue. Telos could paginate ~r and Peace, incorporating new typo­ Hunter Steele is a novelistand Renaissance man. His latest graphicpreferences, in just a few minutes: putting in wordbreak bookis The LordsofMontplaisir (Macmillan London).

16 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 Electric Word #20 17 "Most consultants have some specific bit of knowledge to sell," says Richard Saul . Wurman, "but I sell my ignorance. That gives me a huge advantage over the others, For 25years, RSW has used his re- because I won't run out ofit." Maybe he won't, but to date, Wurman has had a pretty good stab at exhausting serves of ignorance to help America this undervalued commodity in the pursuit ofa single agenda: "Over the last 25 years, I have seen everything through one filter: my inability to understand things easily, and understand itselfbetter. As Jonathan .my desire to make them understandable." It would be an understatement to call the author ofmore books than manypeople Beard found out when he met the have read, designer ofa successful series oftravel guides, consultant to several major American corporations, architect and cartographer-turned guru of the information author, architect, cartographer, age, a multi-talented man. These talents are the cause and effect ofa rich and convoluted career. He studied creative di,rector ofadesign agency under Louis Kahn (who remains "first, second and third" in Wurman's list ofdesign heroes) at the UniversityofPennsylvania, joining the distinguished architect's practice on each coast of the US and chair- after graduating in 1959. He has written two major books on Kahn's work. Wurman went on to become a fellow of the American Institute ofArchitects, a "The essence of leaps of under- man of this year's epochal TED2 member ofthe Alliance Graphique Internationale and VP ofthe American Institute ofGraphicArts. He has also been a professor and dean at an architectural school. Along standing relates to connections ... conference, there's plenty more the way, he managed to pick up a wife and four children. Today, W urman is creative director and ownerofa halfshare in the ACCESS Press Understanding isapaU., not apoint. where that came from ... in New York and The Understanding Business (T UB) in San Francisco (having re­ cently sold the other half of the TUB to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.). It's a path of connections-between Wurman's businesses, like his books, are firmly rooted in his philosophy of ignorance. When he moved to Los Angeles in 1981, he used his non-comprehension thought and thought; patterns over ofits labyrinthine layout as the design brieffor a new guide to the megalopolis, the first ofeight ACCESS travel guides to cities. patterns. It is relationships ... You The largest project that Wurman and TUB have ever taken on was the redesign ofCalifornia's Yellow Pages phonebooks. It is typical ofa Wurman project: "We took can only understand something re- a product that no one wanted to touch - because after all, the Yellow Pages were usable already- and made the phone companies millions ofdollars every year. So what if they lative to something you already un- were hard to use?" Wurman and a 60-strong team ofgraphic designers, researchers and writers spent derstand ... Understanding is not three years revamping the directory, adding dozens ofnew features to make it easier to use. In 1987, Pacific Bell published 44 million copies ofthe new SMART Yellow about simplification and minimal- Pages - 31 billion pages ofinformation that reached virtually every person in the state. "It was a tremendous success," Wurman says. "They made tens of millions of ization, it's about organization and dollars ofadditional advertising revenue, because people liked the new directories and used them more. The advertisers knew it, so the phone company was able to charge clarification. " more for ads." Again, most ofthe changes that Wurman made stemmed from his basic principle RSW, fromhis"Hats" in Design Quarterly 145. offinding things hard to understand. "Ifyou have something wrong with your feet," he says, "in the ordinary Yellow Pages, you would have to know that PODIATRISTS are foot doctors, and how to spell that. Yes, there's an index, but it's terrible, hidden in the back, printed in small type, and may not include 'feet.'" Published a few months ago by Prentice-Hall, US Atlas exemplifies Wurman's In the SMART Yellow Pages, there is an index organized by general topics and thinking. First ofall, there is no shortage ofroad atlases: any bookstore stocks at least extensively cross-referenced. In the "Health Care and Personal Services" section, an a couple, and the best-known, Rand McNally's, has sold by the million for decades. entry under "feet" sends readers to PODIATRISTS. And the page numbers through­ Many Americans, including this writer, have used it happily for years. Wurman took out the book are large, an absolute requirement for Wurman in any reference work. a careful look at it, and ripped it to shreds. T UB, which turned production ofthe SMART Yellow Pages over to Pacific Bell "First ofall, we all know thatwe drive alphabetically," he says sarcastically. "We're ~ !!!'J:! t! esril once its 3-year contract expired, added many other useful features as well, including driving in Alaska, and the next state we come to is Alabama." Ofcourse, in real life, seating charts for every concert hall andstadium, diagrams ofthe local airports, a guide, Alaska is separated from the rest of the United States by Canada. by services, to parks and recreation areas, maps ofthe towns and regions covered in the Open the first page of us Atlas, and there is a grid map of the whole country, ~:=, w, ~ .. book, and even a yearly calendar ofcommunity events. Thus the one reference book broken down into 250-mile squares (the distance most people drive in one day). You I: found in almost every home, hotel room and gas station functions as an atlas, find the square you need, lookat the (large) page number and turn to that section. The BD !!I tI t1 guidebook and almanac in addition to helping people find the numbers they need for areas that you are most likely to drive t~ when you come to the edge ofthat square will !!LI L! ~ ~ shopping. "Thewhole idea behind the SMART Yellow Pages is to make the book- and appear just before and just after that square. the readers - smarter at finding things," says Wurman. "The Yellow Pages is now a It includes, as do all other highway guides, regional and city maps - but with a better product. It performs better." difference. In other atlases, the scale varies from map to map: to fit a sprawling city like The remaking of the Yellow Pages is just the first step in an ambitious goal that Los Angeles on one page, it is scaled very differently from compact Manhattan. In us Wurman has set for himself: to completely remake a dozen ubiquitous information Atlas, all the maps follow the same scales. The large maps are arranged with reference ~n B~ sources, all of them freely available right now in forms that most people regard as squares 25 miles wide ("about the scale you need to know whether you want to drive ~1t~f\!: ~ ~-;";:·A::·\:~Jr:L~·':(·.rJ1~ LI:J ~a E ; purple ·shops & gallenos satisfactory. The products include TV Guide, the airline schedule guide, the weather through or around the city"), while the regional maps' squares are 5 miles across, and 'R.~m~1fla ~ black mllSOllms& al ch/tocrllf ll map, classified ads in your daily paper, and a road atlas to America's highways. _ the city maps have squares one-mile across ("about how far people walk"). yellow ·roulos .!. entranCll$

18 Electric Word #20 Electrjc Word #20 19 Out too went the tiny letters indicating parks, monuments, colleges and other transformation ofinformation into knowledge. attractions. US Atlas banishes such information to the margins as the conversational Does the "understanding problem" identified by Wurman exist? Anyone who's Some ofthe dumbing of America comes marginalia thatWurman loves to put in his books, guidebooks and conferences. Rather been confused by newspaper graphs, VCR instructions, or the assembly ofself-assem­ than cryptic "Wasatch St. Park, noted waterf."-style comments, Wurman's atlas will bly shelves will answer unequivocally in the affirmative. Would it be fair to lay some from avery well-meaning source: the have a paragraph at the side (where it does not bother you if you are merely trying to of the blame for this at the feet ofwordworkers? find the right road) that might read: "Wasatch State Park is promoted for its waterfall, Wurman: "We can store more things and transmit more things, so who's to blame? people who are interested in the sim- which isn't all that impressive. Lewis and Clarkmay have passed through here in 1807, The fundamental blame is that there should have been an Understanding Business 50 but the ranger admits that no one is sure. There is a very good fried chicken place on years ago, but there was no perceived problem then. People perceive that there's a plification of information. I don't think Rte. 87 just before Centerville, however." problem now, but they don't really know what it is yet, or they think overload is the These chatty asides, Wurman says, are firstly to give enough information to really problem rather than that information isn't understandable." information should be simplified, it describe a park or attraction, and secondly to give the person sitting next to the driver, The next volume of the trilogy, Instruction Anxiety, is due early next year. In it, who is probably spending a lot oftime with the map, something entertaining to read. Wurman deals with the documentation - the giving and receiving - ofinstructions: should be clarified. Eventually what "These comments should be fun to read, readers should feel a person behind it." what makes for good instructions, why instructions are bad, what we use them for. Another ACCESS guide - to the us stock market - "is the most successful sub­ "How do we talk to each other? How do you order dinner? How do you direct we need is a learning system, not an scription premium the Wall Street Journal ever had," he says, with pride. someone to a place? How do you put together a bicycle ...build a building...make In addition to his long-term project to rationalize, popularize and personalize something work? Howdo you use your TV, VCR, fax machine, automobile? Are there education system - one based on al- America's standard reference works, Wurman also writes "real" books. In 1989, he any commonalities in those instructions? What do they contain and how do you figure brought out Information Anxiety (reviewed in EW # 17 and published in the UK this out what kind of instruction giver you are? lowing each person to create their own summer, along with Italian, German and Spanish editions), the first ofa trilogy dealing "What I discovered and talk about in the book is that there is not a best way of "Cultural literacy has to do with facts with his "single agenda" - how to understand. giving instructions...different people can receive instructions in different ways, and itinerary. T he boo k deals with "the ever-widening gap between what we understand and what you would like to do is have at least three different and parallel courses in how that are like leaves on a tree. All of what we think we should understand...T he black hole between data and knowledge." to use something, with the real empowerment and ease to move as you see fit, for what RSW onschools and thedumbing of America. It is classicWurman from cover to cover. Printed in three colors throughout (black, you want to know." these different facts are connected gray and red) , crammed with graphics, charts, cartoons and lists, almost every page has The thirdbookwill be called LearningisRememberingwhatyou 'reInterestedin. The a quotation graphic adding something to the argument in the actual text ofthe book. best way to learn, and to exchange information with others, Wurman says, is through through branches down to the trunk T he effect has been called "low-tech hypertext," and Wurman's ideas on information the finest known mode ofcommunication: the conversation. accessandretrieval, or learningandremembering, reflect certainelementsofhypermedia More than reading, more than writing, and more than designing maps and charts, which is the access to allknowledge. and connectionist theory, though he says: "I'm not an intellectual- I leave all that stuff Wurman loves conversing. As he works on his books, he is making a serious study of to you guys, I'm simply putting into practice what I believe." the art and science ofthe conversation. "I want to find outhowto make use ofthe lesson Itis the learning about how to learn, The theme of Information Anxiety is that there's an "understanding problem" in ofwhat works in a good conversation, so we can make print better, so we can make explosion has backfired, leaving us inundated with facts but society. Overwhelmed by the vast amount ofdata available to us, we're under pressure interactive communication better, make conferences better. A conversation involves how to make connections, and how starved for understanding. John i Information continuous feedback and friendliness. I think we can even take some ofthose lessons Naisbitt, the author of Mega­ to digest information and turn it into useful knowledge, yet we're constantlyassaulted trends, has written a provocative isproduced and apply them to software documentation and screen design." to find and organize things that form introduction to this essential map I- Anxiety by poorly presented information. Information Anxiety is a series of prescriptions for through the information jungle. by the ever-widening gap be­ i2- tween what we understand overcoming information overload and reorganizing your life and work to facilitate the When new interface techniques such as speech and natural language processing 15:;. and what we think we should enable us to have a two-way dialog with a computer, will it make us better conversa­ the roots of the tree and support it." understand. It is the black hole between data and knowledge, tionalists in general? i :~i~~~~n:e~~~ ~~~~m:~ "We're still not there yet, and although we may get th ere eventually, it's not RSW on learning. &: want or need to know. imminent. There's still the joint agreem ent in a conversation that, at the end of it, f In this breakthrough book ~ Richard Saul Wurman ex- you're gonna understand each other. I think that will be a harder joint agreement to ,..!~ pla ins why the information have with an inanimate object. "The 'Nintendo generation' ofyoung people will almost totally overcome anxiety about the man-machine interface - in fact, they'll be extraordinarily adept at man­ machine interfaces. I hope we don't lose the art ofconversation. The fact that people still want to go to conferences is a sign that they'd still rather talk than teleconference." His desire to have, and foster, conversations is his second major obsession, right up therewith his desire to understand. Notonlyare these two leitmotifs central to every r ben ag3in, I might arrangc Ihem by weighl fn pounds, ~ .~~fJ\ one ofhis books, they are at work in his conferences, too. W-f'(4'If'f! Six years ago Wurman organized TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design. '.: ~;: . , : ~ . ~:. ", • • ~con , "_ : ~ '" I This past February, TED2 brought 500 paying guests to Monterey, Californiafor four ~ ~'t}t!-~t:!4!! ri~ days of"a glimpse ofthe future," a chance to hear how technology, entertainment and design have converged, explained by those on the leading edge ofthis wave. ~;r~;t , Computer veteran Stewart Alsop wrote afterwards that TED2 will be considered )r'": as importantas the original HomebrewComputerClub meetings (the first time people 4'1 ' got together to talk about computers, spawning Apple Computer Corp.), the first ~ Comdex (which marked the fact that computers had become an industry), the first Applefest (the first single computer show), and the Hackers Conference (which baptized hackers as a creative breed in their own right). By acting as a "compelling and fascinating" intersection between computers and creativity, TED2, Wurman said, will mark the "beginning of a new time in the evolution of the personal computer - the moment when PCs finally became good enough for art." The list ofspeakers for TED2 included many computer "names" familiar to EW readers, like Apple's John Sculley and Alan Kay, MIT's Nick Negroponte, Jaron ~

20 Electric Word #20 Electric Word #20 21 "Virtual Reality" Lanier and Ted Nelson. There was also an array ofdesigners such as Nigel Holmes of Time,- musicians like Herbie Hancock, and, of course Wurman himself. Wurman means no disrespect to the star attractions when he says that "the most importantpart ofthe conference was the time between the talks, when this high quality audience talked to each other. Everyone at the conference went away with a list of everyone's name, address and phone number, and the best thing that can happen from TED2 will be that these conversations, started by bringing so many creative people together, continue in the future." The great success of(the ten times oversubscribed) TED2 proved to W urman that by Colin Brace "times have changed- the guests automatically understoodthe confluence oftechnol­ ogy, entertainmentand design." Thatwas not the case six years ago, whenTED 1, with basically the same promotion and poster "was a terrific conference but not a financial success." Nowthat the idea has been established, "I thinkit will last for ten years, maybe more." The next TED will be in Montreux, Switzerland. Wurmanwas over in Europe last month "touching bases and seeing how well the ideas are received here," and already has had work commissioned in Scandinavia as a result of his lectures. Did he find Europe nearer to TED 1 or TED2 in TED-awareness? "I thinkthings move very fast, and if somethingseems like a good idea it can spread real quickly." Having spent 25 years helping the New World understand itselfbetter, might the conference presage the arrival ofACCESS/T UB in Europe to soothe its multilingual information anxiety? It's not inconceivable, says Wurman, especially given Murdoch's strong ties to London. As for multilingualism, "certain aspects ofwhat I do leap language barriers, so to me the problem is just a new opportunity." Wurman's forthcoming airline guide to North America, Europe and North Africa, he hopes, will be usable by people who don't speak English. Although technology means computers, and Wurman used computers - 36 Mac IIs to produce usAtlas-he is far from being a computernut. One cannotimagine him gushing "I just stuck in a new board with 8 megs ofRAM - you've got to see how fast , it loads Windows now!" Wurman neither sits in front of one all day ,nor is he particularly interested in them beyond what they can do for him. Instead, he prefers to talk and write, longhand, on narrow slips ofpaper that his secretary then deciphers and takes care of. N or does he read computer magazines. He subscribes, they pile up on his desk in San Francisco, and he glances through them once a month, then tosses them. His The Voyager Company has released favorite magazine is Business Week, which he loves "because you can read through it in halfan hour, tear out what you want to keep and then dispose ofthe rest." The Best ofTED2 on two Laserdiscs W urman has likened the unravelling of the structure of information to the discovery ofperspective in the Quattrocento, in terms ofits potential to expand the (US$150), chronicling the historic imaginable. "Discovery ofperspective allowed us to do things we hadn't conceived ofbefore, conference and the experts who much as the tools that are available to you through the PC allow you to think ofthings you couldn't thinkofbefore. We're able to thinkofthings, describe things and portray converged on Monterey in February. them in a way ,we couldn't before. I think the next ten years will see a great leap, and then things will plateau for a while." Includes allformal speeches, state- Ifthere is an information revolution underway, it's tempting to seeWurman, with his strident infovangelism and huge output ofbooks on the subject, as its Lenin - sort of-the-art demonstrations and doc- ofan Information Revolutionary. "I'm simple-minded, I'm not a revolutionary,' he replies with aw-shucks self-effacement. umentary footage of the informal But surely making information accessible must have a potentially huge political impact? conversations and between-session "I'm working on a book at the moment called '92Access, in which we're going to take the ten most important issues ofthe US 1992 election and make them absolutely events. Also on three VHS video- understandable - not take a position on what I thinkofthem- justwhat the issues are. "Nobody has ever really done that, and I think to make public information public tapes (US$125). in that way could have an extraordinary impact, together with the fact that I now have enough ofa network that it can be syndicated with ease to probably 50 million people. The Voyager Company, 1351 Pacific Coast We'll see in a few years what power it can have." Highway, Santa Monica, CAL 90401, USA. Jonathan Beard is a New York-based free lance journalist. Additional reporting by Jules Marshall. Tel: +1 (213) 451-1383

22 Electric Word #20 Electric Word 120 23 HOW ALPNET HELPED FORD GET ITS EUROPEAN WORKERS ONLINE

When the Ford Motor Company consolidated its worldwide product design and engineering information into 'one huge online system

(WERS), it created the world's largest private database.

In order to get everyone to use it without losing precious production time, Ford created an online help system and interactive training modules for WERS. It then faced the problem of how to translate its14,000 help screens into four European languages.

Competing in the global automobile market requires con­ compete globally, the company needed one central system to stant innovation, as US auto giants have learned the hardway. support all ofits worldwide activities. So it established a 25­ Perhaps the company that learned this lesson best is Ford. member steering committee, drawn from various plants. z Since the beginning of the Japanese invasion in the early Their brief: develop the specifications for a worldwide online a: ~ 1980s, Ford has fought back with popular new models (like system for the releasing and control ofengineeringinformation, ~ the Ford Taurus), aerodynamic styling (the so-called jelly · and implement it as WERS. ~- bean look which has since swept the industry), strategic Why did Ford feel a worldwide system was so important? ~ alliances (its Probe sports sedan is a Ford-designed body Did the companywant to build the same car everywhere? Not ~ 2 sitti ng on a Mazda-built chassis and engine), making product necessarily. Ford recognized that one ofthe main obstacles to o ~ quali ty "job number 1" as its advertising proclaims - and o the design and manufacture ofa trulyworldwide product was a: becom ing a truly global corporation with inte rnational de­ the fact that several different engineering systems were in use ~ o sign, production and sourcing (its new US Escort model was simultaneously. Until they were replaced by one system engineered and developed by Mazda) . sharing common-code, the engineering centers would be able ~ :::J o Cent ral to the company's global strategy has been the to communicate onlywith the manufacturing systems which U development and implementation ofthe World Engineering were compatible with their own systems. Releasing System (WERS), its massive online information Implementationand enhancementofthe WERS online help system . And massive is the word. WERS is currently used by supportsystem and trainingmaterials became the fulltime job 20,000 Ford employees in engineeringandproduction, spread ofGeoff Cookson, head ofthe Corporate Training Group of a passivereference system." The400,000 whatever training materials available for any system. It contains a total of across more than 200 sites in 20 countries, speaking seven WERS, itself a part of Product & Manufacturing Systems daily transactions the system now were hardcopy only - manuals and about 75,000 context-sensitive screens different languages. Ford estimates that the number ofWERS Integration at For d. handles include data input and update, workbooks - and not particularly com­ ofdata at various levels within the sys­ usersshould grow to 80,000wit hin the next fiveyears. System "Some of the six regional systems, like System III in and the communication worldwide of prehensive at that. An essential part of tem. 14,000 screens are in English;

24 Electric Wor d #20 Electric Word #20 25 Alpnet And TSS: ABrief History Alpnet, as it's now called, is a publicly-owned company with 22 where - was the onscreen physical using UK-based freelancers as before, ONLINE AND HAPPY offices worldwide and anannual turnover of US$23 million. constraints of the Phoenix software. the in-house translators ofAlpnet sub­ As end users in France, Germany, Spain Alpnet, formerly Automated language Processing Systems Currently, theofficial linefrom Alpnet is that new licencees for Words in the target language just didn't sidiaries in Stuttgart, Madrid, Paris, and and Belgium got a taste ofWERS, they (ALPS), is a familiar name to language industry observers. TSS are notbeing actively sought, butthesoftware is being main­ fit the spaces in the onscreen display an affiliate in Amsterdam were put to started begging for more training mate­ The company was founded in 1980 by Eldon lydle and other tained and enhanced for current users, including Alpnet's own af­ boxes occupied by theiroriginal English work. Theyhadat theirdisposal Alpnet's rials. The Interlinguateam found them­ members of a Brigham Young University group researching filiated offices. counterparts. After much debate, Inter­ sophisticated Translation Support Sys­ selves in the curious position ofknow­ interactive MT.With ALPS, they hoped tobring tomarket some TSS offers translators state-of-the-art facilities, including auto­ linguawas told that rather than modify­ tem (TSS) software, which isparticulary ing more about the system than the oftheir linguistic software smarts. matic term lookup. It can be configured inasplit-screen mode with ing the boxes to fit the text, the text well-suited to such large, complex Ford people themselves in those coun­ source/target texts displayed simultaneously. Letloose ontextin would have to be made to fit the boxes. projects (see sidebar). tries. Alison St. Clair Baker remembers Ten years later, despite theearly associations and lingering con­ advance oftranslation, TSS will "sieve" it for repetitions and gene­ This meant extra effort and imagina­ In Salt Lake City, Alp riets WERS Ford people saying: "We don't even notations of ALPS with academic MT research, their Translation rate terminology glossaries. tion on the part of translators to come project manager, Eugene Seeley, became understandthe original Englishsystem." Support System .(TSS) has evolved intoaresolutely "non-automa­ The TSS system is really geared for bigprojects, where glossa­ up with shorter variants and alternative the link between Ford and the transla­ So Interlingua wound up giving semi­ tic" interactive aid for translators, a "very smart" editor fronting a ries and phrase dictionaries can be generated fromthesource text. spellings. tion teams supervised by Interlingua. nars to end-users in several countries to series of linked linguistic databases. Inaddition, special interfaces are available for automatically trans­ Review seminars were held regularly He performed the valuable task ofcon­ familiarize them with the system. Original ALPS customers for TSS included Xerox, Hewlett­ ferring Interleaf and Ventura tags from source to target text. at Ford plants in the target countries: verting the help files via a specially pro­ All in all, Ray King estimates Inter­ Packard and IBM, butthecompany came to theconclusion thatit TSS is currently implemented for a number of hardware plat­ Germany, France, Spain, and Belgium. grammed interface between the TSS lingua put in about 50 hours apiece in was notworth theeffortto sell and support thesystem. In1988, in forms, including DOS, OS/2, Xenix, Unix V,VMS, AOS, and VMS/ Here, committees of Ford employees format the translators were using and each of the 65 Phoenix training mod­ adramatic change ofcourse, ALPS bought fiveleading translation CMS . Various source/target versions are available, including reviewed all the materials as they were the IBM mainframe wordprocessing ules and more than 3000 hours into the companies: Interlingua in London, Interdoc (Paris), W.O. Haehl French, German, Portuguese, Spanish Italian, Japanese, Korean, translated. First under scrutinywere the software package, Mass 11, that the 15,000 help screens translated for each (Stuttgart) and MultiScript and La Langagerie (both in Montreal). and Chinese , butnot necessarily onall hardware systems. _ terminology lists compiled by Inter­ help files were written in. ofthe four languages. This over a period lingua based on keywords they plucked For this phase of the project, T ess ofabout 18 months. offthe screens. Next, the teams review­ Osborne took over the coordinating The In terlingua team agrees that it ed the training modules as they arrived role of Interlingua's Alison St. Clair would have saved everyone a fair bit of system, Ford chose Phoenix authoring Cookson . "T hey really had no competi­ And Ray King encountered another in batches. Baker. trouble if more translators had been software from Goal Systems, Ohio USA tion with their experience in handling problem: "Early on, I inquired whether "There was a lot of back and forth Osborne explains the relationship sent to Dearborn for (not to be confused with Phenix, from big projects." So in July of 1987, Inter­ the IBM mainframe system they were with terminology," remembers Alison which evolved between Interlingua, hands-on experience St. Clair Baker remembers Site) which runs on both mainfram es lingua was asked to tender a bid on the using supported high ASCII (accented) St. Clair Baker. "Members of a review AIpnet and Ford: "At the insistence of with the system to see and PCs. Depending on their function, translation ofthe training materials. characters. I was told it did. But when team would validate a given translation, the WERS Corporate Training Group, in advance exactly Ford people saying: "We Ford allocates anywhere from eight to Interlingua's Group Operations Di­ we started the project, it appeared that then have second thoughts when they Alpnet controlled the projectas awhole. what the materials 80 hours training per employee using rector Ray King, who manages Interlin­ the mainframe didn't support accented actually saw it flash across the screen. But we managed the translation teams they were translating don't even understand the these materials. gua's big projects, relates: "Itwas poten­ characters. We had to devise work­ The problem was thatvery few ofFord's because ofour experience in coordinat­ dealt with. St. Clair tiallya massive project, so I took part in arounds for each language." European employees had actually seen ing large projects." Baker: "We finally original English system." ONSCREEN TRANSLATION the preliminarynegotiations. In October St. Clair Baker, an Oxford modern the WERS system, yet they were obliged Like St. Clair Baker, Osborne was remedied that by fly- The information in the WERS database of 1987, we got the go-ahead in three languages graduate, was senior project to approve terminology ahead oftime." responsible for managingthe daily traffic ingtranslatorsoverto So Interlingua wound up and the system 's functional screens are languages: French, Dutch, and Spanish." manager for the first phase ofthe WERS between client and translators. She too Dearborn to get TSS AND THE HELP SYSTEM RYU TAJJRJ -in English, since it's the official inter­ German was added shortly thereafter translation project. For St. Clair Baker, expended considerable energy simply hands-on experience giving seminars to end· national language ofFord. Butaworking when the German-based company ori­ the project began with the selection of The second project - the translation of seeing that translators were receiving with WERS." For knowledge of English is a prerequisite ginally selected by Ford Germany for the translators. "We used UK-based the help system - ran from May 1988 to the same information, that they were companies venturing users. onlyfor supervisors andmanagerswithin the translation could not handle the translators from our translator database March 1989, andwas organized slightly meeting their deadlines, and that the along the same path? the company. So Ford wanted WERS project using Phoenix. with whom we had worked on software differently. While the trainingmaterials translations were reviewed on time by "For a start," says St. Clair Baker with a H elp and the training materi als trans­ When they began translating, the In­ localization before." were being translated in Europe, Geoff Ford's European Divisions. She charac­ laugh, "we wouldn't recommend Phoe­ lated so th at users cou ld be trained to terlingua team soon came up against a Kin g and St. Clair Baker estimated Cookson had been negotiating for the terizes her role as "troubleshooting." nix. It's a difficult environment for use th e system in their own language. number ofunexpected pro blems. Inter­ four to six translators would be needed translation ofthe help system in the US. A big relief, too, for the team was the translators to work in: no wordwrap, no Ford decided to translate the WERS lingua's Corporate Operations Manager per language - a total of24 translators. The Salt Lake City-based worldwide use ofthe TSS software. "We were for­ insert mode, no accented characters ­ materials into four European languages Alison St. Clair Baker: "When Arthur Taking into consideration the substan­ translation network Alpnet was ulti­ tunate to have a 10,000 word lexicon at and it's hard to post-edit in." in 1987, and broke th e project down An dersen initially approached us for a tial variables involvedin translatingwith mately awarded the contract. But, in an the start of the Help project," explains At Ford, Geoff Cookson is not yet into two separate parts. The first was a quote, the firm had a hardcopyprintout unfamiliar software such as Phoenix, ironical twist, In terlingua had mean­ Osborne. "It was developed by AIpnet able to report on the overall impact of translation of the interactive training ofthe texts to be translated. But it soon Interlingua altered its contract with while become a subsidiary of Alpnet. in close cooperationwith the Corporate the system on the company. "It's really materials. The secondwas translation of became evident that we would be Arthur Andersen from a price per Control of the second project, then, Training Group in Dearborn." too early to make a meaningful judg­ the massive online help system. working onscreen, using Phoenix, the thousand words to an hourly rate. passed to Alpnet headquarters in Salt Another responsibility was updating ment. We are due to complete a WERS Responsibility for supervising the authoring software that the designers of Once selected, the translators were Lake City. already translated materials - what In­ user survey this August, and only then translation of training materials fell to the instructional materials in Dearborn trained to use the unfamiliar Phoenix That Interlingua became part of the terlingua calls "retranslation." In Salt will we have a betteridea ofits reception." Ford's ManufacturingTrainingGroup, had used." software. Alison St Clair Baker: "Train­ Alpnet network turned out to be fort­ Lake City, Alpnet engineers developed Likewise, he's reluctant to talk about who turned to management training ing took anywhere from a few days to a uitous for all involved. Ford's Corpo­ a software tool to flag new information the benefits ofthe WERS system to Ford firm Arthur Andersen for assistance. WORKAROUNDS fewweeks, dependingon the individuals. rate TrainingGroup in Dearborn,which in the WERS system that needed to be in economic terms, saying, "It's nearly Together they approached London­ "The text and coding of the interactive Once they had gotten up to speed with was contracting the project, had re­ updated. This was - and still is - passed impossible to estimate." But whatever based translation and documentation materials were closely intermingled in Phoenix, they could continue working course to AIpnet in Salt Lake City on a on to T ess Osborne in London. the initial cost-and-return, WERS is an company Interlingua to do the actual Phoenix," Cookson explains. "It wasn't at home on PCs, uploading files to the corporate level, while Interlingua Osborne adds that WERS materials invaluable addition to Ford's strategy translations. At the time, it was still an possible to process them outside the company bulletin board via modem." continued to supervise the day-to-day still trickle in sporadically. "Having got for global rationalization ofits informa­ independent company. It was later system." Because ofthis, the Interlingua translation activities from London. it all down pat, updates are simple to tion systems. bought by Alpnet. translators had to learn how to use the SEMINARS The Help System project took ad­ handle ysing the Repititions Processing "Interlinguawas chosen for the job as Phoenix software before proceeding to Probably the biggest headache - noto­ vantage ofAlpnets facilities in a num­ facility in our TSS software," she says Colin Brace is Electric Word's being best in the field," says Geoff translate. rious among software localizers every- ber of significant ways. Rather than confidently. software review editor.

26 Electric Word #20 Electric Word #20 27 ~AlPNET

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Ele ctric Word #20 29 WE KNOW YOU'VE READ IT BEFORE, BUT YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT THIS TIME

Electronic media is about to wreak an astonishing transformation on the printing industry, according to

David Henry Goodstein. For the days of print are numbered - though this won't necessarily mean the end ofpaper.

Tahiti, 31 December 1998. It was 7:00am. Fred Smythe time passed and business clearly carried on as usual, everyone woke as the first rays oftropical sun poked into his suite got to laughing about it. Many have now forgotten that the at the Papeete Hilton. Hehad decidedyesterdayto extend threat was real. his vacation for another month, based on his brief chat In fact, there is a history oftechnology-based red herrings with the foreman ofhis printing plant back in London. in the graphic arts industrywhich pre-dates today's menacing What had appeared then to be a serious problem in the pronouncements about the impact ofCD-ROMs. In the 60s, interface between the robotic paper-handling train, the Sears Roebuck and Company, America's largest retailer, automatic press plate feed, inking, quality control man­ announced a program to eliminate their massive catalog. This agement and billing system, turned out to be nothing is still one of the biggest and most expensive 4-color printing more than an erratic glitch in the Surrey North broadcast jobs in the USA. videopower grid. This state of grace would be achieved by providing a Things were slow around the plant these days, what microfiche reader free to each oftheir customer households in with the newinkjet color presses taking images transmit­ America. The companywould deliver the catalog on fiche and ted directly from the advertising managers' computers at save millions. However, there was unexpected and strong their clients' shops. Of course, the occasional customer resistance in trials. It turned out that no-one wanted a still used a freelance ad agency for their annual report or microfilm reader - it took up too much floor or desk space, print adverts, but they all had compatible systems now as and delivered an experience inferior to home shopping with well. You could see them parading down the high streets the printed book. in Kensington and Knightsbridgewiththeir little Crosfield Micro-Designer consoles in tiny Walkman-sized cases, CALS - UNSTOPPABLE which they made sure were prominently strapped to But ifinitial failure meant new ideas would never succeed, we visible and preferably attractive parts oftheir bodies. wouldn't have airplanes or electronic color scanners today. However, the print works ran perfectly well with just Like the parents ofthat boy who cried wolf (and ended up as the services of Jake, his loyal foreman, M arilyn, his a hot lunch), we need to be careful not to assume from early Motors as well, meaning that, by 1995, POTENTIAL DISPlACEMENTS OF PRINT faithful administrator, and Billy, the printingpress main­ failures that the status quo will continue forever. As Leon Hart over 200,000 companieswill be directed PRINT APPLICATION DISPLACEMENT LEVEL TIME FRAME DISPLACEMENT MEDIA tenance engineer who popped by to visit once a month. of DuPont's Graphic Arts marketing organization recently to deliver their technical information in Office documents, internal 50% 1995 EMM But still, he wouldn't stay here in Paradise for ever. He observed, "It's not a question ofwhat's going to happen, it's electronic rather than paper form. Office documents, external 20% 1998 EMM, PoD , FAX/IC CALS standards and strategies are Technical manuals 65% 2000 CD-ROM, alA, PoD, MD must remember to have Marilyn reserve a room for him a qu estion of how much happens how soon." Parts catalogs 75% 2005 CD-ROM , 'al A already adopted in Sweden and likely to in Birmingham for IPEX 2000, the graphic arts/con­ In tha t regard, the future is now ominously near. In fact, Preprinted business forms 90% 1996 PoD , OlA,EDI sumer electronics exhibition which would cover 110 active displacement ofprint is well underway in many appli­ be adopted by Defense Ministries Textbooks 35% 2002 PoD , alA square miles and have giant computer displays for the cations, some of which are still considered mainstays of throughout Europe within the next 24 Directmail 25% 1999 PoD 2,000-plussoftware demonstrations scheduledto be given printing trade work. The Apollo Computer subsidiary of months. The automotive and aerospace Newspapers 10% 2010 PoD , ClA 20 hours a day at 20 minute intervals inside the old Hewlett-Packard has for several years shipped its graphic manufacturers are certain to follow suit. EMM =Electronic MailandMessaging CD-ROM= Compact Disk-Read Only Memory PoD =PrintonDemand FAX/IC =Facsimile orfiletransmission to intelligent office copiers MD=Magnetic Disk OLA =On lineaccess converted football stadium. workstation products with technical documentation on mag­ EDI ,=Electronic Data Interchange Source: InterConsult Inc. Research The murmur ofsurfand song ofbirds drifted through netic disk. The cost ofprinted versions ofthese manuals was DISPLACEMENT his window as Fred put the pen down and dozed back off $23 per copy. Since the company ships in excess of 50,000 A number ofviable solutions for infor­ to sleep. computers per year, this represents well over $1,000,000 of mation delivery exist which by-pass tra­ The most significant factors in the E-MAIL BLAZES A TRAIL work now lost to the printing services sector per year. ditional printing processes. These trend towards the death of print are: Leading the attack on print is the in­ THE STORM, PRECEDED BY MUCH THUNDER Other industries are following in quick succession. The include on-line database access, e-mail, electronic mail and messaging in creased acceptance ofe-mail and messa­ As the 1990s get underway, printing and graphic arts profes­ technical manuals for the Boeing 757 are available on disk in print on demand, electronic data inter­ corporations; "customized" book ging in the corporate and government sionals should be prepared to hear more and more talk about a demonstration package. But the actual documentation for change, CD-ROM, facsimile and trans­ publishing; the revitalized videotext environment. By 1995, up to halfofall the impending death of print. In fact, trends are already in support ofthe new MacDonald-Douglas MD-9 airliners will mission of data files. All are presently industry; privatized and deregulated routine office communications may motion which, as they progress, will cause process transfer, the be shipped to airline operators in paperless form. being used in at least some applications. telephone companies; the global become electronic. The projection for shifting of information delivery from one medium, such as Still to come is the biggest change, as organizations scram­ So are certain classes ofprintingwork consumer electronics industry, which is 1995 seems exaggerated until one reali­ offset printing, to another, such as CD-ROM. ble to meet the US Department ofDefense's CALS mandate especiallyvulnerable to alternative tech­ coming closer to a merger with personal zes that the number of computer dis­ Most industryprofessionals are inured to such pronounce­ (see EW#12). CALS, short for Computer-aided Acquisition nologies. In the chartabove right are the computing every day; and new plays in the USA is now greater than the ments today, having heard this impending bad news for over and Logistics Support, requires the DoD's 50,000 suppliers results of a preliminary analysis, indi­ developments in office copiers which numberofknowledgeworker-class pro­ a decade. "ALL ENCYCLOPEDIAS IN GALAXY TO FIT ofmanufactured products to deliver all technical information cating the most vulnerable types of will create, within the next decade, an fessionals in the work force. ON THUMBNAIL-SIZED CHIPLET COSTING £2.65 from user manuals to parts lists in electronic form. The CALS printed work, and the alternative tech­ infrastructure for on-demand hardcopy Statistics from Digital Equipment BY 1990," screamed a decade-long parade oftrade press. As standard has recently been adopted by Boeing and General niques or mediawhichwill replace them. unimaginable today. Corporation, leading supplier of fully ~

30 Electric Word #20 Electric Word #20 31 networked computing environments, be a reality, almost totally replacing the have already begun trials of electronic indicate that there are over 10,000,000 pre-printed form. home delivery of customized, adverti­ computer terminals in their customers' sing-based news products. sites. Ofthese, 900/0 are already connec­ TOWARDS THE ELECTRONIC ted by local and wide area networks and NEWSPAPER TELECOMS - 6,000,000 are linked by sophisticated e­ McGraw-Hill recently announced its AND INTELLIGENT COPYING mail facilities. All these systems are tied Books ofthe Future project. This com­ One ofthe obstacles to print's displace­ to electronic printers equipped with bines electronic databases of textbook ment has been the cost and capacity of Adobe's PostScript, meaning they can words and images with high-speed elec­ telecommunications networks,"pro­ instantly output a very acceptable stan­ tronic printers able to produce a hard­ blemswell-known to the many trade dard of hard copy on demand almost cover bound book without an operator. shops who have tested transmission of anywhere in the world. A set of courseware in economics can high-quality color images on 56 "Kbit Particularly important in the short now include several chapters from lines. The common wisdom is that it term is the replacement of offset prin­ Samuelson's classic text, a few chapters gets there faster on magnetic tape in the ting ofshort run jobs with on-demand ofGalbraith'slatest book, clippings from cargo hold ofa 747 than by telecom. output to laser printers - a short time last month's WallStreetJournal,and the But the creation ofnew, unregulated ago, these were considered to be of professor's own notes and articles. phonecompanies following the breakup inadequate quality to do the job. The cost to the student is lower, since of AT &T, followed more recently by In this case paper remains, but only they pay only for what they use, rather the privatization oftelecommunications the amount needed for the job. In a than buying several books for each conglomerates from British T elecom to client's office, a new software package course. An elaborate system for coun­ Japan's NTT, has created a pack of was recently purchased which allowed ting and paying authors' royalties in this wealthy, powerful companies who must the output ofchecks through the Apple electronic environment is already in find ways to fill the growing capacity of Laserwriter, ending their reliance on place. The loss, of course, is to the their fibre optics and ISDN networks. check printing ser­ textbook printing companies. This makes them natural allies ofthe product) built in to VCR players. Units ability to swat flies, etc.). Because of be that most work on offset process Newspapers in both vices from Safeguard Meanwhile, the recent commercial displacement of print, since transmis­ like the 300 dot/inch H-P DeskJet al­ this, the death ofprintwill not mean the presses in the year 20 10 will be long-run Corporation.One success of the persistent French Mini­ sion of graphics requires more band­ ready cost under $500 at discounters in end ofpaper. 4-color work. That means those who Europe and the USA have ground-breaking Tel experiment has revived the credibi­ width than any other known form of the USA. It seems a matter of months Ifanything, demand for paper seems wish to be survivors must make certain product is the Auto­ li ty of Videotext in commercial line usage. To help create new products until the linkages are established. certain to growin the foreseeable future. investments by the mid-1990's, and already begun trials of mated Printed Forms publishingsectors, especiallyin Europe. that use phone links rather than paper, Then there is the intelligent copier. But cut-sheet A4 or A3 paper of office position themselves in sectors where System (APFS), now Newspaper publishers there, as well as almost all telecommunications compa­ From the outside, products like the grade, for use in electronic printers, will competitionwill be intense for a certain electronic home delivery being developed by in the USA andJapan, are looking care­ nies have established Media Laborato­ Canon 9030 appear ordinary enough. be most in demand. In the coming limited amount ofwork. Like fish in a the Canadian gov- fully at a project called SELFAC, or ries based on the MIT model, several of However, theydigitallyscan documents information ecology, convenience hard pondwhose water level is shrinking, the of customized, advertis- ernment Printing SELective FACsimile, an approach to which have more staff and larger bud­ input through their feeders and link to copywill be available anywhere, anytime, large are likely to grow larger at the Services in Ottawa. advertising-based home delivery ofnews gets than the MIT group itself. facsimile andRS-232 modem-baseddata any quality-Ievel- and it will be cheap. expense of the mid-sized. ing-based news products. This system attacks and feature information. The consumer electronics industry is file telecom. Others, like the Canon Well-equipped desktop and corpo­ The displacement ofprint is already the serious problem In this system, pages ofnews summa­ also on the move, seeing the electronic Color Laser Copier, can also merge rate publishers can already get pages underway. From the McGraw-Hill's every government has with flat forms­ ries and ads would be composed electro­ distribution of information as a key to scanned information with documents printed on demand in resolutions up to customized textbook to the electronic they are costly to print, ship and store, nically and transmitted to home the success oftheir long-range strategies created on desktop publishing systems 1000 x 1000 from an appropriately filing ofcorporate financial results with and suffer from rapid obsolescence. receivers. These receivers are like a cross withhigh-definition television and home for output on the laser printer which is con figured H -P LaserJet. Market re­ the Securities and Exchange Commis­ The APFS network application will between MiniTel and an Apple computing. High-definition television, the recording end of the device. search shows that the majorityofoffices sion, paper is becoming the back-up link 35 locations to a database of elec­ Macintosh. They could be purchased by combined with powerful image pro­ While such systems are costly today, will, by the end of the 1990s, add full alternative to a preferred, all-electronic tronic forms in PostScript format. Us­ consumers, or provided free - as was the cessingbuiltintoCCD cameras, will take by 1995 they are expected to be only color output with graphic quality equi­ flow ofinformation. ers will be able to obtain mo re copies of case with MiniTel's startup. Electronic on more and more ofthe capabilities of slightly more expensive than conven­ valent to today's 133 line screen prin­ So electronic delivery will come, a particular form by ordering the master pages with editorial content (selected on PCs in the next decade. tional models. By decade's end, every ting. So trees will continue to fall in the bringingwith it a displacementofprint, to be downloaded overnight. This can the basis ofreader interest profiles), and It's surelyno coincidence that the 43­ office copier will be an intelligent de­ forest. both in ink-on-paper and toner-on­ then be output to a laser printer or advertisement content (based on demo­ member Desktop Publishing Consor­ vice, combining a scanner, digital There'll be plenty ofpaper on office paper varieties. But the problem (much typesetter, and photocopied or offset. graphic profiles), will be downloaded tium, organized under the auspices of memory, computer interface and laser desks and a basketful in the post each as it was during the fracas about filmless Millions of dollars per month will be during the night, and output to hard Japan's MITI, is led by Sony Corpora­ printer. As intelligent copiers are more day. Whatwill be radically changed will prepress in the late 1970s) is to under­ saved, and the forms will always be copyon laser or inkjetprinters built into tion. Sony has also emerged as one of widely installed, theywill allow users to be the pattern of manufacturing and stand how much will happen how soon fresh. Centralizedprinting, shippingand the receiver sets. Japan's top suppliers of Unix-based create electronic documents and dis­ distributing information. Not that tra­ andwhatstrategies are available to those warehousing will be eliminated. SELFAC is described at the moment graphicworkstations. Combiningthese tribute them to a network ofintelligent ditional techniques will necessarily dis­ whose businesses will be most severely The final result will still be a form on as a companion product, competing computing capabilities with television copier gateways. These will either out­ appear. For certain applications (such as impacted by it. The old, comforting paper, you may well observe. Butwithin with the morning television kind of could produce an ideal receiver for put hardcopy or forward the electronic the coffee-table book and the slick ad­ assumptions, based on a "not in my the next few years, more nodes will be headline news rather than eliminating SELFAC-style services at consumer files to users with computer screens. based magazine), and almost all uses lifetime" attitude, are not going to sur­ added to the network. It will then be the daily printed product. But it seems electronics prices. The TV set of 1998 involving run-lengths in excess of vive the count-down to the millennium. interfaced to the government's e-mail sure to have some impact on the sales of will probablycome with a switch on the THE FUTURE OF PAPER 20;000, the cost/qualityratio ofelectro­ network. By later this decade, it will be newspapers, however far ahead in 'the side saying: "Broadcast, HDTV, PC Inspite of these developments, paper nic printers is likely to remain unsuita- David Henry Goodstein, the founder, possible for any government worker to future that may be. Certainly electronic Mode, MAC Mode, CD-ROM Input." will continue to have very desirable "ble for the next 20 years. president, and CEO of InterConsult call up any form electronically to their distributionisgoing to be viable whether Quality hardcopy is already available characteristics (convenience, portabili­ The volume of traditional printing Inc., consultants to Fortune 1000 PC or terminal, fill in the data and as an augmentation to paper-based in Japan, with -printers based on Dai­ ty, privacy, archival life, resistance to and its revenues may also continue to companies, has been directly in­ submit the information electronically. products or as their replacement. New­ nippon Printing's thermal transfer sub­ magnetic disruption, quality, cost per grow at their present rates of 2-30/0 volved in electronic publishing for EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) will spapers in both Europe and the USA limation (the same as Dul'ont's 4Cast copy in sufficiently long run-lengths, globally per annum. However, it could more than 12 years.

32 Electric Word #20 Electric Word #20 33 Or. Timothy Leary is converting his vision of a the world. Nowit's personal computers. Or, as Learycalls them, interpersonal computers. His company is called Futique. And cyberdelic future, where people use thought ap- his first programs were psychic toolboxes - one called Mind Mirror (for understanding your own psyche), and another, pliances to free their own minds and change the Head Coach (a learning aid). See EW#2.

world, into software reality. CLASSROOMS WITHOUT WALLS These days, Leary's energyis channelled mainlyinto interactive educationalprograms.Leary'svision ofa networkedhypermedia "classroom without walls" is being used at Pennsylvania State University. Leary's goal isto help disadvantagedghetto children. He loathes the classical school system, where pupils are taught According to Timothy Leary, the counterculture hasn't faded nothing but reading, writing and arithmetic. away, it's just changed shape and inhabitants. "Just the idea offorcing a child to sit down with a pencil is Its new LSD is computers. The new underground is thou­ almost like cannibalism, like child-slavery. Howcan you do that sands ofhackers. The new heroes are people like Robert Morris, to someone? Give me a break. Give me a computer. When an who injected a virus into Internet that paralyzed an estimated American ghetto kid has the historical informationcapability of 6,000 computersat high-poweredinstitutionsacrossthe US. The MGM at her fingertips, things will really change. Our method new computer subculture even has its own Rolling Stone will teach children how to package ideas and how to commu­ magazine - Mondo 2000 (formerly Reality Hackers, formerly nicate in this new electronic world." High Fro nti ers), featuring a mix ofsoftware reviews, drug tales, Leary is currently working on a program called Intercom , music interviews, cyberdelia (contributor Leary's term) and which is short for Inter Communication. It brings the anti­ new age philosophy. authority ideas ofIvan Illich and other Sixties New Educators Leary (69), recentlydescribed as" a social guruand renowned to the computer. The program, which Leary proudly demon­ user of controlled substances," locates the center of this new strates on his DOS computer, works with scores and statistics cyberpunk counterculture in California's Silicon Valley. He to let the students evaluate their own progress. Students can keeps in daily contact with it via an electronic bulletin board even score on "cheating" and "honesty." Leary demonstrates an called the WELL, operated by the descendants of the original interactive lesson in slang. Whole Earth Catalog (the latest version ofwhich, by the way, "Do you know what crispy means?" the pretty girl on th e is now available on CD-ROM). computer asks. "I feel so crispy." Oh, and like all good subcultures, it also has its enemies. "Do you thinkyou know the answer?" the program asks me. Leary: "It's like the WildWestoutthere, hackers and corporations "Yes, no, maybe, or irrelevant." insulting each other and fighting it out." According to Leary I answer "No." there is an information war going on for control ofthe world, "Good," Leary comments, the genuine teach er. "Because if justlike the Dutchand the Spanish in the 16thcentury. "It's the a student says, oh , I know everything, they're never going to same tension between thosewhowantto control and those who learn." want to be free." "Crispy," Intercom informs me, is slang for "extre mely hung-over." PLUS ~A CHANGE Scores, Leary demonstrates,are to be found in another menu, Professor Timothy Leary is still best remembered for his where several statistics are displayed: seasonal scores, class psychedelic lessons in the "Psychodrama Room" at Harvard in averages, student averages - just like in a baseball gam e. 1960, a universitylab "withmattresses on the floor, candlelight, "Actually, they're measures of mentabiliry", Leary says. Buddha posters and Hindu ragas on the stereo, " as Jane and "You're playing with your mind. Or rather, interplaying. It 's Michael Stern inform us in their book Sixties People. Leary was throwing and reacting. You are shooting, and I am shooting. so smitten by his drug vision that after being fired in 1962 Insteadofjustreadingandconsuminginformation, the student because of these controversial teaching methods, he began performs." travelling around the US to tell people to "tunein, turnon, drop Some ofthe programs are already being used in classrooms, out." He even started a religion, the League for Spiritual mostly, without a teacher - and connected to fellow students. Discovery. Its maxim was "You Have to Be Out ofYour Mind "There is no teacher, no Big Brother. Someone throws the to Pray." pitch, and the student has to respond to the pitch." But that was then and this is now. Ensconced in his Beverly The program even tries to encourage Leary's all-time favorite Hills home,whichisfilled with photosofhis past anda splendid slogan "TFYQA," or Think ForYourself, Question Authority. collection ofKeith Harings and Helmut Newtons, and dressed "Itcan throwcurveballs - ask irrelevant questions. Butit's up in a neat K-Mart sweater, Leary appears to have left controlled to you. You decide. But if you cheat, everybodywill see. That's substances behind. Even uncontrolled substances: he hasn't what happens with interactivity." touched alcohol in months, and he takes the whole day to smoke a single cigarette - by cutting offthe burning end with MENTAL MASTURBATION a pair of scissors after every one or two puffs. And the last Interactivity is a key word in Leary's ideas and concepts. The interview he gave was for a venture capitalist magazine. first interactive electronics, according to Leary, was our ability Yes,times have changed. Butunder the hood, the same spirit, to switchoffthe television set - which, he claims, was notalways the same energy, the same ideas tick over with even more possible in Russia. The second step was cable television, which "Realities Per Minute," as Leary calls it, than ever before. LSD let you switch channels and plug into a larger variety of and religion are no longer Leary's chosen medium for changing information and entertainment providers. The third step was ~

34 Electric Word #20 Electric Word #20 35 VCR, which allowed you to watch when cious multicolored canals with columns and double-dealing has become so much you wanted to, not when they wanted in between. the norm that Case's acts seem lessillegal you to. "These are the first maps of the elec­ than profoundly ambiguous. But it isstill passive,notes Leary. "And tronic world. These are data highways Neuromancer won three of science they decide what we see." we'll be building in the coming years. If fiction's most prestigious awards - the The computer was the first device "to I want to get to the MGM Library to see Hugo, the Nebulaand thePhilip K.Dick control the screen." Thecomputerallow­ something, or want to get information Memorial Award - and continues to be a I U ed for the first true interactivity - be­ from a Moscow medical database, I just best-sellertoday. With the creative parti­ cc tween the program and the user. Yet it take the data freeway. You zoom down cipation of TimothyLeary and a musical ~ still wasn't interpersonal. here, you zoom down there, you can score by Devo, Neuromancer- the com­ z Leary: "In fact, it was reactive, not leavewhenever you like. I wanted some­ puter game (published by Interplay in ~ cc interreactive. It's your own mind reflect­ one to draw these illustrations becausewe 1988) - tries to bring a sophisticated ~ I­ :::J ing. It's just a mirror; you're just talking are creating a new world, and our task is futurist vision to electronic entertain­ I- to yourself all the time. There's no one on to make clear signal points, byways and ment. The "reader" is allowed easy con­ ~

I the other side. You sit in front of the freeways.You can use a swastika, you can trol of the characters. Evocative graphics U I­ :::J computer and play use a taxi sign, and if you need data, you suggest the underworld atmosphere and o Z The electronic reality is a with your own brain. go to the data gas station." sleazy characters of Gibson's low-down ...... J :::J It's like mental mas­ Leary compares computers and their fantasy setting. You wander this world ~ cc platonic reality. Plato said turbation." artificial realities with the shadow-and­ conversing with a cast of peculiar charac­ o Z <:t: cave-ideasofPlato. "Theelectronic reality ters, logging onto bulletin boards, and > The first real steps Z

lJ:l that we can only see in true interactivity isa platonic reality. Plato said thatwe can breaking into vast, multinational data­ cc were electronic bulle­ only seeshadows ofthe real things in our basesin order to find out who's killing all (!J shadows of the real things tin boards, according brain, mind and imagination. The ma­ the hackers. Neuromancer approaches to Leary, and the next terial world therefore is shadow. The having true plot and characterization. in our brain, mind and big step isthe Futique­ brain contains the real world, and the Exploration and deduction, not hit points programs, designed brain is an electronic device. History, and puzzle solving, are the focus. imagination. The material specifically for inter­ actually is electronic." Leary: "In this information age, you active communica­ Leary uses a new unit of measure, choose how you want the hero to look, world therefore is shadow. tion. "Einstein said: I Reality Per Minute (RPM) to describe you choose the graphics, you define the cannot measure a star, what is going to happen in this brain­ character, you create the hero of the The brain contains the real because I am moving world. "Thirty years ago, before I took book. You may choose William Bur­ and at the same time recreational drugs, I had one telephone roughs, who is very upper class, or you world, and the brain is an the star ismoving. The and a black and white television, and I may choose some other type of hero." answerto that problem read some books. Now, I have a fax, a According to users of Neuromancer, electronic device. is not that we cannot copy-machine, two phones, a computer, Interplay has not only folded it inven­ do anything; the an­ and I exchange about 500 pages elec­ tivelyinto a computergame buthas done swer is: quick reaction. Oh, the star is tronically a month. I figure my RP M has it with a no-pulled-punches maturity moving. Direct feedback." multiplied fifty times. In the next 10 that leaves the bite of Gibson's vision years this will go up even more. Right intact. Leary: "It's faster too. It may take DATA GAS STATIONS now, I probably use one percent of my you ten hours to read a book, but only an "The 20th century will be the century of brains, faxand all. In 30 years this may be hour to play it. The RPM goes up, see!" the mind. When the machine came, we five percent. By the end ofthe century, Leary is also planning to adapt his % did not have to work anymore. It freed the RPM will go up to 25 ." friend Burroughs' book Western Lands the body. Thetele-computerwill free the and a novel of the most famous unseen brain." INTERACTIVE NOVELS author in the world, Thomas Pynchon. Within 20 years, Leary predicts, there One of the tools to enlarge the RPM of He will apply the same process he used in by Nick Beard will be a global information village. Our the modernliterateisthe interactivenovel. Neuromancer. "Pictures, sound, selection friends will live in countries all over the Leary was involved in adapting the and simulation. The difference between world and speak different languages. But cyberpunk novel Neuromancer to the sil­ interactive movies and books will be­ all we'll have to do is to put on our icon screen. In the original "paper" book come increasingly smaller." datasuit and eyephones, jack into our byWilliam Gibson, world power isin the Leary states that the difference be­ networked computer - data-highways, hands of multinational zaibatsu, battling tween reader and writer will also blur. in Leary's parlance - and travel through for power much as mafia and yakuza "The reader has become a performer in the virtual reality inside our brains, gangs struggle for turftoday. It is a world the case ofinteractive fiction. To read a speaking in the graphic language of icons.: of organ transplants, biological comput­ bookispassive.The reader will re-create. "With data-highways I can put my ers and artificial intelligences. As in a psychiatric process." brain in Japan, in Amsterdam, anywhere Gibson's hero, Case, is a "deck cow­ I want. Who wants to stuff their body boy," a freelance corporate thief-for-hire Timothy Leary isplanninga lecture tour of into a horrible, noisy, polluted airplane who projects his disembodied conscious­ Europe this summer. for 12 hours? The only reason you'll use nessinto the cyberspacematrix, penetrat­ the plane in the future is body pleasure." ing corporate systems to steal data for his Louis Stiller is an Amsterdam-based Leary holds up artist renderings ofthe employers. It is a world that Ivan Boesky freelance journalist and a frequent data-highways of the future, broad, spa- would understand: corporate espionage contributor to Electric Word.

37 36 Electric Word #20 After a false dawn, neural networks are winning The wetware Insplratlun to produce theoutput, and theprocess is repeated throughout the network to generate an activation pattern ontheoutput nodes. back an increasingl.y large slice of the research Our nervous system has many different cells, butthemain type is Initially, theinterconnection strengths of thevarious nodes are thenerve cell, or neuron. Neurons have a round, chubby body and random, sothenetwork output is random. The difference between cake. Nick Beard reports how natural language a long projection or axon, which isthelinkto other neurons. What the actual output and the desired output is used to change the we generally refer to asnerves are largely bundles ofaxons, which connection strengths between nodes, and thustrain the network. processing isbenfitting. may be upto a meter long in humans (the axons in the giraffe's The rule used to calculate the required changes is called the lear­ recurrent laryngeal nerve, whichgoes fromthetopoftheneck down ning algorithm. to thestomach and back again, can be ten meters long). Data transmission is essentially an electro-chemical process: FIRST TRAIN YOUR NETWORK Too muchhype can wreck asubject. People become boredwith breakthroughs and a heap of stimulating and provocative theflow ofthesignal down theaxon is electrical, and attheend of There are several types of network, each with particular strengths hearing about it. As journalists try to outdo each other with related material were publishedin McClellandand Rurnelhart's thefibre, where it transfers thesignal to another cell, isthechemi­ and weaknesses. They are distinguished by three features: the hyperbole, ever greater - and less realistic - expectations are Parallel DistributedProcessing - Explorations in theMicrostruc­ cally mediated synapse. This iswherethetransmitting cell releases method oftraining, which istheprocess - or learning algorithm ­ created. Occasionally the whole edifice crumbles, the original tureofCognition. It sold remarkablywell, and the flurry ofrecent a special chemical - a neurotransmitter - onto the next cell, and bywhich theinterconnections are adjusted inthelightofexperience; premise proves premature, and everyone feels a bit silly. The activity - andspeculation- began. The bandwagonwas back on starts the process of conduction again. There are some 1011 neu­ the mathematical formula with which the unitsprocess incoming neural network research community is sensitive about this, as the road, this timewith a better sense ofdirection. rons in ourhead, and each may have 1,000 -1 0,000 connections, signals, and thenetwork architecture. there has been a hype problem before - the perceptron affair ­ In spite of fundamental theoretical breakthroughs, it has making a total of around 1014 synapses in our heads - massive Neural networks are often simulated on a conventional serial and it set back funding by more than a decade. seemed recently that neural networks might again be at risk parallelism! machine. This is largely a matter of convenience. Direct hardware from excess hype. There was simply too much noise! One Within neural computing systems, neurons are represented by implementations or parallel computers are rarely available, and ELECTRIC FROGS commentator has suggested that ironically, last year's cold nodes or units. These are simple highly interconnected units, each tweaking and testing network performance is easily done in soft­ f It started with frogs brains. In the 1940s, Warren McCulloch fusion fiascosaved the day. The claims that test-tube fusion had doing its own simple job.Mimicking physiology, each unit'sjobis ware. Nevertheless, there could be advantages to direct silicon and Walter Pitts were trying to get to grips with neurophysi­ been developed caused esoteric metal shares to rise, and also to receive asignal frommany other units. These signals activate the implementations asthey become commercially available, such as ological mechanisms of perception and motor control. They distracted journos from neural nets for long enough to allow node, and ifthenecessary threshold isreached, it"firesoff"asignal speed and faulttolerance. simulated frog neuro-circuits, and discovered that simple webs some real results to creep out ofthe labs. In the US, a number to other units. ofamplifiers were capable ofcrude "reasoning." ofneurocomputing companies are now reliably profitable. All the processing in a neural network is carried out by these NOT ALL NETS ARE ALIKE The roots ofthought, they thought, were to be found here, With their respectability intact once again, multi-layered units - there is no "executive" or "overseer" comparable to the Rosenblatt's networks of linear threshold devices, perceptrons, and in the heady days of Alan T uring and John von N eumann, nets have been applied to a host of problems thatwere regarded central processing unit(CPU) of a conventional computer. were able to learn, and created a(short-lived) sensation (see main computation seemed almost limitless in its powers. McCulloch as having largely defeated conventional rule-based or symbolic article). and Pitts published a paper grandly titled "A Logical Calculus approaches. Neural networks have spawned a paradigm, called SECRET OF THE HIDDEN LAYER Ofthenew generation ofneural nets, theHopfield netcan best be ofthe Ideas Imminent in Nervous Activity," and the mecha­ connectionism, or parallel distributed processing, the terms Itisuseful toconsiderthree types ofunit:input, output, and hidden . understood in terms of energy. It is highly interconnected, with nisms ofcognition seemed only a Boolean stone's throwaway. being used interchangeably. As a facet ofartificial intelligence Hidden units are those whose inputs and outputs are within the each node sending and receiving signals from every other. It has Soon after, Frank Rosenblatt developed the perceptron, a research, connectionism can be applied to distinct (though system. They are not"visible" to outside systems. shown some promise in solving difficult optimization problems. simple network ofartificial "neurons," able to learn to classify linked) goals; technological and psychological. Without hidden layers, thenetwork is restricted to being able to Hopfield showed thatneural computing problems can be conceived patterns into groups. This excited people: an Oaklahoma solve only simple problems. The hidden nodes form an internal in terms of energy levels, where the solution is at the system's newspaper published a headline "PRANKENSTEIN MON­ A GOOD NET RESPONSE representation of theproblem within the network, and aftera net­ minimal energy level - its stable state. STER DESIGNED BY NAVY ROBOT THAT THINKS." Both new technologies and new models for psychological workhas been trained, it ispossible to"goin"and examine thestate The Boltzmann machine was another early successful multi­ Too bad things weren't as good as they seemed. The under­ investigations have benefitted from the resurgence in neuro­ of the hidden nodes to see how the network has learned to do layer netoperating along these lines. Using aprocess called simu­ lying math ofperceptrons, thoroughly investigated by MIT's computing. Computational linguistics - language technology things. This isnotalways ameaningful exercise, astherepresenta­ lated annealing, named after themetallurgical heating and cooling Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert in their book Perceptrons, and psycholinguistics - serve as good illustrations. Although tionsthenetwork develops are sometimes highly abstract,and not of metals to direct them intotheir lowest energy (and strongest) was found wanting. Minsky and Papert proved just what these "out ofsight, out of mind" might no longer be translated as humanly comprehensible. state, the net settles into a stable state - a solution. Tuning things could not do. With only one layer of variable strength "invisible, insane'" there remain doubts that a symbolic ap­ Layers of such units are arranged sothatdata is entered atthe Boltzmann machines toconverge istrickyand training times can be interconnections, perceptrons simply could not learn some proach to language processing is entirely suitable as either a inputlayer, and thenetwork delivers itsresult attheoutput layer. To very long. importantpatterns-suchasthe exclusive-OR (XOR) problem. cognitive or technological paradigm. train anetwork, each inputlayer node isfixed atan activation, which The Kohonen netisbased onthestructure ofthehuman cerebral Minsky and Papert didn't stop there. They also wrote that The story goes that Terry Winograd - doyen of syntax ­ represents data input. Itcommunicates thisactivation to each node cortex, in particular its lateral - side-to-side - connections. Re­ they saw no reason to believe that these restrictions could be never wrote volume 'two of Language as a Cognitive Process onthe next layer. search continues, inanattempt to findan optimal general training overcome by more complex networks. They were wrong, but because his views on computational semantics kept changing. Receiving nodes process many inputs, each being transformed algorithm for multi-layer nets. How much any such solution will their status in the AI community, and the apparent finality of Insteadhewrote Understanding Computers and Cognition, which according to thetransfer function. The results are added together eventually owe to theneurobiology remains to be seen. _ their pronouncements ("Most ofthe writing [on neural nets] ...is involved taking Heidegger seriously - something few logicians withoutscientific value") meant that neurocomputing projects ever do. There is no doubt that symbolic NLP systems have were largely junked. trouble with semanticprocessing-they are certainly unlikely to handle Heidegger! pasta with the sauce." There isreasonable contrastswith the rule-learningapproach There have been some serious criti­ SPIN-GLASS SPIN-OFFS Major problems are ambiguity, and the importance ofworld consensus that such sentence processing of researchers like Pinker. The "neuros" cisms ofthis analysis.Pinker for example, A number of crucial academic efforts a few years later changed knowledge in interpretation. Look-up lexicons are surely 'not involves simultaneous semantic and syn­ claim thatthe high levelrules of grammar suggests that it is inadequate to account all this. John Hopfield, a respected physicist, pointed out that what our heads use, nor are they impressive at disambiguation. tactic processing, which the symbolic are explicable in terms of lower level for the range ofphonetictransformations multi-layer neural net theory was analogous to a well under­ Lexicalambiguity isso common thatwe barely notice it. The approach finds less amenable. Try processes, just as the nea~ hexagonal occurring in human languages. stood lump ofphysics - spin-glass physics. Neurocomputing commonest 20 English nouns each have an average of over "President Bush Swore in his new structure ofa honeycomb is "caused" by Rueckl has developed a connectionist • ~f9~ z..,~ 5~" (,J fir' then enjoyed aglory whichwas in parta reflection ofHopfield's, seven meanings, verbs over 12. "Take" is reputed to have 57 cabinet (see diagram right). busy bees. Their model was originally account of letter and word recognition, I'if,o.J G-4SfI'Il,-T" existing respectability in the physics community. varieties of sense, and "run" 176 ! Thus disambiguation of trained on ten high-frequencyverbs, and prompted by the psychological finding Soon after, the single-layer restriction was broken. Minsky sentences is computationally tough - and not just with weird LOW LEVEL RULES then on some 400 less common verbs. that people are better able to recognise and Papert's judgement that multi-layered extensions to the and implausible phrases fabricated by linguists. Thereisalsothe FOR HIGH LEVEL GRAMMAR The model correctly captures children's words they have seen recently. The same perceptron paradigm would be sterile was proved wrong. problem of"structural ambiguity," where sentences may have McClelland and Rumelhart have used performante on a wide variety ofirregu­ finding applies to "pseudo words" - pro­ Two methods of training multi-layered nets were found, more than one possible phrase structure assignment. Consider neural net models to account for learning lar verbs, makingsimilar over-generaliza­ nounceable non-words such as "blen." back propagation of errors and simulated annealing. These "The boy ate the pasta with the spoon" and "The boy ate the of past tenses of English verbs, which tions. His model features a number of layers, ~

38 Electric Word #20 El e c t r i c Word #20 39 starting with a "retinotopic map," (a ously reviewing one's relationship with partial machine failure and still operate. Parallel Distributed Processing model of the area of brain cortex that "the outside world." This ability - called graceful degradation byJLMcClel/and andDE Rumelhart & PDP directly maps the visual image focussed Lakoffmakes links between cognitive - is a characteristic human skill, rather Research Group on the eye's retina) which feeds a second linguistics and connectionist architect­ like the gradual (though rarely graceful) (MITPress, 1986) layer, an object-centredfeature map. The ures. Central to his model is cognitive reduction in performance as we drink The reference - essential. One of the third levelis the object identity represen­ topology - such as simple in, out, over, alcohol. major agents of the connectionist revival, tation, where patterns of activity corre­ under - and the use people make of Many language applications can be thissetremains ahighquality, readable and spond to entire objects, which can be topological descriptions of the world in interpreted as variations on the theme of stimulating survey ofthefield. It is difficult letters or words. engaging in language use. Some experi­ pattern recognition, and connectionist to find books or papers onthe' subject that mental work has been done to link such systems have found favour here. Nestor do not refer to this work. A bargain. THE SENTENCE topological models to vision using con­ Inc. developed a system that accepts digi­ THE NET LEARNT nectionism. For example, Regier built a tized handwriting, which after training, is Neurocomputing Some cognitive activities have a clear system comprising a number of nets, able to interpret handwriting it has never byJames Anderson andEdward Rosenfeld symbolic and sequential flavor, such as a devised to handle the prepositions "in," seen before, in a variety ofstyles, making (MITPress, 1989) studentsolving a physicsproblem. How­ "over," "into," "out of" and "outside." good guesseswhen confrontedwith con­ The otheresential reference, and now ever, humansentence processingis prob­ The nets assign diffferen t shifting pat­ fusing characters. available in paperback. A collection of the ably not in this category. Numerous terns of activation to 'each of these no­ Kuniko Fukushima, at Japan's NHK key papers fromthehistoryof theconnec- connectionist parsing systems have been tions, according to the relationships Science and Technology Research Labo­ tionist perspective, though mostcontinue constructed, many of them incorporat­ between user controlled objects. ratories, also developed a handwriting to be relevant. Many ofthepapers are from ing some symbolic processingeither prior Attemptingto set muchofthe workon system, based on the neocognitron, a highly esoteric journals, a reflection of the or during the network's efforts. Highly neural nets in proper context is multi-layer network simulating human unfashionable status ofnets before McClel- recursive definitions of grammaticality Smolensky. His On the Proper Treatment visual processing. land and Rumelhart's books arrived onthe are not easily handled by neural net­ ofConnectionism tried to encapsulate the scene, and soare hard totrackdown other- works. pros and cons ofthe connectionist style, FROM BABBLE wise. PARSNIP isaback- and to reconcile it with traditional sym­ TO CHAT IN A NIGHT The "neuros" claim that propagation based bolic AI. He concludes that the proper Perhaps the most famous natural lan­ Neural Computing - Theory and Practice system that is able to place for neural net-type models is at a guageprocessing neural net isN ETalk, the by Philip Wasserman the high level rules of learn complex sen­ level intermediate between brain physi­ text-to-speech converter createdby Terry nodes automatically formed activation Many popular books on computing en (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989) ... The best practical guide to nets tech- tence constructions, ologyandsymbol systems.In other words, Sejnowski, professor ofBiophysics atJohn clusters around representations of the concludewith aspeculative foray into the Cl.) as grammar are explicable in including embedded connectionistmodels are notdirect mod­ Hopkins University, and Charles Rosen­ constituent phonemes. This work is be­ future, where a "truly intelligent ma­ nology. The background theory of each ing further developed into a phonetic chine assistant" (often with a voice like = major paradigm is discussed in depth, and sentences suchas "The elsofbiology- notsimulations ofcircuits berg, a Princeton psychologist. -ea terms of lower level rat the cat chased we might find in our heads. A child's conversation was transcribed typewriter (See EW # 19 news). 2001's HAL) helps a researcher by un­ ... implementation issues also considered. died;" though it could There are still strong criticisms ofcon­ by a linguist into its component pho­ dertakingvast trawls ofon-line databases ::I Cl.) processes, just as the not manage doubly­ nectionist models ofhuman psychology, nemes. Thenetworkconvertedthe coded SO WHAT, in response to inexact, spoken instruc­ .Neural Networks inArtificial Intelligence by Matthew Zeidenberg embedded sentences. however. Fodor and Pylyshyn argue that text to phonemes, and a voice synthe­ AND WHERE NEXT? tions; at the same time anticipating that -cs= neat hexagonal structure Neither, however, can the paradigm is little more than a novel sizer,DECtalk, turnedthe phonemecodes A prejudice against AI involves the view because it's Tuesday you will want the (El/is Horwood 1990) mosthumans do so re- presentationof"associationism," and that into speech sounds. Initially, the system that if we can know that a machine is lights down low and the heat up because =::I Excellent survey of the psychological of a honeycomb is liably! the arguments used against one of produced only a continuous stream of working according to simple rules that it's funtime with the partner. The litera­ ...C) and technological implications, including a Cottrell and Small associationism's chief villains - behavi­ sound, because the inter-nodal connec­ we can readily grasp, it is not intelligent. ture of AI is littered with such predic­ ea wealth of well summarised research fin- "caused" by busy bees developed a connec- ourism - apply to connectionist models. tion weights were random. After train­ Nets avoid at least this problem, as often tions, many ofwhich have been revived -cs dings. tionist approach to ing, the computer was able to infer rules we don't know how they do what they by connectionism. Majorresearch efforts ea do! are in progress in areas like analogue Cl.) Foundations ofCognitive Science word-sense disambiguation, which at­ TECHNOCHAT: about reading English text. From babbl­ .c tempts to incorporate psycholinguistic NEURAL NETS AND ing like a baby, after one night oflearn­ N eurocomputing is not the solution VLSI (VeryLargeScaleIntegrationchips), by Michael Posner to all the problems of computational in an attempt to render neurocomput­ ... (MITPress ,1989). and neurolinguistic constraints. Each LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY ing, it could speak like a six-year-old. ::I word is linked to one or more senses, and Ofcourse, a computational activity can Although text-to-speech conversion has language processing, though it offers a ational capabilities in silicon.These efforts C) Asplendid survey oftheentire discipline each sense inhibits all the others in the be valuable without making any contri­ been accomplished before, this approach fresh approach to some difficult prob­ may bringsome ofthe predictions closer, =- of cognitive science, by some real heavy- sense-module. It is able to discriminate bution to our understanding of the hu­ is important because there is no need for lems. There is also cheer to be had from but developments in conventional rna­ en weights. between the meanings of" threw" in "John man soul. A problem with AI, especially pronunciation rules. the rapid progress made in such a short chines are just as likely to do so by con­ structing viable, accessible, parallel .-= Microcognition threw up the ball," "Jim threw up din­ applications such as language handling After NETtalk had been trained, Sej­ space oftime. There is still plenty to be ... ner," "Joe threw a ball for charity," and or pattern recognition, is that "expertise" nowski and Rosenberg examined the "re­ done, though. Cottrell, whose work on operating systems simply to make raw Cl.) byAndyClark "Jack threw the fight." needs to be encapsulated as explicit rules. ceptive fields" ofthe hidden layers. This disambiguation isdescribed above, notes computational power more widely avail­ (MITPress, 1989) This can be a slow and expensive process meantfinding outwhatfeatures ofsound that hissystem does not consider prosody, able. = The philosophical aspects - thoroughly HEAVIER CONCEPTS - the so-called knowledge acquisition they responded to. Astonishingly, the nor contextual facts such as speaker's There seems little that is certain in the enjoyable. Cheerful, readable and with The wider significance ofconnectionist bottleneck. hidden layers had learnt elements ofEn­ profession or location. This does not future of computing, though it is cer­ humour; a thorough exposition of the irn- models has'been discussed by many phi­ For a skill like language, the rules are glish such as the differences between vo­ detract from his work- butit hints at the tainly the case that a niche for neuro­ pact of POP onthe philosophy of mind. losophers. Paul Churchland invokes inaccessible. Neural computing general­ wel sounds and consonants, and even limits ofwhat we can yet do. It is doubt­ computing has emerged. The precise connectionism in his analysis ofthe plas­ ly requires no rules, instead extracting different sub-groups in these classes. ful whether real progress will be made on shape ofthatniche, and its position in the A Neurocomputational Perspective: The ticity ofhuman consciousness. Hepoints "knowledge" from experience. Neural Most of these systems are taught to problems like the semantic content of wider scheme ofcomputing has yet to be Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science out its contact with some of the major systems offer other advantages, such as a respond in specific ways ,to classes of intonation, or the proper incorporation clarified. ' by Paul Churchland themes ofEuropean philosophy, such as reasonable response to noisy or incom­ inputdata - supervisedlearning. Kohonen of large quantities of real-world knowl­ (MITPress, 1989) the non-propositional nature ofthe bulk plete input, fault tolerance and an ability nets are capable ofunsupervised learning. edge, without some cooperative effort Dr. Nick Beard works for Coopers & Similar scope to Clark's book, though ofhumanknowledge, andthe primacyof to exploit parallelism. A network run­ T uevo Kohonen gave large amounts of between the students ofsymbolism and Lybrand. perhaps more concerned with ontological being an endlessly active agent continu- ning on a parallel system could tolerate speech data to one ,Qf his nets, and its the connectionists.. and epistemological matters. ~

40 Electric Word #20 El e c t r i c Word #20 41 Connections and Symbols fileformats are included, with instructions products, transformed intoCsource code ed. Pinker & Mehler forporting toUnix. Atexteditor isrequired. withThe Neural Ware Designer Pack. This (MITPress ,1989) The overall flavour isacademic, although it takes networks from Professional 11, and The symbolists fight back! This survey can be used to solve real problems. I used transforms them intoCsource code. Neu­ of connectionism, focussing in particular it to build a net to read ECGs (full). Six ral Works puts nets in business, and is on language models, is cogent and articu­ networks are provided, each with example highly recommended. late, butnobeginner's guide; Valuable not applications and they are effective, quality least because it helps to keep in mind the programs. For the cogniscenti, they are Brainmaker existence of dissenting voices among the interactive competition and learning, the £165, from FAR Communications;+44 (533) connectionist enthusiasm. Boltzmann machine, the pattern associa­ 796166. Hardware: PC, 256K, DOS 3.X, tor, the auto-associator, a competitive Optional: mouse, co-processor. Computer Models of Mind learning system, and of course, a back An effective back prop system, entirely by Margaret Boden prop net. The packages all use similar mouse and menu driven and easy to use . (Cambridge University Press, 1988) formats for I/O. Real, working nets, at The network is fully user-definable, and The psychological aspects ofclassical AI minimum cost. different types of node can be specified , to and neural nets - excellent. Boden's books operate with different linear and non-linear are always concise and readable . Neuroshell transfer functions. US$195, from Ward Systems Group, 228 Good facilities forinput data processing, Neural Connections, Mental Computations W. Patrick Street, Frederick, Maryland with symbolic input supported, allowing by Lynn Nadel et aI, (MITPress, 1989) 21701, USA. Tel: +1 (301) 662-7950 fruit to be described as"red," "small," and An advanced volume thatfocusses pri­ Hardware req: 256KRAM. "round" rather than with colour, size and marily onthe neuroscientific aspects - spe­ A simple to operate, menu-driven back shape codes. Pictorial input is also sup­ cialized, butexcellent. Aimed atthose with prop system. Build useful networks with- ported. Input data can also be described by a direct interest in real wetware. , out recourse to texteditors, network dia­ fuzzy sets. Input can be autoscaled . grams - or any thought of neurons. Clear A thorough and well written manual, Minds, Brains and Science manual, ready-configuredtutorial networks, which contains advice on pushing a net­ byJohn Searle and an emphasis onproducing useful nets work from conception to completion. (Pelican, 1989) quickly and simply. "Making a trained netis a seven step pro­ The sceptical aspects - short, cheap and Advanced menus allow adjustment of cess. 1. Decide what you want your netto readable. Searle introduces the Chinese network factors, such as the number of do....7. Run your network to make more Room and does his best to rubbish AI. hidden nodes. Details of file formats are money, impress your friends and please Powerful and clear - butdidn'tDerrida say provided to allow net definition and train­ your spouse." The explanation of neural something aboutthe tyranny ofeloquence? ingfiles to be produced externally. AdBASE nets isgood, and thedetailed mathematics version is available. A fast and effective are tastefully hidden in an appendix. AConnectionist Approach to Word Sense program, making nets available without Example nets include a "stock market Disambiguation learning definition systems or transfer predictor," and aversion of NETalk.Apow­ by Garrison WCottrell functions. erful system thatisviable foranyone with a (Morgan Kaufmann 1989) serious interest in nets. Highly specialised account ofthe impact Neural Works Professional 11 of nets on an aspect of natural language Recognition Research, +44(61)4498628. processing. Hardware: PC: 512K RAM (640 recom­ Addresses: mended) DOS 3.X. CGA, EGA, VGA or The MIT Press , 55 Hayward Street, Herc. Hard disc. Supports up to 8MBytes Camb ridge , MA02142, USA. Tel: +1 (617) ofLIM3.2orupwards plusco-oroceseors, 253-5642. SO'F TWAR E mouse. Plus:Mac, Sun andNcube. £1,650, Van Nostrand Reinhold,Molly MillrsLane, These products were tested on an Elonex plus £250annual maintenance. ForSun, Wokingham, Berks, RG11 2PY. 386, running at 20Mhz. £2,850, plus£527maintenance. Tel: +44 (734) 789456. Highly sophisticated suiteof networks, Ellis Horwood, Market Cross House, Explorations in Parallel Distributed Pro­ in a powerful development environment. Cooper Street, Chichester, W. Sussex, cessing Superb documentation, with a thorough P019 1EB. Tel: +44 (243) 789942 . MIT Press. PC version: UK£21 .95; Mac: introduction to neural networks as well as CUP, The Edinburgh Building, £29.95. to the software. The package includes Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 2RU. A real bargain. Written by McClelland Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) nets, Tel: +44 (223) 312393. and Rumelhart (the latter being credited Kohonen, Hopfield, Adaline and back prop Pelican, Bath Road, Harmondsworth, with the development of the back prop nets, probabilistic neural nets (PNNs), Middx, UB7 ODA. Tel: +44 (81) 759 1984. algorithm). The software accompanies their Boltzmann machines (lots of them) and Morgan Kaufman, by Jane Dorner twovolume book, Parallel Distributed Pro­ many variants on the back prop system, FAR Communications; +44 (533) 796166. cessing , and is easier to use alongside it. including thevery fast and recently devel ­ Recognition Research, 140 Church Lane, Both volumes of PDP, plus this software, oped functional linknetwork. Marple, Stockport SK6 7LA, UK. cost less than almost any other package on A general Lotus compatible I/O filefor­ +44 (61) 449 8628. themarket, soanyone interested in neural mat issupported, and aspecific spreadsheet Ward Systems Group, 228 W. Patrick Street, nets should gettheset! interface isprovided. Neural Works can be Frederick, Maryland 21701, USA. Includes executable C+ source code. All used to produce stand-alone commercial Tel: +1 (301) 662-7950

42 Electric Word #20 EI e c t r i c Wo rd # 2 0 43 SURVEYING AUTHORSHIP AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Wordprocessor Virgin announces its antiquity (fiveyears is a longtime in thecomputer business) bygrowling likea caged and toothless lion.Now I have Anthony Burgess, leading British novelist and author ofthe to face the expenditure of more money on a series of lessons on Jane Dorner previews a unique survey of writers' in- techno nightmare Clockwork Orange, on his first experi­ howto use thething. ences with electronic wordworking. Sofar I have merely typed on its visual display unit or VDU or volvement with information technology, to be pub- screen the first line of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land: "April is the cruellest month, breeding -" Immediately, in letters of fire, the lished by the British Library later this year. And just instrument announced thatthere was anerrorof syntax. I triedto rubthis outasbeing notmerely incorrect butextremely rude and, for EW, she asked publishers what they thought too. underthe rebuke, typed "Lilacs outofthedead land." Here toowas anerrorof syntax. I was permitted to type asmuch of Eliot's poem asI wished, but A couple ofyears ago, I demonstrated to a small independent to a number ofassociated issues. it would beinterlineated indefinitely with that school masterly rap publisher that he could typeset his books at a third ofthe cost, Our questions fell into six main areas. These were: writing ontheknuckles, afalse accusation to which acorrective reply was but nine times faster, using authors' disks instead ofrekeying. and wordprocessing; writers, publishers and disks; legal and notpermitted to be made. These machines are getting above them­ Fine. But his writers were doing all the extra work that this financial issues; structuring, research, rewriting and editing; selves. involved and weren't getting a penny of the savings. involvement in production; and new publishing media. Perhaps there are IBMs which blowuponbeing fedwithalineof For a time, my ability to seehow unhappy the authors were poetry, latermodels which willaccommodate onlybusiness prose: with this situation was clouded by champagne editorial TECHNOPHOBE TRAP "Hi,Jack. Allusathead office are proud oftheway youmanaged the meetings, expensive seats at the opera and lobster cocktails. We designed the writing and wordprocessing section to sales campaign. Keep it up,sweetheart." Thisisthesort of model On one unforgettable occasion, I stood nearby while a "trap" authors who did not like technology and had no youare expected to follow, according to theWordPerfect manual. photograph was taken ofthe publisher presenting the "book" intention of ever using a wordprocessor. Ten percent were WordPerfect isthename thatcovers innumerable floppydisks. I had been editing to the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. emphatic; they didn't need one. Manygave an explanation of These are genuinely floppyand have to be inserted likeacold flap­ The book was a dummy - blank pages wrapped in a smart the"can't teach an old dog new tricks" variety. jack into the uneager mouth of the hardware. Being floppythey cover. I have the picture now: the book, to my certain Others showed a very positive response to technology. "If probably announce their antiquity. The disks I have for my Apple knowledge, still does not exist. The publisher liked the frills my house burnt down, the first thing I'd replace would be my The IBM home computer was bought onmybehalf in Washington Macintosh are tough and unbendable. "Floppy" has perhaps be­ but not the bills. PC, printer and wordprocessing software" was a typical DC, and it has been lying there for the last five years, pristine, come a mere piece of etymology. remark. untouched. It has at lastfound its wayto Lugano, where I spend DISASTER STORIES About halfour writers earn their living simply by writing, some ofmytime, and, afteralongstruggle withtheSwiss customs, MAC REVISITED When my own bill did notget paid, I started to look aboutme. so one might not expect a high level of involvement in it has been released from its captivity in anairfreightshed. I returned to this Apple Macintosh afternearly ayear of neglect. It What I sawwas not encouraging. On the face of it, computers technology. After all, the minimum outlay for the total kit is The IBM company in Chiasso agreed, aftermany sneers at the has gathered dustand complained about it.The disks would gointo were clearly a wonderful tool, as the revolution in newspaper about UK£500 - considerably more than for a good pen. In antiquity oftheinstrument, to install it inmyhouse, and there it now boththemachine and thesubsidiary diskdrive, butwould notcome production had already proved. fact, three out offour British writers use wordprocessors. The sits.It costa lot of money to buy, and it has costalot Of money to outagain. They are coming outnow; indeed theyare refusing to go But few book publishers shared that vision. There didn't most popular is LocoScript. Next comes WordPerfect, fol­ transport, be suitably entabled, and be plugged into the wall. It in, or, if they are accepted, they are briefly examined and then ~ appear to be a pooled body ofknowledge on how technology lowed by WordStar and Word. And although the dedicated could benefit writers and publishers alike. New roles had not Amstrad with LocoScript heads this list, more writers use PCs been defined: authors did not know what was expected of or Macintoshes, which of course means a heavier capital them, and publishers were ill-equipped to deal with the texts outlay. nurse talented authors through their been offered (rarer still). Possible anxie­ or shared disks. How are they "used?" pouringin on a bewilderingvariety ofdisks. Everyone I talked The second section of our questionnaire was designed to early books: some gave actual support, ty over intellectual property rights was Where does research end and plagia­ to seemed to have a disaster story to tell. reveal how authors present finished copy to their publishers. others published an early work because also mentioned. After reading this page, rism begin? This is not a new question, Ten months ago I set out to find out what writers think, The overwhelming majority answered "only as typescript" (a instinct told them something betterwas writers gavea different answer: this time but one more easily fudged by the easy with a survey entitled Authors and New Technology: New misnomer requiring redefinition, though I, for one, won't brewing. Rare is the publisher who does only460/0 thought they would partwith availability ofsomeone else's words on Challenges in Publishing. Do they see the computer asa threat? welcome "cornpuscript" with any eagerness). that now. Every book has to prove itself disks. This suggests that the issues sur­ your screen and the frequency of"eom­ Are they anxious that the already deteriorating relationship Three-quarters ofour sample could make disks available to to the accountant. A disk is a value­ rounding the use of disks are improp­ puter errors" which so easily detach between authors and publishers could be worsen ed by the publishers in order to save re-keying the text. Disks make added supplement to the MS. Why erly understood and that they need references from text. problems posed by new technology? proof-reading easier for the writer and speed up production, shouldn't authors sell its use to pay for further discussion in magazines such as Under the current agreements with The survey was funded by the British National Bibliograp­ so it is easy to see why writers favor them. Theoretically, disks some of the higher costs wordprocess­ this one. database licensees, the borrowing of hy Research Fund (BNB) , for publication later this year by the also provide advantages to publishers because they save type­ ing introduces into authorship? The report offers model contract electronic text depends on the honesty British Library. My colleagues were Middlesex Polytechnic's setting costs, but we found that less than one-quarter ofbook clausesdesigned to clarifyauthors' rights ofthe user. We would like to see some Mike Riddle, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, and Anna Ky­ publishers were actually interested in receiving disks. ELECTRIC ETHICS in the matter of machine-readable text equivalent ofthe Public Lending Right prianou, Senior Lecturer in Business Management. This is a low figure, but actually higherthan we were ex­ Our next set ofquestions covered legal and to indicate measures for controlling so that authors can be recompensed for The questionnaire required lengthy research and piloting. pecting. It shows that publishers, having weathered the early and financial issues. Use ofdisks is just the exploitation of it. Existing publish­ the extraction of their ideas from elec­ Our final version was an eight-page document which went days ofincompatibility and other problems, are now begin­ one issue, though most of our respon­ ing contracts don'tadequatelydeal with tronic "libraries." out in the Christmas mailing of the Society of Authors, the ning to take an interest again. dents thought it the only one. Our electronic publishing. Michael Henry, Philip Bassett, ofDialogInformation Writers' Guild and the Institute of Scientific and Technical When faced with the question, "Who benefits most from questionnaire asked twicewhether au­ an expert in media and intellectual pro­ Services, believes it would be impracti­ Communicators - all British writers' unions. One month the use of wordprocessed disks for typesetting, writers or thors are prepared to let publishers have perty law, gave me useful advice in cal, and undesirable, to track the iden­ later, we had all the replies - a very healthy 20 percent publishers?" almost none ofour writers thought that writers their disks. At first, 850/0 of those who discussing these issues and drafting the tity _and route of each user. Dialog, response which included a large number of best-selling "na­ benefit more. Seven-eighths believe authors should receive a had disks to offer answered positively. clauses. which deals with hundreds of thou­ mes." financial incentive for using .disks, and the same proportion Then they turned the page. Such contracts, in any case, apply sands of database searches every week, Fiction writers, journalists, screen-writers, dramatists, aca­ declared that no such incentive had been offered to them. Over the page were some questions only to books. Another mine-field is has a ten page closely printed document demics, poets and technical authors all ticked our question A few pointed out that no publisher has ever paid for ink asking whether respondents had any what happens to articles, or extracts explaining the terms and conditions of boxes- novelists being very muchin the vanguard. The result: or quill pens, so why for disks. The world, however, has legal agreements aboutusing disks (rare) from books, appearing in electronic use ofeach ofits databases. It's a daunt- statistics on writers' use ofcomputer tools and their attitudes changed. Once upon a time, "gentlemen publishers" used to and whether any financial incentive had magazines, newspaper databases, e-mail, ing read: small wonder if some of the ~

44 Electric Word # 20 Electric Word # 20 45 vomited outwithasharp rasp. The littlestylized human face onthe after all, so bad . Your literary standard s conform to those of the VDU frowns and says no. head office and "You dida swell job in Des Moines, Chuck baby". Butfinally I have managed toinsert, and enforce theretentionof, a number of disks which permit me to writethekind ofthing I am TYPEWRITER DIEHARD The Least Boring ComputerMagazine writing now. But, when I have finished twothousand words or so I have just been re-reading Ed Gibbons Declineand Fall of the Ro­ A nd nine more reasons to subscribe to Electric Word, the cult read of and wish to printwhat I have tapped, themachine demurs. It has man Empire, amassive workandallwritteninpenand ink.Th ere is been programmed in French and says things like "Dlsoue sature. " a deliberateness in the prose which corresponds, I think, to the info technologists and knowledge workers around the world. Recommencez. "Does thatmean I have to writethedamned thing primitive technology used in creating it. The ink must have been 1. Electric Word is about information tech­ 4. We canhelp add value ing every last fact about all over again? I fight with the instrument to make it change its thickand very black, thequill we ll-sharpened. Each phrase must nology andwordcrunching- only. to whateveryou're doing . laserprinter paper trays. Thesubjects No CAD/CAM, no spreadsheets, no color You may already be read­ mind. Sometimes it flashes asignal admittingits mistake and per­ have been thoroughly thou ght outand submitted tothejudgement We, on the other hand, covered by Electric mitting me to gettotheimprimerstage. But one can never be sure oftheinner ear before being squeaked onto acid-free paper. I can­ graphics. Just think of us as your personal ing a specialist publica­ write about the film and Word are some of thatthis will happen . notimagine it be ingproduced onaword processor. That primitive kn owbot, reviewing everyt hing from tion about one of the the filmmaker - about the mostexciting ­ Unlike theIBM, thisMac has asouris or mouse. The mouse has technology isstillwithme whenItryto compose music. Undoubt­ everywhereto bring you the greatest luxury technologies we cover. the value and meaning andmostcrucial ­ possible in our information-overloaded Fine - but if you aren't probably become dusty in myabsence , orthe table itselfcould do edly there must be machines around nowthatwill getafull orches­ of newproducts, not just in computing: world: precisely what you need to know getting the big picture, the features. with awipe withindustrial alcohol, for it will notobey mycontrol­ tral score onto theVDU, but, since Ed and Chuck and head office are about the most exciting thing we do with you're probably missing electronic books linghand. The winking cursor dithers or stays still;thelittlearrow not involved , I cannot thinkthattheiringenuities are very far ad­ computers today, crunching knowledge. out on ways to add value 9. We adhere to theulti­ OCR or ttecnette will point in the right direction but do no more . I'm vanced. Music is stilla pen and inkbusiness, and allthebetter for Less is definitely more. to your products. Imag­ mate heresy for a com­ speech recognition it. There is a correspondence between sounds and calligraphy. becoming disenchanted withcomputerized writing, even though I ine you are involved with puter magazine: wecare speech synthesis can't blame theMac for being dirty. The dirt'sall mine . Look attheautograph score ofHoist's Planets and you willsee that 2. We de'liver news found nowhere else. online documentation. more about people than document image I should imagine that many professional writers are becoming theauditory sweep oftheMercury scherzo is matched bythecon­ Ourcontactsand unique perspectiveallows Wouldn't it also be help­ computers. processlnq disenchanted even with their undusty word processors and are fident pen-and-ink bracketing of thequavers and thecurve of the us to dig out news found nowhere else. ful to know about the What other computer Example: we were the first to break the more than willing to getback totheOlivetti or Olympia. The VDU is legato lines. latest developments in magazines seems to for­ machine translation story about IBM's sophisticated Critique voice annotation, or electronic proofread ­ get is that computers are made to help making it too easy to write badly. There is a lack of blacksmith But, for prose,thetypewriter willdowell enough . One returns to grammar checkers proofreading /grammar checker project . ing, or hypertext? This kind of cross-polli­ people. We, on the other hand, take people muscle inthetapping of theconsole. If you make an errorit's too it withakind ofshame, orelse theantiquarian enthusiasm ofthose ·on-demand Example: We were the first to report on the nation is available only in Electric Word. asour starting point. People likeAlan Kay, documentation easy to correct it. who love vintage cars. But the loud clack onthe keys sound like first cheap multimedia authoring tool, who invented the graphic interface as we Using a typewriter, foreseeing theflaky mess of Tippex or the physical workand a page written is a page printed . I shall not be MediaMaker. Example: We were the first know it. LikeJanice Woods, who is work­ hypertext 5. Electric Word is the least boring ugliness ofXXXXXing amistake out,there isatendency to frame a surprised if, nowthatI have finished this discardable disquisition, to document the Soviet Union's language natural language computing magazine in theworld. ing on a program to help ghetto kids read. sentence inone's head before committingittothetapping fingers. the machine decides literally to discard it. Disk saturated . Start techn ology programs. Like Nicholas Negroponte, the person be­ When was the last time somebody understanding" hind the Media Lab, MIT's center for Inother words, you hear aphrase inyourears before converting it again. Oh no. called a computer mag '

ing or organizational devices (other than Christopher Priest, a leading young "Truly fine!" compa nies who share one crucial attribute I Account number Expires - they handle natural language and infor­ thewordprocessingsoftware) pollednine British novelist who also runs a small NEW MEDIA Nancy M. Ide, Association for Signature .percent; andpost-writingoreditingtools computer business, wrote: "Style­ What involvement do authors have in Computers andtheHumanities mation - and one critical need: to figure Mr/Ms only four percent. checkers can't distinguish betweenJame s current production processes?Ten per­ "I am a fan ofyour magazine." out how to do it better. Half the writers questioned want to Joyce and a recipe book; spelling check­ cent ofour sample had done some elec­ Richard Saul Wurman 8. Electric Word is lesslikeacamera maga­ use more electronic writing aids but ers convert to but also Author, InformationAnxiety color colour, col­ tronic mark-up (adding typesetting zineand more likeafilm magazine (toborrow "A must." find the cost prohibitive. And they tend oration to colouration and meanwhile codes to their disks), while 15% were Michael Swaine 's analogy). Computers andWritingNewsletter to be unaware ofthe full range ofpossi­ forget all about discolored." involved in producing camera-ready Most computer magazines talk about bilities. Many respondents were sur­ Myown view is thatwhenwe have all pages. These are low figures, but higher hardware and software, the camera - you Please mailto: ~ o x ~~ r d a m, ~N~rl~s prised to be confronted by an unfamil- finished laughingat some ofthe idiocies than we were expecting, considering know, the endless compar ison tests detail- 70486-7/90, 1007 ---1

46 Electric Wor d # 20 47 almost half the writers we questioned an author, who had sent me 350 Ameri­ ers' acquaintance with current software are novelists. can dollar-sized floppy diskettes which and issues affecting the introduction of EWS CAN USE This part of the questionnaire indi­ - he proudly asserted - was electronic new technology. In particular, the sur­ REV YOU cates a possible area ofexploitation. Only media. Surely I could use these disks vey suggests how inadequately financial three percent of those who added elec­ (none of which were labeled) to pro­ and legal considerations regarding the tronic mark-up (typing in typesetting duce his book less expensively! use of authors' disks have been dis­ codes) were paid extra, and just five "Rarely, in fact, did I ever receive cussed. Hopefully, our report can be the percent of those who prepared pages identical media from more than two or beginning of a shared fund of knowl­ were given a fee. These are hugely time­ three out ofthe several hundred authors edge whichwill keep wordworkers really consuming jobs, and not traditionally who were willing to supply magnetic informed. the provenance ofwriters. media manuscripts." Our report makes a number of re­ In fact, when I started the question­ As the world becomes more comput­ commendations for dealing with the naire I expected to discover widespread er literate, such .curiosities should ­ new issues that technology is introduc­ exploitation of authors by publishers. hopefully - diminish, encouraging wi­ ing. What we need is a transatlantic And I am happy to say that in the course der acceptance ofdisks. And publishers association of writers and publishers ofthe project my initial bias disappear­ are gradually becoming more experi­ working together to apply technology ed. However, many writers do smart mental in their use oftechnology. David for the benefit ofboth.We need writing - - under a sense of injustice. This has a Palm , production managerofThorsons/ tools designed for writers, not for busi­ long history. In 1895, George Bernard Collins, waxes enthusiastic about the ness; we need to share knowledge, to Shaw said, "All that is necessary in the TextManagementSystem thathas come establish international standards, and production ofa book is an author and a to Britain fromJB Lippincott (the med­ to agree to minimum terms on legal and bookseller, without any intermediate ical publisher) ofPhiladelphia. financial issues.Then - without the parasite." It could be, .after all, that "We think it will make book produc­ frustrations of chaotic variety in the technology is bringing the author closer tion more efficient," Palm explained. media themselves and the volatility of to that ideal. "By far the greatest expense is in au­ the market place - we can welcome the Ann Kritzinger runs a short run press thors' corrections. Withour new system, age ofthe electric word. So far, we have ~ in London. She says:"I decided to set up we can get the text 1000/0agreed before barely made a beginning. a production company for self-publish­ committing it to type. T hat will save a ers as it became more and more evident great deal ofmoney. In addition, we can Jane Dorner welcomes corres­ sition programs are notproductivitytools The desktop that specialist titles without mass mar­ produce different editions for the Brit­ pondence on the subject of writers Featurethis for the modern office - they're too ket appeal required an alternative solu­ ish or US market." and information technology, and can complicated, they require too much revolution isin tion - which high tech could provide. Academic publishers are pioneers in be contacted at 9 Collingwood The new round ofMac page makeup programs graphic arts expertise, and they make Many ofour self-publishers have cover­ the useofdirect settingmethods. There's Avenue, London N10 3EH , England, promise to do everything for you but give you a documents that are far better-looking the past. These than the modern office needs in 99 cases ed their costs; and some have sold sub­ a good reason for this: the technology rei: +44 (81) 883 2602. backrub. But will theyreally change the way you sidiary rights and/or made more than allows books to be published that out ofa hundred. With word processors programs are adding desktop publishing features as the 70/0-10 % royalty they would have wouldn'tpreviouslyhave paid theirway. work? fast as they can, there's nowhere for the big, powerful, received from a publisher." John Wiley & Sons, after six years of Bylames Felici the new features in your updated pro­ page programs to go butto run up market. But what about writers' interest in experiments, has just set up a task force gram than it did to learn the program in These page programs are not aimed expertise- new publishing media? Is the computer to support authors through the prob­ Like father like son. When desktop pub­ the first place. at the good-enough document, and they a tool for a new kind of creativity in lems. This includes a set of guidelines lishing was just a young pup, it was full of • An up-to-date Macintosh publish­ invite casual users to fiddle with their hungry, and writing - as it is in music and graphics? for authors. hell and ready for revolution. But it's ing system now costs as much or more pages far beyond the point ofdiminish­ Authors are cautiously interested, but Cliff Mo rgan , production manager grown up fast, and guess what? It's about than one of the old "dinosaur" systems ing return. Kerning the wits out of the expensive, and no more than theyever were. H ypertext, at Wiley, suggests th at many of the to join Dad's firm and start acting like a DTP'ers boasted about replacing just a display type in the weekly inventory re­ after all, can be found in literature from probl ems besetting publishing ho uses responsible adult. What once boasted to few years back. port is in nobody's best interest. In short, the cost ofthe be a technology for "the rest of us" has • The "do it yourself" of desktop Tristram Shandy to th e disciples of adopting new technology are organiza­ while Aldus, Letraset, and Quark would become something else: a tool for profes­ publishing is now what managers are love to sell their products into the huge Borges. It is too early to say wh at effect tional ones. "The people who normally equipment torun sionals, doing the things that profession­ hearing when their newly trainedDTP'ers community of"wordworkers," their real new publishing mediawill have on writ­ deal with authors before the production als have demanded from it since day one. storm out ofthe office for a better paying market will be graphic artists and profes­ them efficiently ing styles. It may be the growth area of process aren't the ones best equipped to The new generation of Macintosh job down the street. sional publications workers. Managers' the 90s. We asked readers to saywhether give authors specific text-origination page programs tell the tale in their size, These facts are all more or less true, number one priority for wordworkers is isgetting out of they had or would like to write for the advice, " he says. their complexity, their range offeatures, and in the dynamics of all this market volume, and wordprocessors will con­ following media (percentage take-up and in their marketingaswell.Theclarion motion and commotion, there's both a tinue to be their tool ofchoice. the reach of given in brackets): hypertext (three); THE WAY FORWARD call that "Nowanybodycan make profes­ pull and a push. The pull is the demands Another push comes from the teem­ interactive video-disk (five); on-screen One novelist complained that publish­ sional looking pages in just minutes!" has of the professional publishing cornmu­ ing netherworld ofwhat might be called anyone but instruction (eight) and electronic jour­ ers are living inthe stone age as far as been replaced by "We are the tool of nitywho are, after all, the ones who make entry-level desktop publishingprograms, choice for the professional graphic artist the gorgeous-looking promotionalpieces nals (four). technology is concerned. If that's so, big with the church bulletin and in­ professional and publisher." QuarkXPress 3.0, Aldus thatprogram manufacturers wave in fron t house newsletter crowd - appropriate then writers - with a number ofexcep­ PageMaker 4.0, and Letraset's Design­ of prospective buyers . If developers fall technologies for those who don't have the publishers. PUBLISHERS' tions, admittedly - have reached the Studio (the heir apparent to ReadySetGo) behindin the evolution oftheir products, need (or perhaps the time, will power, or PERSPECTIVES bronze age: ahead ofpublishers, yes, but all have features lists that reach into the their competitors will have better-look­ expertise) to create the very best. When Publishers have their reasons for avoid­ only just. As one writer observed, "Both next county, and what they do and how ing brochures than them and they'll be Aldus recently bought Silicon Beach ing disks from writers. Czeslaw Jan authors and publishers could benefit they do it all say that the desktop market out ofthe game altogether. These are also Software, it became the owner of Per­ Grycz, publisher at the University of more, but publishers are too conserva­ has gone pro. the prestige clients who legitimize prod­ sonal Press, an entry-level page makeup California Press, told me a typical story: tive and authors too unaware." Consider these facts that I just in­ ucts and buy more than a few in addition. program that has the salutary effect of "I once opened a manila envelope from A lack of informedness affects writ- vented: The push comes from wordprocess­ taking off the pressure to create a Page­ • It will now take you longer to learn ing programs. It's clear that page compo- Maker Junior. Programs like PFS Per-»

48 Electric Word # 20 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 49 a REVIEWS YOU CAN USE REVIEWS YOU CAN USE a

«sonal Publisher and PublishIt also fall program (which usually isn't possible with XPress,you manuallycreate eithergraphic PRO TOOLS ... FOR PROS into this same low-end, no-sweat cat­ graphics) or editing the original file and or text frames - the bounded containers All three ofthese programs are distinctly egory. reimporting it into the page-made-up for defining the shapes and qualities of finishing tools, best used at the page document. text blocks and pictures - and then im­ assembly end ofthe production process. ONLY ONE WILL CHANGE THE For workgroups, this made Ventura port the appropriate contents into them. Certainly they all have the tools to enable WAY YOU WORK a clear favorite. Several authors and art­ In these programs, you draw your guides an individual to accomplish all phases of In the three new higher-end Mac prod­ ists could continue work on their own - which act like the grid lines on a blank the publishing process, but their empha­ ucts, it's apparent that DesignStudio and pieces while the page-maker-upper could layout dummy - to sketch out the di­ sis on high-end, professional features XPress are gunningfor PageMaker, while workwith less-than-final versions oftext mensions of the objects on your page, belies their often proclaimedintention to PageMaker - with the lion's share ofthe and graphics. Updates and last-minute and then you trace those guides to create be publishing's answer to the SwissArmy Mac page-makeup market - is gunning changes could be accomplished byedi­ framesand importthe contents into them. Knife. And as such, none ofthese prod­ for a product that doesn't even exist yet: tors and artists, not by the page-maker­ In PageMaker, though, you draw the ucts really affect theway people workand Ventura Publisher for the Mac. upper, and you didn't risk having two guides and import the text or graphics ­ the jobs that have to be done - they fit Typographically,XPress and Design­ versions ofyour data, one in the original the framing step is omitted. Text follows right into the traditional scheme ofthings Studio have now more or less matched file and another in your made-up pages. the guides, and you scale and crop graph­ - but this isn't entirely surprising. PageMaker's sophistication in the con­ PageMaker now offers this same ca­ ics (frame them, as it were) after they're The manufacturers are selling into a trol they offer over hyphenation and jus­ pability, while continuing to offer the on the page. Personally, I find this an very traditional market - publishing ­ tification. They've also gone PageMaker option of using the old method of text easier way to work. It reduces the number where proc edures and processes haven't one better by offering the ability to build import, which is most useful for curtail­ of tools you need and consequently the fundamentally changed since the time of and edit custom kerning tables from ing the marked penchant ofeditors and number oftrips you need to the toolbox. Gutenberg. How a product can be revo­ within the program. All three now offer authors to make last minute corrections And the page remains just the page, not lutionarywhile selling to the status quo is tracking control, and while all three that imperil layouts, deadlines, and of­ a quilt offrames with different identities. perhaps the great koan ofelectronic me­ implementations have their weak points, fice friendships. Ofall the new features in PageMakerstill strikes me as the best­ dia. Empowermentofthe individual may they're much better than nothing at all. all three programs, this is the only one designed tool ofthe three. It doesn't have occur on the local level (a poet or political All three programs also offer more that actually promises to change how you the most complete list of features and aspirantmay get words printedthatwould color controls than most users will take work, because it takes a step toward the capabilities, but it's thoughtfully put to­ otherwise go unread, for instance) but advantage otwith all three handlingspot Shangri-La ofelectronic publishing: the gether and it works reliably and as an like any other industrial tool, the desktop color with facility and XPress remaining integrated networked workgroup. Now integrated whole. DesignStudio shares publishing program more typically em­ the only one to separate color halftones. all we need is a competent network that's much of the elegance of PageMaker's powers a worker to do more in less time, All three also offer image controls for easier to install and use than a nuclear design as a tool, but it's use ofthe frame usually to the greater glory of manage­ gray-scale halftones. power plant and we'll be making some metaphor is for me needlessly computer­ ment. In text processing, it was PageMaker real progress. ish. It'seasyto seewhy the productevolved In the greater profile of industrial who had to play catch-up, and now, In a final Venturaism, PageMaker the way it did and why some people production then, page makeup programs along with its competition, offers com­ has added the ability to link separate prefer to workwith this containerconcept. are taking their places as tools in the petent search and replace functions, with documents together in sequence (the But I'd rather work with real objects traditional sense. After much heady talk PageMaker and Design Studio adding chapters ofa book, for example) and then themselves - a chunk oftext for instance about unleashing the creativity of the the ability to search for wildcard charac­ folio them logically and automatically - rather than a metaphorical object and individual, the companies that make and ters. All three now allow you to work off assemble' tables of contents (based on its real contents. Conceptualizing page market these programs find themselves ­ the page, on a Pasteboard, a feature origi­ style sheet tags) and indexes (based on a elementsthis way may make technological for sound business reasons - selling into nated by PageMaker. And in a welcome list ofkey words). sense, but it distracts from what's actually the traditional working system: the pub­ better-late-than never development, going on on the page. lishing assembly line. The creative tools Design Studio and PageMaker now allow AND THE CHAMP IS ... While both Design Studio and Page­ go to the people traditionally responsible you to use em, en, and thin spaces. Apart from these important document­ Maker are very visually-oriented, XPress for creative activities. But while DesignStudio and XPress oriented features, though, the three pro­ seems to be designed for those who dis­ And this is inevitable, because the are tilting with PageMaker over what grams are more or lessinterchangeable in trust their eyes altogether. The rulers are tools can provide automation, but they they can do on the page, PageMaker has what they can do on a page with text and so coarse asto be almost unusable- three­ can't provide expertise. And in an activity broken off in a new direction-toward graphics - that is, they can make pages point increments are the finest you get, like publishing, where many kinds of document control. This is one area wh ere that look prettymuch the same, although even in magnified views. XPress believes expertise are needed for a successful Ventura Publisher on the PC has had a PageMaker can't rotate graphics at all, that you should position things by speci­ project, telescoping the editorial, artistic, have to go unkerned. But desktop pub­ clear advantage. Part ofVentura's power and can only rotate text in 90° incre­ fying locations numerically in dialog and production processes into one pro­ lishing has made an important realiza­ and flexibility has been that it doesn't ments, which can be limitingwhenyou're boxes. While this is undeniably accurate, gram, operated by one person, is just not tion: This stuffis not easy.So for now, it's actually import text and graphics into the trying to make something really hard to it's an engineer's way of working, not a practical. business as usual in only a slightly un­ documents it creates. Instead, the pro­ read. In fact, XPress and Design Studio graphic artist's. The empowerment, then, has not usual way. gram creates a compact script for assem­ share some similar features that are so And the accuracy XPress offers is come at an individual level, but an or­ bling the document - what's in it and similarlv implemented that you start to often overkill. You can kern in units of1/ ganizational level. It gives workgroups lames Felici is the former Technical Editor where all the parts go - and Ventura suspect industrial espionage. 1000 of an em - beyond what your eye control over the means ofproduction by andManagingEditor ofPublish magazine reassembles the document from all its There are, of course, single features can detect. And in a pointsizebig enough bringing out-of-house services inhouse. andwas on the start~up team ofMacworld constituentparts every time you open the that for some people will dictate a choice to see,such a minuteadjustmentwouldn't DTP has also given people more control magazine. He now lives and writes in a document or print it. of one program over the other, but the be worth making. The 1/100 of an em over their own production processes, al­ town called Fontesin southern France,just The advantage of this approach is most likely criterion for choice iswhat it's kerning units offered by Design Studio though production costs are not the a stones throw from Beziers. He claims this that all of those parts remain live and like to actually work with the program. and PageMaker are already more than greatest expense by far of a publishing is a coincidence. editable even though they have been in­ And this isn't something that you can fine enough. Likewise XPress lets you size project. cluded in a Ventura document. By com­ pick up from demonstrations or bro­ type in 1/1000 ofa point-size increments So the talk ofthe desktop revolution All threeprograms cost US$795. parison, all previous Mac page programs chures. Or from magazine articles, for and specify 1/1000 of a point leading is in the past. These programs are big, Aldus Corp., 411 1st Ave. So., Seattle actually incorporated imported files into that matter. adjustments, which is far finer than the powerful, expertise-hungry, and expen­ WA 98704. Tel. +1 (206) 622-5500. the new composite document, taking For me, the main distinguishing fac­ best phototypesetter can even resolve. sive, and the cost ofthe equipment to run Quark Inc.,300So.]acksonSt.,Denver them out ofcirculation, as it were. Ifone tor among the three is how they treat the These things serve only to clutter the them efficientlyisgettingoutofthe reach CO 80209 USA. +1 (303) 934-0784. ofthe constituentfileshad to be edited or individual elements that go onto a page, program . But from a strictly laundry-list ofanyone but professional publishers. If Letraset Corp., 40 Eisenhower Drive, amended, you had the choice of doing because this defines the way you work in perspective, Quark definitely has the fringe political groups want to publish Paramus N] 07653. Tel. +1 (201) 845­ the corrections within the page makeup assembling pages. In DesignStudio and largest feature set. their tracts for the masses, said tracts may 6100.

50 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 51 e REVIEWS YOU CAN USE REVIEWS YOU CAN USE e

mouse. For all two-handed people, Ar­ « difference which can result in two sepa­ What you say is what you get ticulate Systems has produced the Voice rate meanings in English. Navigator, which makes it possible to The real turbo power ofVoice Navi­ instruct the Mac justby talking to her. It's gator is the ability to create macros com­ Speech recognition has been around so long in great fun, but is it of great use? bining a series of instructions. Building our consciousness (due to movies like 2001 and The Voice Navigator consists of a the macros can be time consuming, but Blade Runner) that we tend to forget that we small box (which fits exactly under a once completed, all you need to say is "H elvetica' and there it is. Just say "cal­ haven't really seen any actual products. And Macintosh Plus or SE) containing a digi­ tal sound processor, a microphone and culator" and there it comes. Say "one plus certainly not at the desktop level. software for training and recognition. one" and there's your answer. Macros can But the techno-prophets assure us that over With the standard software, the machine be made not onlyfor menu selection, but may also include mouse-movements like the next couple ofyears speech recognition will can recognize up to 200 instructions per program (e.g., the Finder, WordPerfect "drag,""double-click" and "scroll." indeed finally emerge from the labs and pro­ or Cricket Presents). After some training, T he Voice Navigator can take orders foundly affect how we interact with machines. the Voice Navigator can perfrom all the qui te quickly one after the other, as long as you clearly pronounce separate words. Here are two earlyexamples, oneforyourPC, instructions you now now input using the mouse or a keyboard command. Ofcourse, the Voice Navigator operates one for your Mac. They're no HAL. But on the Installing the hardware is easy. Un­ optimally ifit receives its orders from one other hand, they won't try to jettison you into fortunately, the manual is the famous bossonly. But it isn't shy. Onceit'strained space, either. awkward combination ofinstructionplus by a woman, say, the Voice Navigator o information. Before you can actually use could take orders from several other .,... Voice Navigator, you're on page 150 or people, including a man. ~ FOR THE PC: RAM-resident information manager, so. When will technical writers learn: The downside is that the percentage r VOICEMASTER Tornado. For another, its finicky (though when I've just bought a new machine or ofmisunderstandings rises to a level that People who livein the future aren't dumb. apparently state-of-the-art) voice recog­ software I do not want to read about it, I makes it useless for practical use. But the Whether they're on a star trek or space nition software demands wearyingly pre­ want to get it working as soon as possible. fact that Voice Navigator does under­ I say, I say, I say, my computer's got no nose odyssey, they know there's only one good cise pronunciation. stand so many instructions from differ­ way to interface with a computer: by With the editing program, you can TRAINING ent speakers is amazing. Most human A strange package, this. A dedicated database designed to store jokes and a special text processing talking to it. loosen Voice Master's standards a littl e, To train the little beast, you first create a beings can't. environment to help you create new ones. The manual, unforgivably, describes it as being "like an And if you've spent much time in the but getting too loose presents problems word list con taining all the commands of accelerator card for your funny bone." It's a joke development tool - in about the same way as a companyofadeaf-mute, presentday PC, of its own: in one experim ent I taught the program you want to use the Voice T H E INTERFACE OFTHE FUTURE wordprocessor is a tool to develop Pulitzer Prizewinners. you know they're right. Compared to Voice Master to call up a list of files on Navigator with. A word list can be cre­ From a technical point ofview, the Voice Cliche merchants say that only a poor workman blames his tools. Sadly, they are right on this voices, keyboards are clumsy things, slow hearingthe word "directories," thenfound ated for any Macintosh program, but it Navigator is a miracle. It can be used for occasion - or are they? The Humor Processor tells us, "to err is human, it takes a computer to really and counter-intuitive. Worse than that, I was also able to get the list by suggesting does require some typing. Therefore, word all instructions on the Macintosh, and screw up." (Category: computer; occasion: after dinner; keywords: error, mistake). Unfortunately, they're dangerous: as computers rnetasta­ Voice Master bite my Johnson. lists are included for the best known installation and training is relatively easy. that's the only computerjoke the system contains, so maybe the bore's adage does apply. Still, perhaps size throughout the workplace, the inci­ In other words, unless you're a seri­ programs (Adobe Illustrator, MacDraw Yet, it is unlikelythat the Voice Navigator computers just aren't very funny. dence ofRSI (Repetitive Strain Injury)­ ous keybo-phobe, take Voice Master's II, FullWrite, MS Word, Write Now, is the human-computer interface of the How about stupidity? Humor Processor has two approaches to finding a joke for you. The first Unless you're anasty debilitating constellation ofarm­ pretensions to being a "productivity en­ ete.). future.Training it takes time, and the hit is the easy route - it tells you how. There are some 150 different categories to choose from. Selecting % muscle maladies associated with inten­ hancer" with a pinch of salt. What it The Voice Navigator is highly intel­ rate isn't 100 • "search" with the mouse, and entering "stupidity" as a category, eight jokes of varying degrees of aserious sive keyboard work - is skyrocketing. really is is a toy, and one of the funnest ligent, so the actual training goes quite But those are minor problems. The weakness are offered, such as "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous." The impending dookie-storm ofdisabil­ I've come across as a grownup. fast. Saying every item on the list a few more serious is that most typists probably Clearly, two hands are better than one when writing jokes. You can then better use the keybo-phobe, ity claims makes it quite possible the Bonus software - an onscreen oscil­ times into the microphone is enough for can't make use ofVoice Navigator's macro­ brainstormingcapabilities to generate your own. This system teaches you joke writing too, it seems. technopowers that be will wake up and loscope, a digital sampler that plays back quick and reliable recognition. Yet train­ driven speed advantage since they are To brainstorm your way into the Comedy Store, select brainstorming mode, and arrange a "set-up" takeVoice bring us ourvoice-activated future by the through the headset's earphone - mixes ing may take several hours per program, such slow typists to begin with, or be­ - the first line ofyour joke. (Stick with it, they say anything can be learned - even patience.) year 2001. education and fascination, and multi­ for the simple reason that you have to cause they do all the extra operations Some set-ups are provided, such as "my husband is so ignorant about religion that..." Having Master's In the meantime, Covo x Inc.'s Voice pliesVoiceMaster'spotential "usefulness." repeat a couple of times up to two hun­ (change font, size, ete.) later. selected a set-up, and edited it to your liking, it's ready for tickling into laughter. There are then two Master Key, an add- in card for IBM My latest project: sampling a gallery of dred words per program. Today's vocal interface may have a windows ofinspiration to fill, and lots oflines to choose from. These are the images with which to pretensions to compatibles, is here to whet your appe­ the voices of friends and loved ones for TheVoice Navigator works in a hier­ place controlling car radios , telephones, tweak the set-up. There are about 150 ofthese too, each containing over 50 images. The computer tite. The card wires a miked headset into easy access. archical way, much like the menu-inter­ etc. But voice won't be the preferred image list, for example, contains such inspiring gems as "sloppy floppy," "jam in the printer," and being a your system - slip the contraption onto Now, in my darkes t moments of face. So, for instance, if you are typing in interface for computer users unt il it can "programming through the night." your head, call up Voice Master Key's writerly despair and isolation, all I need MacWrite and you want to underline a type what we are saying. To help you plug the words into the jokes, tips describe the basic joke formulas, like the "productivity memory-resident editing program, and to do is coo the right words and my baby's word you first say "Style," then "Under­ System requirements: Apple Mac exaggeration formula -"My wife's so ignorant about computers that she thinks a jam in the printer type in any old command you want to voice drops sweet nothings in my ear. line." Meanwhile, you simply go on Plus, SE or II, minimum 1mb ram, means there's food in it." (Knock it off, Nick, or we'll die laughing - Ed) It's easy to see why the last enhancer" witha teach it. Then say the magic word three Pretty sick, I know. But I'm enjoying all typing. harddisk. Price: $1,295. step in the advice list is almost invariably, "now polish and refine your joke idea." times into the microphone, and voila ­ this while I can: HALwill never sound so In principle, the Voice Navigator is - Piet Westerdorp Ifyou manage to create any jokes, it will store them in whatever database category you choose. pinch of salt. your computer comprendays, and will good. language independent. For the menu­ It has keyword search facilities, so computer jokes can be saved with search keywords like PC, IBM, execute the commandany time you repeat Price: US$149.95. item "Find," you many pronounce A rticulate Systems, 99 Erie Street, Cam­ Nixdorfand silicon. The entire database ofselected parts ofit can be printed out, or ideally imported What it reallyis the word. - Julian Dibbell "Find," but if you'd rather say "Cow," bridge, MA 02139 USA. into a wordprocessing package for re-presentation. You can load as many as 256 ofthese "Eisenbahnknotenpunkthinunderherschieber" Installation is easy, a matter of making a \HUMOR directory and copying the files across. It is atoy, and one voice-driven macros into the Voice Master Covox Inc., 675 Conget St., Eurgene OR or "Pizza Gambarotta," it makes no dif­ requires 384K RAM, and preferably a mouse. The manual states that the Humor Processor is aimed at one time, which makes this interface as 97402 USA. t« + 1 (503) 342-1271. ference to the Voice Navigator, as longas at bank managers, marketing professionals, doctors, lawyers, teachers, politicians and DJ s. Perhaps ofthefunnest powerful and versatile, in its own way, as you remember to always use these words it is, though hopefullynot in anyprofessional capacity. This is nota program to be taken too seriously the mouse. It's notquite powerful enough ]ulian Dibbell is a writer [or the Village for "Find" from that point on. - surprise! Aha, the basis ofa joke? Back to the brainstormer....but alas, no, it could not inspire me. I've come across to completely replace your keyboard, voice, where this review first appeared. In reality, the Voice Navigator can­ Perhaps ifthe software came with a beer voucher, and was only used with a group offriends at however. For one thing, Voice Master notregister differences thatare notknown the keyboard, laughter would result. The authors understand the difficulty, it seems. The manual asa grownup. won't necessarily get along with your FOR THE MAC: in English. For instance, using the Italian contains a "WARNING: CREATING ORIGINALJOKES IS DIFFICULT." This is the most reliable favorite software - it's been tested with VOICE NAVIGATOR words "fatto" (fact) and "fato" (fate) for instructionaboutjokewritingin theentirepackage. Practice makes perfect? Now, howdoes that cliche many popular titles, but hopeless com­ The Apple Macintosh is the ideal com­ two different instructions is impossible. rewrite formula go... - Nick Beard plications kept it from driving either my puter for all typists with three hands ­ These two words only vary in the pro­ wordprocessor, XyWrite III Plus, or my two for typing and one to move the nunciation of the "t" and this is not a » Response Software, 1901 Tunnel Rd., Berkeley CA 94705. Tel. +1 (415) 843-1034. Price: $49.

52 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 53 a REVIEWS YOU CAN USE REVIEWS YOU CAN USE a

This thesaurus is organized by meaning cal (35,000 words), legal (28,000) and strings occurring at the beginning of an .Soft Copy Roundup groups, which gives it a lot ofstructure. technical (30,000) writing. More addi­ Term KILLER! entry. The big advantage of Language tions seem to be in the pipe line! An important criteria in judging the MIGHTYVDE Master is that it's available for MS-DOS; The spell checker also keeps track of suitability ofa terminology manager for In PC Magazine, John Dvorak called this PCI compatible text Big Thesaurus isn't. So you PC users out little grammatical andpunctuationerrors, MultiTerm is a newcomer to the small translation projects is whether it can also editor "the most amazing piece of wordprocessing software I've there can stop reading and order NOW! like typing words twice and incorrect use but competitive field of terminology handle long phrases such as "Make sure seen in ten years." What fascinated Dvorak was not just the Mac users have a choice: Language ofquote marks. management software for PC/com­ your stationary is properly aligned and astonishing functionality achieved with very little programming Master is a simple program with an in­ Ofthe three packages, Spelling Coach patibles. Essentially, this nifty package press [ENTER] to start print job." code, but also the attitude - and implications - ofthe author who terface that doesn't really take advantage offers the mostflexibility and won't drown picks up where forbearers such as Chris TextTools imposes a maximum length of circulated it freely asking only for a modest sum for site licences of the Mac environment. You can have you in information. It allows you to Blower's SuperLex, Ink International's 64 characters for both term and transla­ from corporate users. . only one non-resizable window open at specify what to display, andyou can tailor Text'Tools, and LinguaTech's MTX/ tion, while Termex limits the term to 50 VDE is an amazingwordprocessor, offeringalmosteverything once, which you have to close to work on it to yoursystem configuration. We tested Termex leave off positions and the translation to 250. except the layout and document processing features found in far your text again. And it provides only it on a 1MB Mac Plus and on a IIfx Since language engineering is a small MultiTerm offers a different solution fatter programs. And like QEdit (see EW #19), it supports the old about half as many synonyms as Big loaded with inits and it ran perfectly on community (Trados is INK's German by making a distinction between header WordStar command set, which after much backandforth between • Thesaurus, withoutDeneba's comparable both machines. But it needs a hard disk partner) it may come as no surprise that and term. The maximum size for a term otherDOS andMac wordprocessors, and togetherwith the old PC and related words, antonyms and con­ for its 3 megabytes of files. all terminology managers more or less is 255 characters, 40 characters for a keyboard layout, is ergonomically the most efficient I've ever trasted words. And the current version One drawback is that it's only avail­ function the same way. header and no limits on the length of a learned. - Colin Brace doesn't even run on a IIfx! able with American orthography. Also, They are all TSR-programs that can translation. T his means that for terms EricMeyer, 40112thAveSE, #139, Norman, OK 73071 USA On the other hand, it does give the its behavior in localized environments is be installed and (with the exception of longer than 40 characters, the header will NUMBER-CRUNCHING WP definitions you'll only get from Deneba's not perfect. It relies on the find /replace Termex) de-installed from DOS at will. consist of only the first 40 characters of Launched in the UK in late 1989, Cicero Plus is the Anglicized Spelling Coach Professional, not Big function ofawordprocessorwhen batch­ W hile working within your favorite the term. MultiTerm also allows for list­ version of a PCI compatible word processor successful in Sweden Thesaurus. Apartfrom this, the one thing checking, and seems to confuse the host wordprocessor, they allow you to build ing synonyms in a term by using commas for several years. It will appeal more to the small office user rather that Franklin does that Deneba doesn't is program with its English commands. glossaries, look up terms and paste se­ for separating strings and can store up to than thewordsmith, as its major attraction is the integration oftext , automatically inflect the synonyms ac­ But apart from these minor short­ lected entries into your document. 50 terms per entry. and spreadsheet functions. :il cording to the word in your document. comings, we wouldn't want to do with­ The implementation of MultiTerm Like in Termex, supplying informa­ Cicero's ordinary wp facilities are better than average. It has r This is very smart, but perhaps people out it for the world. We feel perfectly differs in some significant ways from its tion in MultiTerm for an entry means neat touches, like the option to see a verbose document description who don't know how to inflect words happy browsing back and forth through competitors. Instead of organizing ter­ 'painting' that information on a blank while "housekeeping," multiplewindows, and a waste areato store shouldn't use wordprocessors in the first Coach's windows floating around our minology by keeping separate diction­ screen (a maximum of 4096 characters deleted text. Cicero unfortunately offers limited compatibility place? text. But on the other hand, it does mean aries by language pair for each project, are allowed per entry). Since MultiTerm with other products. It reads and writes ASCII, and will export Voyage round my thesauri Big Thesaurus is the ideal tool for we spend twice as long writing little client and/or field, MultiTerm stores all helps the user insert language and attribute DCA format to DTP packages, but won't handle database file writers whose wordworking demands are reviews like this one. information in one database. By having tags, this interface guarantees the utmost formats. Oddlyenough, Esc calls help andFl backs outto themenu Spell-> Attack->Face-> Guise-> Veneer bigger than their budgets and disk space. - Paul Perry & Willem Velthoven each term and each translation tagged for flexibility. - the opposite ofthe industrystandard! These and other iconoclas­ - > Sugarcoat -> Sweeten - > Mollify - > It's fast, elegant, and uses the Miriam language andsubject matter (or any other In querying the database, Trados has tic policies ofRTB may limitthe program's appeal. Price: UK£29S. Chasten-> Lambaste-> Roast->Blister­ Webster to its full extent. It even comes Language Master ($99) from Franklin att ribute), any subset ofthe database can alsoensuredhigh flexibility.Witha couple - Ray Girvan > Pockmark -> Vice-> Foible- > Caprice with a condensed thesaurus for floppy­ Software, 3511 NE. 22Ave, Fort Lauder­ be selected for the project at hand. ofkeystrokes, the user can scroll through RTB Program (UK) Lid, Tredan House, Church Road, -> Idea-c-Brainstorm-:» Illumination- > based systems. dale, FL, USA. Tel: +1 (305) 5663511. It's a great system. While querying the database term by term, call up a hit Bookham, Surrey, KT233IG, UK TeI: +44 (372) 58283. Exegesis-> Unscrambling-> Example - > But Spelling Coach Professional is Big Thesaurus and Spelling Coach the database, you can easily switch from list when querying with wild cards and LOCOSCRIPT PC Paragon-> TJpe-> Humor -> Perversity the real McCoy! It bundles all Big Professionalfrom Deneba Software, 3305 and to any source or target language and trace any cross reference. Since all infor­ LocoScriptPC is the resultofa longandmajorre-write oftheword - > Hardihood -> Boldness - > Grit-> Thesaurus's features withWebster's Ninth NW 74th Avenue, Miami, FL 33122, apply any filter on the term attributes. As mationon a term isalways directlyshown processor bundled with the popular CPIM micro, the Amstrad Decision - > Alternative - > Judgment - > Collegiate Dictionary and a superb USA. Tel: +1 (305) 5946965. for searching for a term, MultiTerm, like on screen, the user doesn't have to call up PCW. An integrated package, it also comprises a tree-type file spellchecker. Itworks interactively in any TextTools, allows you to search a word or several windows to edit or view the infor­ Brains-> Sense-> Crux-> Articulation> manager and a database. It's targetted primarily at PC novices and program (exceptWordPerfect), does batch Willem Velthoven isa graphic designerand phrase with wild cards in any position (a mation requested. Suture-> Interconnection-> Coupling-> PCW owners moving from CP/M to MS-DOS. Hookup - > Cahoots-> Concert-> Asso­ checking on text files and, best ofall, has editor of the excellent Mediamatic, the feature which Termex dearly lacks). Un­ As far as compatibility is concerned, Its particular forte is the repertoire of over 700 characters ciation - > Embroilment -> Fisticuffs - > a customizable dictionary. The 95,000­ bilingual magazine ofart and technology. like TextTools and Termex, however, the utilities that come with MultiTerm covering all European languages. If you need Anglo-Saxon 'eth' Scrap->Smidgen-> Trace-> Footprint ­ word main dictionary can be supple­ Paul Perryisa Canadian artist livingin the MultiTerm also allows you to query allow for very flexible importing and and 'thorn', 'inverted Bulgarian shch' or 'Azerbaijani G bar', > Sign -> Omen -> Advertisement -> mented by plug-in word-lists for rnedi- N etherlands. translated terms or phrases, albeit only exportingofterminology. Even Ink's pro­ LocoScript will supply! In normal QWERTY mode, Alt and Ctrl Publication -> Magazine -> Arsenal-> prietary format is supported, as well as combinations call accents, European characters, and lines and Store->Heap -> Gobs-> Trillions->Lot export to a tagged Ventura-format for boxes. Further "supershifts" access Cyrillic, Greek or Symbol - > End-> Climax->Prime-> Recherche Style Wars I a list of "trade words" to avoid. The sounds like a recipe for discontent; in which a stylesheet is included. keyboard modes with similar variants. UK£12S. - Ray Girvan - > Picked - > Coupled - > Suited -> De- resulting template is then fit to use with amateur hands, CV could easily end up Thank heaven, a program for re­ Locomotive Software, Dorking Business Park, Dorking, Sur­ sirable. Analyze. SPCS provide 15 templates. As entrenching a bad or inflexible hous e indexing corrupt databases is provided. rey, RH41YL, UK TeI: +44 (306) 740606. We proved it: DESlRABLEis a 68th Scandinavian PC Systems' new Corpo­ well as the bread-and-butter ones, they style. Trados also offers a text analyzer com­ degree synonym of SPELL! rate Voice is billed as the world's first style include styles for the Bible, Psalms, Tom A useful bookcomes as a freebie with parable to Ink's Texan. WORDGENIUS But seriously, you have to be careful replicator. It's based on ,the Readability Clancy, Louis Lamour, and James Bond the program. Writing to Please lOur Boss T he network version of MultiTerm W ordGenius is a PCI compatible utility which aims to speed up with these thesaurus programs. Click on Plus style checker for the PC/compat­ novels (CV is sensitive enough to tell the by Elizabeth Cohn and Susan Kleimann isbeautifullyimplemented.Multiple users your wordprocessing by intercepting a partly-typed word and a word, and behold, an arsenal of syn­ ible, but with the added function to read difference between Fleming's work and (ISBN 1 878322 04 4) is a guide to can consult the database simultaneously; letting you pick the ending from a menu with a single keystroke. It also has a limitedspellcheckerfor near-wordswithjustone typo. onyms appears. Pick one of these, and in bulk text and capture the style as a the John Gardner clones.) corporate writing. As well as covering users' screens are automatically updated Both program and dictionary are memory-resident, the maxi­ hey presto! there's another host ofterms. template for writing new work. CV has manyinterestingpossibilities, writing and presentation, it also offers as entries change. It certainly looks as if mum 20,000 words taking up some 2S0K. So the more RAM you Unless you exercise self-control, within a Corporate Voice has two modules, from corporate tool for enforcing house solutions to the common interpersonal MultiTerm is the most powerful and have, the better. WordGeniuswill learn newwords as you type, but Analyze and Newstyle. Thefirst isa nicely style to freelancer's secret weapon. You gripes between manager and staffwriters flexible multilingual terminology man­ few look-ups you've forgotten what you this needs a tedious "Ctrl-D" after typing each word, andyou can't could even poach a competitor's house so ifCV does cause ructions, the remedy ager on the market today. wanted to find and your brains are upgraded version ofReadability Plus (see addsub-sets ofa word alreadytaught. I have triedsimilarprograms rocketing offinto a virtual word world at Electric Word # 19). It has a larger word style. Sin'ceyou need a sample of20,000 is at hand. Prices: MultiTerm standalone: DM before; Brown Bag's MindReader, and Dundee University's BCS blistering speed. But coupling words in checklist, and all bar graphs now show a words or more, an OCR scanner will Corporate Voice runs on any PC 1500; MultiTerm Net (2 users): DM Award-winning PAL. I still can't see much point for the skilled this manner is a great way of desk-top comparison with the target style. help, as rivals don't often oblige with clone with 256K RAM; it's also licensed 3000; Text Analyzer: DM 500. Separate typist. Why meddle with a conditioned reflex by demanding a brainstorming. It unclogs most blocks. You create custom style templates ASCII files on a plate! (More likely, the for LAN use with up to fiveworkstations. rates for multi-user and site licences are decision in mid-word? However, the impressive saving in key­ Deneba's Big Thesaurus and with Newstyle. Briefly, you feed it text typist will be stuck with it.) Price: £149. - Ray Girvan available from Trados. strokes (you need justthree perword) will makeWordGenius very Franklin's Language Master are two files - ASCII, WordPerfect, WordStar or The manual also suggests CV as an - Marcel Brugmans attractive to the disabled user with keyboard difficulties. Price electronic thesauri based on the same Microsoft Word - to create a raw style aid to productivity: "build a style model ScandinavianPCSystems(UK), 36Hawkes 1780 Norwegian crowns ($300). - Ray Girvan electronic version of Miriam Webster's diagram, or "teardrop." You then edit out and insist that all reports score 90% or D rive, Warwick, CV346LX UK Tel: +44 Trados, Rotebiihlstr. 87, 7000 Stuttgart 1, Birdstep Software A/S, Ospelia 13B, 2020, Skedsmokorset, Nor­ Collegiate Thesaurus from Proximity. the stars for deviant sentences and enter better before you'll review them." This (926) 314334. \1Iest Germany. Tel. +49 (711) 627068 way. TeI: +47 (6) 874688.

54 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 L ANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 55 [iJ HARD COPY REVIEW HARD COPY REVIEW [iJ

« That's his version of the story. Un- to-date. It is also practical, as vendor surprisingly, no other side is presented; Unravelling the addresses and pointers into relevant lit­ after allit's his book, ain't it?For Kawasaki, erature are amply included. , the cave-in was the sign that Apple was infrastructure of a But what Overmeier has wrought becoming like most other computer here is more than a concise NLP com­ companies whose customers buy prod­ new technology pendium. It's his shrewd vision and in­ ucts despite, not because of, the compa­ sight into the infrastructure of the NLP Here isa ~ nies which make them. technology which makes this book stand Kawasaki isnotafraid to name names. "Natural Language Processing Technolo­ out brilliantly. Here is a linguist with a linguist with a H e blastsAshton-Tare, Microsoft, Quark, gies in Artificial In telligence - the Science PhD in computational linguistics and Ann Arbor, as well as Apple and others, and Industry Perspectiue," by Klaus K related project experience in industry, PhD incomputa- for what he considers stupid moves. He Obermeier (Ellis Horuiood, 1989). Price: providing an unprecedented bird's eye doesn't recall many ofhis own mistakes, £30. view of his field, annotated with edu­ tional linguistics but then that's not The Macintosh Way. cated comments and informed opinions. It's m uch better to push the blame onto This is, quite simply, an excellent book. It Businesspeople will profit from the and related ~ som eone else. It's even better to convince contains a con cise yet comprehensive advice on NLP marketing and the graded everyone that that was what you were survey of th e wh ole natural language forecasts (short term: 1995; mid-term: project experi- after all the time. processing (NLP) field, covering: natural 2000; long term: 2010), which by any The Macintosh way shows all ofthe language in terfaces (transformation standards measure up to (say) McKinsey ence inindustry, qualities ofsuccess in the cliquish Macin­ based, dialog based) and text generators consultancy reports. At the same time, tosh world in Silicon Valley. He suggests (as embedded in database or expert sys­ linguists, AI workers and other profes­ providing an un- buying a Porsche 911 the day your tems), text understanding (skimming, sionals in the software andemergingNLP competitor releases a new version just to automa ted indexing), speech recognition industries will benefit from the analytic precedented drive them crazy. In a global economy, an d synthesis, writing aids (spelling assessment ofthe underlying technology " o most people's competitors are around the checkers, grammar and style checkers), issues such as the decades-long primacy bird's eye view .cl' world - in the Macintosh world you run and machine translation. of syntax, the AI trap (incidentally, the .. into them at the corner health club. For each ofthese subfields, the crux ''AI'' catch phrase in the book's title is ofhis field. r This book is primarily useful as a of the information processing task and largely due to the publisher, I would say), direct primer for products in the mass the different approaches at the technol­ the gap between the do-able and the market, but the ideas are more or less ogy-push side are explained. This is fol­ merely interesting... quickly of mousing around with Mac­ transferrable. Dare to be different, do the lowed by a critical summary ofthe appli­ As the author puts it, "current NLP Zen and the art of marketing computers Draw and MacWrite), but evangelists right thing in the right way. Which is cations, current projects and available research is caught between the ideologies like Kawasaki cajoled andnurturedyoung dangerous news for the mediocre. You've products, ranging from Batelle's NLQ ofthe various academic disciplines," and "The Macintosh way)' The Art ofGuerilla Kawasaki bristles with ideas about startups like Aldus, Silicon Beach Soft­ got to be really good to get away with relational database query system to he argues that NLP must be established Management," by Guy Kawasaki (Scott sales, demos, screwing the competition, ware, and especially 4th Dimension. He these tactics. ExcaliburTechnologies' Savvy/TRS neu­ as a science in its own right, in order to Foresman and Company, Glenview) Illi­ taking care ofyour employees, compen­ liked 4th Dimension so much that he left He says to send the company presi­ ral network-based text recognizer. accomodate the more innovative linguis­ nois USA) 1990). Price: US$19.95. sation plans, store design, which car to Apple to become the presidentofACIUS, dent to give demos at user group meet­ Throughout, the presentation is well­ tic and conceptual models on which the buy, why Apple is such a great company, the company which sells it in the United ings - s/he'd better be good or will get balanced (though clearly made from a future of this technology will depend. by Jeffrey S. Mann why Apple is such a lousy company. He States. The story ofhow that came about eaten alive. He has a lot of good ideas USA point ofview) and refreshingly up- - Tony Whitecomb also knows how to formulate his ideas in is perhaps the most interesting part ofthe about attracting attention from competi­ Imagine getting a business card pressed a couple ofpithy paragraphs. book. tors, trade shows, user groups, trade press, intoyourhandwhich describes someone's Sometimes you forget that he's just One ofKawasaki's tasks was to con­ etc. job as a "software evangelist." Guy talking about software products. That's vince Ashton-Tate to bring out a Macin­ If you're writing a book which is a That old familiar feeling Kawasaki was Apple's main software the idea. Ifyou're just talking about an­ tosh version oftheirsuper-populardBASE tribute to your own cleverness, there's no Dare to be evangelist in the early days. His job was to otherproduct, you aren't goingto capture product. DBASE's fatal flawisits ancestry. reason to hold back on the self-indul­ "Developing Effictive User Documentation: A Human-Factors convince software developers to invest this man's imagination, or th at of the IfKawasaki is anything, he is all-Mac. In gence. He closes with a pointless and at Approach" Henry Simpson andSteven M. Casey. (MacGraw-Hill different, do time and resources in "creating products marketplace either (unl ess you're IBM or the pseudo-macho Silicon Valley-speak times insulting chapter called "The New York) 1988). Price: $42.95. for a computer with no installed base, Ashton-Tate). favored by Kawasaki, "He bleeds six Macintosh Guideto datingandmarriage" the right thing in 128Kofmemory, no hard disk, no docu­ The "Exercises" littered through the colors," a reference to the rainbow in which is largely a tribute to how nice it is by Piet Westerdorp mentation, and no technical support, book provide some ofthe best moments Apple's logo. to have a wife who lets him spend a lot of the right way. made by a flaky company that IBM was because they are so to the point. He The idea ofdepending on a massive time on his Mac. "This book is unique," state Simpson and Casey in the preface about to snuffout." provides practical suggestions like "Call company which makes its money from This chapter reads like a pre-adoles­ to their book,Developing Effective User Documentation: A Hu­ Which is danger- This was certainly not a task for a your company and ask for a press kit." the hated, heathen MS-DOS was more cent discovering that girls can be pretty man-Factors Approach. "business developmentmanager" or "third Another one says: than he could stomach. He also expected nifty keeno too; almost as fun as baseball Yet the difference between this book and all the other how­ ous news for partyrelations coordinator;" this job took that Ashton-Tate would bring out a me­ sometimes. HalfofKawasaki's pre-publi­ to-write-user-documentation books seems like the difference divine inspiration. Now he's written a The Fullwrite Professional diocre product destined for failure in the cation reviewers told him to trash this between the Tramecksan and the Slamecksan, the two groups the mediocre. book where he preaches his ideas about brochure, produced byAnnArbor Macintosh market. A year behind sched­ chapter. I'm with them. Treat it as an which populated Lilliput: exactly one eighth of a Lilliputian

techies, marketing, restaurants, cars and Softworks in 1986, contained ule, Ashton-Tate did just that. anomaly and enjoy the rest. inch. / I You've got to women. 1000 square inches ofsurface area. Kawasaki figured that the database Latest news: Kawasaki recently left The book is certainly organised in the usual way. Classifi­ His ideas aren't that revolutionary Of the 1000 square inches, 30 market was too important to leave to .ACIUS, the companyhe praises so highly cation ofdocumentation and users is followed by discussions of be really good (the main pearl of wisdom is "Do the were dedicated to product specifi­ bozos like Ashton-Tate. IfMacintoshwas in this book. Typical marketing type ; the development process , tools, production and testing. right thing and do things right"), but he cations and the rest to colorful going to push its way into the business don't believe anything he says. Simpson and Casey classify user documentation in three to get away knows how to bring them over cleverly pictures ofYuppies. environment, it had to have a good data­ ways. We have system versus user, procedural versus reference, and engagingly. The easiest way to get Calculate the ratio of 30 to base available. So he acquired a product JeffMann doesn'tuse a Macintosh; he just and internal versus external (user's guide, reference manual, with these into The Macintosh way is to open it to a 1000. from a French developer for Apple to sell. writes aboutpeople what writes about 'ern. reference card, quick reference guide and job performance aid). random page and pull out a plum. You're Ashton-Tate didn't like the idea ofApple In his remainingsparetime) hes a manager Very true and very familiar. And very arbitrary. tactics. likely to get so absorbed that you've read Get the point? selling software, and bullied them into ofp roduct marketingfor a company which Are professional users that much different from ordinary 20 pages before realizing it. This is not a Lack of software was the biggest dropping the idea. More accurately, (ac­ makes application development tools. users? When is a user advanced? When is she or he to go from book which needs to be assimilated se­ problem the Macintosh had for the first cording to Kawasaki) Apple let them- instruction to reference? What should the internal documen­ quentially; hopping around works fine. couple of years (you get tired pretty selves get bullied. » tation do that the external doesn't? These questions are vital for »

56 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 LA NGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 57 III HARD COPY REVIEW HARD COpy REVIE~ III

«good documentation, but they remain already know how to write. They don't documentation effort." 500 pages of closely packed text, tables unanswered. "dwell on spelling, punctuation, or Now really, this isn't the first book to Everything you and diagrams will take interested and Hardcopy Roundup After specifying user profiles (novice grammar." tell us that we can use computers for semi-cornputerate readers through the "Hyphenation," by Ronald McIntosh (Computer Hyphenation Ltd., users, professionals with computer ex­ Fortunately, Simpson and Casey do production and project management always wanted to technology underlying you r wordpro­ UK). perience, skilled clerks, and computer have chapters on organization, style and (Gannt or PERT charts, planning and cessing program, your database manage­ professionals), the authors explain how usage. These discuss questions like ad­ management programs, spreadsheets, Hyphenation-wise, the wordprocessor is a mixed blessing. It has know about text mentsystem andprogram andyour auto­ liberated us from hyphenation decisions, while all too often subjecting to make documentation match user needs. vance organizers, writing styles, etc.). matic spell- or stylechecker. our words to a veritable Texas chainsaw massacre. Ronald Mclntosh For this we have to follow a straight paragraphing, and typography. There's Simon and Casey recommend using handling, but were The style is no- nonsense exposition, believes "bad hyphens can destroy the peaceful enjoyment ofa quality procedure. Determine: (1) the types of nothing new in any ofthis, but I'm glad IBM-computers for text-only applica­ admirably uncluttered with jargon given product." He hopes this book will encourage good hyphenation in print and publishing professionals. users; (2) the operating system; (3) the it's there all the same. Two examples of tions and Macintosh computers for dtp­ afraidyou'd find out the range oftopics covered. Each subject documentation functions; (4) the user good documentation are given: the because "there are only two widely used Hyphenation is a confused subject in English, mostly because of is well-delineated in its own section, differing practises in Britain and America ("two countries divided by a tasks and user information requirements; manuals accompanyingWord Perfect 4.1 word-processing programs: MacWrite 'Automatic Text Processing: the Transfor­ making the boo k easy to use for byte­ common language" in the words of George Bernard Shaw). British (5) the types ofuser documentation; and and Microsoft Chart (1984 vintage, and Microsoft Word" for the Mac, while mation}AnalysisandRetrieval oflnfOrma­ sized reference on text processing in hyphenation was traditionally based on etymology; wherever possible, (6) the details. probably version 1.0). Despite elaborate "for the IBM computer there is only a tion by Computer." by Gerard Salton general. And if you are a rnath freak, words are divided according to their Greek or Latin roots. Thus Sound familiar? Well, this matching descriptions, there's no real explanation monochrome monitor with green phos­ (Addison- "Wesle)J, 1989).Price:US$44.25. specially-marked sections take you "omnipotent" would be hyphenated "omni-potent." American lexicographers - and renegade British compositors ­ ofuser groups and documentation types ofwhy they are good. More illuminating phor and the graphics card plus colour through the arcane realms of fuzzy set is the first item to live up to the book's (and more in accordance with common monitor which results in much poorer inst~,ad prefer to hyph~,nate a~cording t~ sound or s~r~s, so "o~nipo­ Ifyou need a general introduction to how extensio nsto the Boolean retrieval model, tent could become, om-nip-o-tent.' After coexistmg happily for promise ofbeing unique- by approaching perceptions of documentation!) would legibility that the monochrome display." computers handle text, this is it. and explain how cip hers based on. centuries, the American system is now coming to dominate in Britain, user documentation from a human fac­ have been to provide lots ofexamples of From this it's clear that the manu­ Designed as a textbook for courses in cornputationally difficult problems can partly because ofthe influence ofimported software. A simple tale, but tors angle, rather than from a technical bad user documentation, with explana­ script of the book had been in a drawer computer science subjects (compression , handle data encryption. Bibliographies Mclntosh tells it with real flourish. writing angle. tions of why they are bad . for quite some time before it was publish­ encryption and file access), library and at the end ofeach chapter document how This book contains detailed hyphenation guidelines for British and American English, plus examples of how to hyphenate nearly 40 The third "unique" aspect of this ed. A unique contribution? Hardly- but information science (retrievaltechniques), research into the kindsoflinguisticsmarts ASSUMING YOU CAN WRITE book is its attempt to "show how you can the sections on writing and designing other languages, includingthe obscure and exotic , like Swahili, Basque or computational linguistics (document that EW readers hear about every two and Anglo-Saxon. - JS The second unusual characteristic ofthe use the tool whose software you are docu­ user documentation are as good a guide analysis, text generation and understand­ mon ths began in the labs decades ago. book is the authors' assumption that you menting (the computer) to support the as any other book on the subject. ing, automatic text translation), these An inte resting feature ofthis book is "Darpa Neural Network Study" (AFCEA International Press). the number ofpages devoted to language There are few IT managers who have not wondered about neurocomputing, and its possible applications in their field. This study processing. A few years ago, naturallan­ is a goodreview ofthe wholefield, withproperexecutive summariesand guage engineering approaches to text accessible conclusions, in addition to technical detail for those who might have gotten a short chapter at the need it. In 1987, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency end: Salton gives them almost a quarter (DARPA) commissioned a report to examine ways of reducing auto­ ofthe book, with a real attempt to show matic target recognition (ATI) for smart weapons "to practice, rather howsome ofthe leading models in syntax than a black art." Neural networks were the prime object of the research, the results ofwhich are published here. Comprising some 34 (ATNs) and semantics (case frames and chapters, plus appendices A-Q, it adds up to a sizable study, though scripts) are structured. The examples are somehowthe indexgot lost. It includes mostaspects ofneurocomputing, inevitably based on English, though it and is technology - rather than cognition -biased. There's a good might have been interesting to learn of survey of applications and currently available technology, and the the design implications that may arise opinions ofleading researchers on the future. These are entertaining, ment. Ifthis is true for cultural evolution Personally, I don't believe the only when your diction ary or parser has to and present an air ofoptimistic scepticism about neurocomputing. A valuable addition to any IT manager's bookshelf. - NB Unofficial guide to the best computer games as well as physical, what are we to expect answer is the kind of coma-inducing handle mo rphologically-rich languages for the future ofour civilization? earnestness foisted off on audiences by (such as the Romance languages in Eu­ "Dictionaries: TheArt andCraftofLexicograp hy, " by SidneyL Landau by Ron Martinez a planetenthralled by football (American Take for example games that are even recently converted rock stars, as they rope, or Turkish). (Cambridge University Press). and otherwise), game shows, gambling, more explicitly metaphors for the inner vaingloriously embrace every cause un der From an infotech point of view, it is Landau is editorial director ofCambridge University Press, New Unofficial Guide to the Best Games, edited and other game activities, somehow life of the adolescent male: fantasy role the ozone depleted heavens. As Woody not surprising to find the succinct section York, andhas over 20 years lexicographical experience as former editor­ in-chief of dict ionaries for Funk & Wagnalls and Doubleday, so he by Nicole Segre. (Macs) South Croydon} computer entertainments are generally playing games (FRPs). In these games, Allen was admonished in his hilarious on automatic translation alongside that Surrey). Price: £2.95. considered kid stuff beings with half-formed personalities ought to kn ow what he's talking about. homage to Fellini Stardust Memories, "If on text-critiquing tools in a chapter en­ Eight chapters cover "Whatis a dictionary?" (suitable readingeven This pheno meno n pr obab ly has described by sets ofnumerical attributes you want to help the world, tell funnier titled "Automatic Text Transformation." for the comp lete/y uninitiated), a history oflexicography (not nearly as This is a nicely done review of some something to do with conten t. A lot of (Ch arisma:30; Strength: 80; Intelligence: jokes." The same admonishment could No illusions here about how an AI per­ dull as it sounds), key elements (the entry term, alphabetization, It might be worthwhile interactive ente rtainments. games (including several reviewed in this 15) roam around in packs looking for be applied in this still infant medium. spective might take MT to be a model of etymology, pronunciation, grammatical information, etc.), definition It features an informative introduction book) plunge the user into a cheesy SciFi trouble. They wander in a xenophobic Ifa game designer has any responsi­ how human brains translate: translation (kinds ofmeaning, citations, etc.), usage (kinds ofusage information unfair tosingle by Duncan Evans, which is as good an slaughterhouse, arm him (or her, but funk through a fantasy world, by turns given, attitudes towards usage, etc.), dictionary making, computer use, bility to his or her audience, it is to let her isjust one more algorithmic manipulation and, finally, miscellaneous issues such as legal considerations and the overview ofthe current state ofcomputer mostlyhim) with an arsenal ofnightmare indifferent and hostile, meeting weird subjectivity run free, to compose enter­ oftext strings. dictionary's ability to reflect social values. Phew! out adolescent entertainment as you're likely to find. weaponry, and besiege him with myth strangers who they promptly attempt to taining virtual machines only she could A final chapter on "Paperless Infor­ It all adds up to the nearest thing you're likely to find to an Throughout, the writing is crisp, some­ and media-composite demons intent on slaughter. Those successful at this mur­ compose, and thereby contribute one mation Systems" covers graphics and exhaustivetreatment ofthe subject, writtenwithwit, skill andelegance. boys for blame. times witty, and always suffused with a murdering him. This is seriously adoles­ derous game are rewarded with their vic­ more distinctive voice to the collective speech processing, e-rnail and electronic Technical terms and the obscurer points ofthe lexicographer's art are clearly explained, so this is suitable reading for the layperson, and not deep appreciation for the works reviewed. cent stuff, the kind of Lord of the Flies tims' treasure, as well as with a more fully song ofher culture. publication - the logical conclusion to Look what kind One might, however, question the universe you might expect to take shape developed personality, as their attribute just the specialist. Full ofinteresting facts, insights and opinions about To the extent that it celebrates those the hash-table access, thesaurus-group languageand the dictionarybusiness, this bookisn'tjustrecommended general description of these works as levels are adjusted to reflect their new when you leave a gang ofadolescent boys kinds of works (SimCity, Balance of generation and Knuth, Morris and Pratt for lexicographers, but ought to be required reading for anyone whose ofworld adult "games." In one "game" reviewed, together in the wilderness. (Then again, level ofexperience. Power, The Sentinel, Archipelagos), The methods evoked in the body ofthe book. work involves a systematic approach to language. - JS SimCity, the user is able to "paint" a it might be unfair to single outadolescent Add rape to this scenario, and you Unofficial Guide to the Best Games moves The multimedia buzzword is not used , men dreamed up working city on the screen, and see it boys for blame. Lookwhat kind ofworld have what in New York City is known all the medium forward. Perhaps respond­ but the material on how our words and "Logic Grammars, " by H. Abramson and It: Dahl (Springer Verlag), . Logic-based languages, such as PROLOG, are well suited to attempt to survive andgrow over a period adult men dreamed up in Beirut, Central , too well as "wilding." ing to the editor's effort to include re­ images are stored and circulated in binary inBeirut, ofmonths or years. Is this a game? How America, and elsewhere.) Believe it or not, the game designers' natural languageprocessing, because grammaticalformalisms are readily views of more such works in the next form should suggest further practical transcribed into these languages. Logic grammars have found wide do you win this game? What do you win? A subtheory of evolution called community is attempting to come to edition, we "game" designers will offer applications for the mass of text tech ­ application in NLP and in formal applications such as compiler Central America, Who are you playing against? Possibly no neotony posits that a species' evolution grips with the moronic content ofmuch more interestingand more evolved works niques explained in the book. Should be writing. This book introduces the main concepts, presenting basic more than your own shortcomings as a includes the retention ofits chidish traits of its output. At a recent conference in to choose from. on every language technologist's boo k­ material in depth, and a good range ofadvanced topics to add breadth. and elsewhere. would be civic visionary. in adulthood. Evidence of this is pur­ San Jose, California, there were lively, shelf. Main topics covered include: grammars for formal language and But let's accept the term "game" as a portedly found in the resemblance of sometimes heated sessions entitled, for linguistics, writing simple logic grammars, types of logic grammars, Ron Martinez is president and creative - Andrew Joscelyne applications, and logic grammars and con currency. The book is aimed semantic or, more shortsightedly, as a infant apes to adult humans, as well as in example, "Computer Games and Social directorofTRANSFiction Systems} aMan­ at those familiar with logic programming, and PROLOG in particular. marketing convenience. What then of the form and coloration ofcountless lesser Responsibility," and "The Artistic Core hattan-based independentproducer ofen­ An excellenttext, it will interestanyonein the field ofAI, computational the audience for games? Paradoxically, on beings in their various stages ofdevelop- ofInteractivity." tertainment and educational software. linguistics, formal languages, and compiling techniques. - NB

58 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 L ANGUA GE TECHNOLOGY #20 59 ~ CALENDAR CALENDAR ~

Lisbon. International industry. Organized UK. Language stud­ Bruxelles, Rue tional econom ic 21-24 -LES Union) and the T ele­ AS SO CIATIO N FOR language and transla­ by the Graphic Com­ JULY ies, including the use d'Arlons, 1040 relations. In fo: JD INDUSTRIES DE LA DECEMBER communications CO MPUTATIONAL tion fair. Info: Inter­ munications Associa­ 1990 of computers. Info: Bruxelles . Tel: +32 Graham, LANGUE ­ 1990 Corporation of Zim­ LINGUISTI CS CllJerLex national Where and tion, 1730 North Dr. J. 1. Press, Lon­ (2) 513 3486. Internationale PERSPECTIVES DES babwe. Info: ITU. Berlin, DDR. Info: H ow, Verlag GmbH, Lynn Street, Suite Vereinigung Sprache ANNEES 1990 3-5 - COMPUTERS 4-7-17TH don University, Mile 28-30 - FORUM ScreenwriterAnita Loos wroteGentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1925 asa shortstory Tel: +41 (22) 730 Jurgen Kunze, Postfach 24 64 , 604, Arlington, VA und Wirtschaft e. V. , Montreal, Quebec, FO R THE HANDI­ INTERNATIONAL End Road, London 90: INTERNATIONAL for her close friend HL. MenckensThe AmericanMercury. "Menckliked me very 524 4. Zentralinstitut fur Lennesrrafse 14, D­ 22090, USA. Tel: +1 Am Flutgraben 22, anada. Interna­ CAPPED 6-9- SINGAPORE Sprachwissenschaft SYSTEMIC E14NS, UK. CONFERENCE FOR much indeed, "shewrotelater; explaining why shewrotethepiecein thefirst place, CONGRESS 29-4- 8TH TECHNICAL 5300 Bonn 1, FRG. (703) 841 8160. D-4100 Duisburg tional gathering orga­ Zurich, Switzerland. LANGUAGE FAIR der AdW der DDR, T el: +49 (2) 28 22 9-11-IMAGE University of Stirling, INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION «but... in the matter ofsentiment, hepreferrea a witless blonde." Loos decidedtqget 17,FRG. nized by the Societe Organized by the First ever. Info: #09­ Prezlauer Promenade 30 86. PROCESSING 90 24-25 - INTERN A­ Scotland. Themes: HUMOR CONFER­ INFORMATION revehge ,on"all her blonde tormentors, hence ...Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Men f~:~ des Traducteurs du Schweizer 16 World Trade 149-152, 1200 Ber­ 2-4 - 2ND Wembley Exhibition compu-tational ENCE Stockholm. Info: rejeciedher submission. (Littlegirl y, Mencleen wroteLoos, "you're makingfun of§ex TIO NAL CON FER ­ ucbcc and the Gesellschaft fur Center, Singapore lin ,DDR. INTERNATIONAL Centre, London. ENCE ON INTERAC­ linguistics, applied U niv. ofSheffield, Forum 90 , Box 38 S­ and thats neverbeendonebefore in the USA.!suggestyou sendit toHarpersBazaar, Bee de la language Informatik (SGI), the 0409. CONGRESS IN Only exhibition of its linguistics, foreign UK. Organized by 124 21 Bandhagen, TIVEAU DIO, Irancaise, with th e Austrian Computer 11-13 -14TH MAY where itllbelostamongtheadsand tuon't offendanybody. "Harper'Bazaardecided TERMINOLOGY AND kind in Europe: im­ language teaching, the International Sweden. INTERACTIVE VIDEO pcrat ion of Society and the INTERNATIONAL 1991 to run thepiece, but onlyifLoos turned it into a serial. By the third month, adsfor KNOWLEDGE age processing from Systemic and other Society for Humor 28-1 SEPT - 4TH AND OPEN uebequois, Cana­ Deutsche Gesell­ ONlINE INFo.RMA­ fi ~{t ENGINEERING electronic publishing functional theories of Studies. Info: Mark EURALEX CON­ mensclothing,cars andsportinggoods began toappear in themagazine-the time LEARNING dian , French, and schaft fur Informatik. TION MEETING 1-5- MONDOllNGUA Frier, FRG . T hemes: to digital microscopy. language. Info: 17­ Glazer, University of GRESS men :~a.~ everreadthe Bazaar. N{w:s {a~ds(l:es doubled, then tripled. Jam:: !~~c~y University of Wa lloon language Info: Dr. Zagler, Olympia 2, London. Geneva. Info : 29 rue new applications for Info: Blenheim Amsterd am , T he ISC 1990, Martin Texas at Pan Ameri­ Benalmadena, who75ad begun to lose hiseyesight, sav(dhisriadingfor protagonist LoreleiLee. 'ilrld industry observers. Technical University Info: Learned Infor­ du Bourg, 1002 terminology; knowl­ Online Lrd., Ash Hill Davies, Dept ofEn­ can, Edinburgh, TX Malaga, Spa in. N eth erlands. T h In fo: Edith Girard, ofVienna, Institute mation, Tel: +44 Lausanne, Switzer­ George Santayana, when askedwhat wasthe bestbookofphilosophy written bya"n' edge- based systems; Drive, Pinner, Mddx glish Studies, U niver­ 78539, USA. Tel: +1 Themes: bilingual, pro gram sho uld in­ Secretariat du for Electronics, (865) 730275 land. American,answered, «GentlemenPrefer Blondes."Thephenomenonhadonlybegun. natural language HA5 2AE, UK. Tel: sity of Stirling, (512) 381 3551. practical, and corn­ terest people teaching Colloque interna­ GuRhausstraRe 27/ 14-16 - KOREA Thefirst editionofthebooksoldoutonthedayit reached bookshops. Asdid thesecond processing and +44 (1) 868 4466. Stirling FK9 4LA, putationallexicogra­ languages, music or tional sur les indus­ 359/lB, A-1040 INTERNATIONAL JULY knowledge engineer­ 13- NATIONAL Scotland, UK. AUGUST phy. Info: print run of60,000 copies. Ultimate/y,45 editions were printed before initial docum cnration sci- tries de la langue, Wien, Austria. LANGUAGE FAIR 1991 ing; documentation FESTIVAL OF 9-13- WORLD 1990 Euralex-Vox, clo dem,~~~ ; eased. And it was translated i ~ ~~i 13 languages. Sixty five nets in secondary Office de la langue 3-5- SEYBOLD Seoul. Info: Interna­ languages and order­ LANGUAGES CONFERENCE ON Viajes Iberia and terti ary educa­ francaise, CP 315, EUROPEAN tional Where and 11-14 - TED EUROPE Gentlemen Prefer Blondes isasfreshastbe (jay it waswritten. As ever; ing of knowledge; Warwick University COMPUTERS IN 2-4 & 6-9- FIT Congresos, Avda. tion . Co ntact: Judith T our de la Place­ PUBLISHING How Verlag GmbH, Montreux Confer­ encouraged to sendin their examples oflanguage technology in action. electronic dictionar­ Coven try, UK . Exhi­ EDUCATION 12TH WORLD Diagonal 523 , 08029 Janssen, Jasper van Victoria, Montreal, CONFERENCE Postfach 24 64, ence Center, ies; knowledge engi­ bitions, workshops, Darling Harbour, CONGRESS Barcelona, Spain. der Burgh or Heleen Quebec H 4Z 1G8, Den Haag, The Lennestrafse 14, D ­ Montreux, Switzer­ neering in social etc. Info: Festival of van Loon, ITT, Sydney, Australia. Belgrade, Yugoslavia. 31-4 SEPT - TYPE A gentleman friend and I were dining at the Ritz last evening and hesaid thatif Canada. Netherlands. Color, 5300 Bonn 1, FRG. land. The first Euro­ sciences and humani­ Languages, 16 Re­ Info: Ms. Holly Jobe, Info: FIT (Interna­ 90 I tookapencilandapaperand putdown~llofmythoughtsitwouldmakeabook. Universiteit van 20-21 - EDI AND data integration, Tel: +49 (2) 28 22 pean version of the ties; professions, gent Place, Rugby, Amsterdam, THE LAW Montgomery County tional Federation of Oxford, UK. Spon­ T~i~almostmade me smile as what i ~.w~qldreally make would be a wh?le ~8~ document m anag e­ 3086. highly acclaimed teaching, training; UK. Tel: +44 (788) Intermediate Unit, Translators), Tel: sored by the Associa­ ~ein Spuistraat 134, 1012 QEII Centre, West­ ment, multimedia TED2 conference ofencyclopedias. I mean I seem to be thinking practically all ofthe time. I computer support; 546443. Montgomery Avenue +32 (91) 283 971 tion Typographique VB Amsterdam, The minster, London. and standards, espe­ JANUARY held in Monterey, it is my favorite recreation and sometimesI sit for hours and do not seem t() ~do knowledge transfer 14-17 - EDUCOM 90 & Papermill Road, 8-11 - MACWORlD Internationale Netherlands. Tel: Info: Blenheim cially in data com­ 1991 California, this con­ tools. Info: Atlanta, Georgia. Ardenheim, PA, Boston, MA. (ATypI). Conference anything else but think. So this gentleman said a girl with brains ought to -do +31 (20) 525 4589, Online, Blenheim munications and vergence of Technol­ IN FOTERM, PO "Preparing for the USA. 13-18 -18TH on the impact of something else with them besides think. And he ought to know brains when he Fax: 525 4429. House, Ash Hill video. Contact: 17-21­ ogy, Entertainment Box 130, 1021 Renaissance: Com­ 16-17 -INTERAC­ INTERNATIONAL computers on typog­ sees them, because he is in the senate and he spends quite a great deal oftime'in Drive, Pinner, Middx Seybold Ltd., 26A EXPOllNGUA and Design is a fasci­ Vienna, Austria. puting and Commu­ NOVEMBER TIVE MULTIMEDIA CONGRESS OF raphy. Info: Roger Washington, de, and when he comes into contract with brains he always not ! S~ .~ HA5 2AE, UK. T el: Seaside, Eastbourne, VIENNA nating event, not to 2-5 - SEYBOLD nications for IN EDUCATION 90 ONOMASTIC Black, Type90, Suite 1990 +44 (81) 868 4466. East Sussex, U K, M esseplatz , Vienna. be missed. Contact: it: \S~ ;;f~..,might have all blown over butse~sm6rning he sent"me a book : 4P~ - $,~ CO MPUTER Technology, Scienc e University ofEast SCIENCES 1416, 60 East 42nd 28-30 - THE DTP BN22 7Q]. Tel: +44 Info: Wiener Messen Mike Whitacre, TED , when my maid brought it to me, I said to her, "Well, Lulu, here is another b 0k PU BLISHING and the Arts". Con­ Anglia, UK. For University of Street, New York, 9 6-8- COMPUTER SHOW (323) 4 10 561 , fax: u. Congress GmbH, Europe, 1130 San Jose Convention tact John Gehl, Pro ­ GRAPHICS classroom teachers; Helsinki, Finland. NY 10165, USA. and we have not read half the ones we have got yet." But when I opened it and Business Des ign 410279. M esseplatz 1, Camino Del Mar, enter and Civic gram Chair, School demonstrations, 19-24 - TECHDOC 90 Tel: +1 (212) 983 saw that it was all blankI rememberedwhat my gentleman acquaintance said, and Alexandra Palace, Centre, Isling ton, 4-9-AFRICA Postfach 124, A­ Ste. 251, Del Mar, Hall, San Jose, Cali ­ ofInformation & workshops, etc. Info: Ramada Renaissance 7181. Fax: +1 (212) so thenI realized that it was a diary. So here I am writing a bookinstead ofreading London. Exhibition Lon don. Info: TELECOM 90 1071 , Wien, Austria. CA 92014. Tel: +1 fornia. The theme of Computer Science, and conference orga­ +44 (603) 3'3276 . Hotel, Washington, 9836043. Blenheim Online Harare Conference (619) 259-5110, fax: one. this year's conference Georgia Institute of 17-19 - OPTICAL DC. Sponsored by nized by Blenheim Ltd, Blenheim Centre and the APRIL 259-1495. and exhibition is Technology, Atlanta, INFORMATION the Graphic Com­ SEPTEMBER Online. Expected to H ouse, Ash Hill Sheraton in Harare, 1991 "T he Evolving Pro­ GA, 30332, USA . SYSTEMS munications Associa ­ 1990 Communication puters, telecommuni­ Conference and exhi­ B252, NIST, include a computer Drive, Pinner, Middx Zimbabwe. Pan ­ cess ofCommunica­ 16-18 - INTERNA­ film festival. Info: INTERNATIONAL 90 tion, 1730 North Across the Sea: North cations, video and bition organized by Gaithersburg, MD HA5 2AE , UK. Tel: African conference 9-11 - 5TH tion". Contact: TIONAL TIME - THE +44 (1) 868 4466. Wembley Conference Lynn Street, Suite 6-9- CYBERARTS American and Euro­ publishing. Video SEAT and Learned 20899, USA. Fax: +1 +44 (81) 868 4466. organised by ITU CONFERENCE OF Seybold Seminars, INTERACTIVE Centre, London. 604, Arlington, VA INTERNATIONAL pean Practices. Expo and CAMMP Information, spon­ (301) 590 0932. 13-15 - COMPUT­ (International T ele­ THE EUROPEAN 92 2 Wildlife Road, MULTIMEDIA EVENT ERS IN THE CITY Europe's biggest 22209, USA. Tel: +1 Los Angeles Biltmore Organised by the (Computer Aided sored by EIIA and 21-23 - LANGUAGE communications CHAPTER OF THE PO Box 578, Barbican, London. con ference on docu­ (703) 841 8160. Hotel, Los Angeles, IEEE Professional Multim edia Presenta­ EUSIDIC for th e AND COMPUTERS Barbican Conference Malibu, CA 90265. Relocation of this ment image process­ 20-25 - COllNG 90 California. Orga­ Communication tion s) trade shows European info rma­ Sheffield, UK. Info: Centre, London. r ei: +1 (213) 457 previously Brighton­ Info: Blenheim ing and optical data University of nized by Keyboard Society. Info: John B. will be staged simul­ tion industry. Con­ Moira Monteith, 850, Fax: 4574704. based event. Contact Online. Tel: +44 (1) storage systems. Info: Helsinki, Finland. and EQ magazines, Moffett, John taneou sly in N ew tact: The Organizing Sheffield City Poly­ 4-8 - COMDEX/ PLF Communica­ Classified advertisements Meckler Ltd ., The 13th interna­ this just might be the Hopkins University, York's Javits Center. Secretary, Learned technic, English 8684466. EU ROPEAT SICOB tions Lid, T ower­ 13-15 - NEURAL Grosvenor Gardens tional conference on first professional John Hopkins Road, Info: Multimedia Information Ltd ., Dept., 36 Collegiate SERVICES enginee ring. 10yrs. German into Japan ese. Experience and Paris Nord Villepinte mead Business NETWORKS H ouse, Crosvenor cornputational lin­ conference and per­ Laurel, MD, USA . Computing Corp., + Woodside, Hinksey Crescent, Sheffield, OFFERED ­ experience. IBM-XT, Morethan 20 yea r's quality. PRIS MA, p.a. Fairground. Fall Centre, High Str eet, QEII Centre, Gardens, London guistics. Call for formance showcase of T el: +1 (301) 95 3 1 (408) 778 0787. Hill, Oxford OX1 S102 BP, UK. 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LANGUAGE TECHN OLOGY #20 60 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 61 C. DR. WRITESTUFF REPLIES

it from within your favorite wordpro­ If your're lucky enough to have a The Word Surgery is Open cessing program. You could even auto­ PostScript LaserWriter printer, you can mate a copy & paste procedure with a use PostScript fonts. The basic ones macro program like Tempo or (Times, Helvetica, Courier) are built Die SCS Intormationstechnik GmbH ist ein Unternehmen der inter­ QuickKeys to make it act just like one of into the printer, so you only need the national operierenden SD-SCICON, einer Beratungs- und Software­ those DOS TSRs. suitcase versions installed. Additional unternehmensgruppe mit weltweit 5.500 Mitarbeitern. Auch in You could build multiple databases PostScript fonts, available from Adobe Deutschland zahlen wir zu den ersten Adressen der Branche. with DAtabase, and when you got a little and others, are supplied on disk. You'll Unser Fachbereich "Wissensbasierte Systeme" expandiert. more familiar with the program, export find the familiar suitcase version which Wir suchen daher fur den Standort Hamburg eine(n) weitere(n) and reimport your files to reverse your approximates what the PostScript font language pairs. looks like onscreen, and anotherwhich is If you have enough memory to run the "downloadable," or printerfont. This MultiFinder and are feeling ambitious, contains mathematical definitions of Berater(in) you could put together a database using each character which are far more precise a full-fledged Mac database program than any visual representation. fur maschinell ·· (like FileMaker II, 4th Dimension, or The former you simply install as ersetzung Omnis) which you could also use to­ above, the latteryou place in your System gether with a wordprocessing program. folder. If you're using an odd size (i.e. not Wenn Sie Kenntnisse und E[fahrungen in der Technologie und An­ Then you'd have something your DOS a screen font size) PostScript font in a wendung der maschinellen Ubersetzung sowie der Verarbeitung colleagues would be green with envy of document, it can look really lousy on natOrlicher Sprache mitbringen und uber das Standing eines Beraters Here aresome THIS ONE'S NOT TERMINAL But the Doc prescribes the first solu­ your Mac's screen. But fear not. When vertOgen, rnochten wir Sie kennenlernen. Dear Dr. WriteStuf£ tion; it might be just the cure. DAtabase you go to print, the program you're using more of the I keep reading in Electric Word costs US$119 and is published by Pre­ tells your Mac to send the mathematical Wir bieten Ihnen interessante, abwechslungsreiche Beratungsaut­ gaben, einen hohen Grad von Eigenverantwortung in einem kreativen about all this greate terminology man­ ferred Publishers, 5100 Poplar Ave, Suite font descriptions from the font file in brainteasers Umteld, das Ihnen die Chance gibt, sich personlich und tachlich agement software for PCI compatibles. 617, Memphis, TN, 38137, USA. Tel.: your system folder. That's why it usually weiterzuentwickeln. Vorbildliche Sozialleistungen sowie systematische you've been Why aren't there any such programs +1 (901) 683-3383. takes awhile. But as I always tell my Weiterentwicklung sind fur uns selbstverstandlich, available for the Mac? patients, it's worth the wait. quizzing Or. Maria-Elena D'Angelico, Torino,Italy FONT FOLLIES But the Doc loves typefaces and FOr weitere Vorabintormationen steht Ihnen Dear Dr. WriteStuff, doesn't like to wait, so we're saving up for Herr Dr. Hartmut Krasemann (Tel. 040/531 03-296) zur VertOgung. Writestuff with Dr. WriteStuff Reples: D'Angelico, Alright- I give up! After a few weeks a harddiskfor our printer to download all Ihre schrittliche Bewerbung richten Sie bitte an unseren Personal­ you've posed a very interesting question ofdabbling around with my new Mac on the printer fonts onto. This way, we'll leiter, Herrn Joachim Stein, since thelast to which the Doc can only reply "non 10 my own, I am thoroughly confused ­ save vaulable real estate on the harddisk SCS Informationstechnik GmbH, Oehleckerring 40, 2000 Hamburg 62. so." Believe me, I wondered. what exactly IS a printer font, what's a of our Mac. What's more, it means more wordsurgery. It may be because while the Mac has screen font, what am I supposed to do time on the golf course as it also means always had a slight edge in graphic with them andwhere do I file them to get shorter download times; the printer then problems, it's somewhatlagged behindin them to do what I want? Help! accesses all font information directly the variety and sophistication of text Grant Baxter. Boise, ID, USA from the printer harddisk. processing software that's available for PCI compatibles, due perhaps to the rela­ Dr. WriteStuff Replies: Grant, there's A TRUE GORBAPHILE WE STILL HAVE ALIMITED NUMBER OF BACK ISSUES OF ELECTRIC WORD AVAILABLE.

tive ease with which simple, character­ nothingthatgets the Doe's circulation up Dear Dr. WriteStuff, PREMKl;REISSUE. Extremely rare. The design. PCW's DavidBunellon his Mondoglosso section sonmultilingual Reviews : Ventura 2.0,Illustrator and Reviewsof thelatest computer-aided Jan Landsbergen. andErik oldALPS . Radical Velotype keyboard . HyperCard MacWorld, Jef Raskin's based programs can be written for DOS­ like a prettytypeface, butany uncertainty I'm searching for a PC or Mac based wordworking. Newsabout thegrammar Freehand , Vuwriter,Xpress, SteveJobs writing programs. Bookreviews' Spiekermann , pioneer ofcomputer InformationAppliance, theCanon Cat, Ha y n~~~t~ ~ d h~ r 1llfl!o ry checkingrivalry gettingtense. Features andJohnSculley. Jef Haskin 's rant Drucker and Gilder. Stars Dragon typpographicdesign. based machines. in this font business can sure take the translator for Russian/English. Can you tosp e ea sa 0 urotra, e ControlledEnglish, Gachot andhis includeVicky Hearne'srant against against Hypertext System's JanetBaker, andtheprototypi­ largest machine translation project inthe unifiedSystranMTSystem. Review: INK ControlledEnglish, HowtheJapanese The Doe also thinks it may have wind out ofyour sails. In any case, your help me? cal hacker, CatptainCrunch 19. Xerox'snew technologyforthe world.Mercury/Termexreview. Text Tools , thetranslationaid; doit (wordprocesssing[wapuro) thatis), ~3. Conquering 1992. Anin-depth look 90's.Susan Kare. the woman whode­ something to do with the fact that the fonts (or in trade jargon) are Sid [ones, Milpitas, CA, USA. NotaBene, the multilingual wordproces- Computer Aided Language Learn ing, 15 typefaces at Europe's Multilingual Challenge; EC 18. Cover: ITphilosopher Michael signed theMacintosh interface, Robert 2. AlanMelbyonthetranslatorwork- sorevenWordPerfectisnervousabout; tipsforusing VenturaPublisher. Re- only as good as your printer, so it's there multilingual techpolicy; 8 case histories HeimonTheDarkSideof Infomania AntonWilson onE-Prine andupgrading Mac is rather more expensive outside of station. Tron. Andrew Seybold. Tim theHUM Concordance TextAnalysis views onmultiscriptwordprocessors, onhow companiesare already Inside SITE, Europe's largest techdoc thesoftwareforthemind,wordprocess­ l eary. in-depth look at scholar/entre- program; anEiectronic SherlockHolmes IZE,Megachomp's Russianword- the US, and assuch is used lessfrequently we begin. Dr. WriteStuff Replies: Certainly, Sid. handlingthe multilingual challenge, company. Computing pioneer Doug inginTibet, restrcited language, the peneurRogerSchank's Cognitive Sys- Companion; Electric Language, thebook processor,TheFifthGenerationbyJ. Resource Guide ontechnology forhan- Engelbart. The first lookat state,oftheartof document image pro­ as a translator's workstation. Remember If you have an Apple ImageWriter LINGUIST, from microTrans, could be tems. BSO's Distributed Language Trans- abou t howusingelectrons toworkwith MarshallUnger. dlingthemulti-lingual challenge; Star on MediaMaker,potentially thePage­ cessing, review of IdeaFisher, Star lator. Review of hypertext Guide. words ischanging thewaywethink that although the Mac is used around the printer, you simply install the familiar just what you're looking for. LINGUIST Dan Winkler, eo-creator of HyperCard Maker of Multimedia. Selective Index JaniceWord andherreading program , 10. Cover story: Thestateofthe art of Stars: CircleNoetics Sashaand Margaret Learnoutand Hauspie andspeech recog­ world, avery large portion ofthe software "suitcase" font icons, which contain the is a fully bilingual text input and trans­ 3. The philosophy behindvideo games. 7. First Anniversary issuewithnow speechrecognition. Exclusive report 14. Stateofthe Art issue. Firstcompre- Nizhnikov, Philips RosettaMTleader nitionandEriko Akazawa ofSystran for it originates in the US, where the fonts displayed onscreen. lating system. The translator performs Filofax. ln-depthlookatthe onlyprofit- scandalouscoverandstoryonsex and onIBM'snaturallanguageresearch,and hensive lookatJapan's mammoth ablemachinetranslation company: datingontheMinitel, howLongmans Critique,itsfunctioning grammar machinetranslation effort;theFirist r------, population by and large is singularly These fonts are bitmapped repre­ simple literal word substitution transla­ Smart. Crouzefs voice recognition cock- collectsworldEng lish,documentimage checker. Howto build atranslator Electric WordAwards forTechnical I GET 'EM WHILE THEY LAST. I pit.INRAC, the syntheticwriter.Behind processing,how to test a machinetrans- workstation onthe Mac. Stars: syn- sentations of the typefaces you want to tions - admittedly crude by comparison Excellence -we pickthebest # $@ Quantity Total lacking in multilingual conciousness, thescenesat theIndependent. Book- later, how to buildyour ownpersona l tactician LaurenceDanlos, Meteo'sJohn wordcrunchingproductsin the shelf. PC-MOSreview. Amnesia,the 1* $25 despite (or perhaps because) ofits histori­ printwith, and are available only in a few with translation systems like Metal, but workstation. criticof televisionNeil Chandioux, andRolodex. 15tipsfor word; wordprocessing standards CALS/ 12 $10 first computerized novel. Postman, Andre Abbolflndthestate of using PageMaker. Reviews : NBl's SGML; theman behind Hidden 2 $25 13 $10 cally immigrant background. standard sizes (usually 8, 10, 12, 14, 18 the output is nevertheless said to be com­ thelanguageindustries, StewartBrand's Legend; Lotus Agenda; Shoshana Zu- Agenda;avisitto WordPerfect in Utah, 3 $25 14 $10 Whatever the case, the Doc thinks and 24 points). To use them, you either prehensible, especially for scientific/ 4. Ml pioneerMchaelZarachnak onthe TheMedia lab , reviewsoffreeform boff's "IntheAgeof theSmart Machine: comparison of OCR productsfor the 4 $25 15 $10 Space Ageand MachineTranslation. databases, Microlytics' WordFinder, TheFuture ofWorkandPower. Mac; andtheBBC's officialde-fucker 5 $25 16 $10 it's a real shame, particularly considering install them in your System file with technical translations. Bill AtkinsonontheHyperCard. McGrawHill's Science andTechnical 6 $25 17 $10 Transputers. Lexicographer supreme how adept the Mac is at handling ac­ Apple's FontlDA Mover, or use a utility And it's user-modifiable - you can Reference onCD-ROM. Borland's Sprint, 11. Cover onhypertextinventorTed 15. Backto Schoolissue.AlanKay's 7 $10 18 $10 Laurence Urdang. Einstein, Olivetti's MacLinkPlus, ElectronicText's Nelson. Features : BBC'sDomesday Vivariumproject. Interactive multimed - 8 $10 19 $10 cented and other special characters, even like Suitease or Master]uggler which does add your own entries to the dictionaries revolutionarynatural languagecomput- WordCruncher, Jurisoft's interactivevideo projec t; NeuralNet- ia. Special needs. Grammar checking 9 $10 P&H +5.00 ingenvironment. The OxfordEnglish CompareRite. works andlanguage process ing; ineducation. CALL Resource Guide. 10 $10 different scripts. But if you are a little bit the job a little more elegantly. The latter and even modify existing dictionary en­ Dictionary CD-ROM. State oftheartof Ericsson'sInterdocindexing and storage Stars: WanRunrian, l.oqotron's Christo- 11 $10 TOTAL . DTP.France's Calliope MTproject. 8. The Media Lab'sNicholas facility; 15tipsonusingXywrite.Stars clever, you can easily put together your programs allow you to keep font files in tries during translation sessions. LIN­ pherRoper,ReferenceSohware's * AVAILABLE ONLY IN PHOTOCOPY. Knowledge ProandKnowledge Maker. Negroponte, Bitstrearn'stypedesign onspeech recognitionwhizJoseph Grammatiklll own system for managing terminology a separate folder, which makes using lots GuIsT costs only $385, including one Reviews: Q& A natural languagedata- whizMatthew Carter, HyperCard Mariani, langtechresearchersatCap Credit card no . on your Mac. offonts a little more manageable. language set. Additional sets cost $95. It base; Grammatik11 stylechecker Handbook's DannyGoodman, Will Your Sogeti,andLinotype. Reviews : Micro 16. Cyberspace issue.IsISDN Neces- Grandchildren Speak Chinese?about OxfordConcordance Program; sary?Alternativenetworks. British Li ~ Expires .. 5. Interactivescreenplays. Maghi King. A number of simple filecard Desk When you go to print with your runs on IBM PC, XT, AT and com­ Chinese wordprocessing, Whatever Word Mark; AskSam; Svrnantec's brary Online. Compu terCrime. Signature . Alex Gross ongfossaries. Dubbing and Happended to CD-I? The Logos ma- GrandView; SitaLanguageLearning HypertextBackgrounder. The Guiness Accessories could easily be configured as ImageWriter, the Mac will simply con­ patibles with DOS 3.0 or later. Russian titling infilmsandtelevision . Philip's chine translation story,wordprocessing System . Disk of Record s,typedesigned Charles o Amex 0 Diners 0 MC 0 Visa 0 Access 0 Eurocard a terminology database. The Doc has vert what is displayed on the screen to to English is currently available, with elegant Rosettamachine translation techno logyfortheblind,15tipsforusing Bigelow, reviewsTermDok,Slaves of Name . project. Stateofthe art of OCR. Susan Microsoft Word,andReviews of 12. Special documentationissue.The New WorkandTechno-scourgeAlain Street .. taken the pulse of DAtabase (Preferred printer output. You'll note, though, that English to Russian shortly to be released. Shepard'sstunninglookat theonline WordStar 2000, PageMaker3:0. currentstateof theartof making manu- Fienkelkraut's newbook phenomenon. Review: theelectrooic Procomm Plus, SideKick Plus, Radius als. Docum entationat BMW. Apollo's Publisher); this is certainly a healthy can­ if you have installed the double size ofthe For further information, contact ghostwriter Thoughtline; thestyle greytone display, Total Word, online documentation system. Docu- 17. Cover starisMarvin Minksy. How Postcode . didate, but there are others as well. font you wish to print, you'll get much microTrans, 348 Turnstone Drive, checker RightWriter; Marquandt'sergo- WordPerfect fortheMac,anda preview mentationin Space- what they'll use togetintothebusiness andtechnical nomic keyboard. USAToday. With DAtabase, you could build (or better results for various technical rea­ Livermore, CA 94550, USA. Tel: +1 of GrammatikIll. onthespace station. Stars: Collin'schief sideof CD-I. Authors onwordp rocessing . Country . dictionary publisher PierreCousin, Groupwareoverview. Wordcrunchingin import) a terminology database and use sons. (415) 4470596. 6. Computer visionary Alan Kayonthe 9. Firstissue aftermerger with Language SITE, theUN'schief terminologistHarald the FarEast. Indepthlookat Siemens ~ a i~ E~ C ~d l ~ O ~ 8 ~ O ~A~ d ~N l_ psychology behind modern interface Monthly.NewLinguaFranca and Hille. 15tipsfor using WordPerfect. naturallanguage productsandprograms --.J

62 LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY #20 , C\\~

WORDWORKER:

NICHOLSON BAKER,

NOVELIST

by Mark Reid Nicholson Baker is a lanky, likeable American story-teller. He's "I'm fanat ically interested in structures" he says. "From big thirtysomething and thinks he's a failure. He wanted to write science to little shapes. You have to use scientific information ­ "normal" novels with plots and all, and instead he's turned out to write up modern life you can't ignore it." two plotless novellas. Everyone else thinks he's a big success. In Room Temperature, Baker vies for the N obel Prize for His first book, The Mezzanine, is about a lunch-hour, and Literature and Science with the same ball, with his analysis ofthe concerns in particular a broken shoelace. His latest work, Room common, or garden comma: "I'mattracted to its sea-horse shape. Introducing Grammatik IV Temperature, is about a man's afternoon with his baby, and in Its assymetrical tapering serve has a baroque qualitywhich makes Write Better Or Your MoneyBack. That'sthe particular the effect ofhis breath, blown across the room from the it distinct from the Euclidean austerity of the full-stop." Grammatik guarantee. Because nowthat weidentify baby-feeding place towards a mobile. Such is the tortoise-pace of With that zest for parts of grammar, imagine Baker's enthusi­ thousandsmore writingerrors, andworkinside the tale that we have to wait until chapter seven to find out asm when he was Data Communications Manager, making WordPerfect®5.0, Microsoft Word®5.0, WordStar® whether the mobile is stirred by the breath-blower. Codexsoftware for the Apollo computerworkstations: "I was Dr. 5.5andProfessionalWrite®2.1, Grammatik IVisas Baker has a microscopic style ofanalysis: jumpers are described Strangelove!" convenient as your spelling checker. Andas powerful textile fibers first, drinking straws are explained over several At home though, Baker's eye for the singular overrides his as anEnglish teacher witha new red pen. pages. In The Mezzanine, this style extends to the use of of abilitywith the state of the art: "I'm still on a Kaypro 2X, with not New GrammatikIVactually proofreads your footnotes. even the standard gun-metal black. It's different from most writing, givingyouimmediate, on-screenfeedback on "It's the first novel to have them," says Baker. Indeed, there's machines, as it doesn't look like part ofa World War Two field errors ingrammar, style, syntax, impropersentence rather more text "belowthe line" than in the anchorstory .There's command center." construction, subject/verbagreement, passive voice, alengthysubsection on footnotes themselves where we learn that: Baker does, however, insist on one thing when he's in session andmore. It showserrors incontext, andlets you "Digression is the only way to be thorough, and footnotes are on the keyboard - sitting comfortably: "The machine.on two big makecorrections immediately. It evenincludes gram­ the only form of graphic digression sanctioned by centuries of dictionaries and me on the strato-lounger:" typesetters:" He is still keen to write that "normal" novel, "It's just that it mar andstyle helpforinstantadvice oneverything The only irritationwith the footnotes is that the small, elevated doesn't seem to work for me." For now we have to settle for his fromadverbs to split infinitives. marker digits are rather too small in the narrative, so that it's hard lurid insight: why does one shoelace always wear out before the All ofwhich means youcanimprove your to find the footnoted word after reading the footnote (and that other? His delight in detail is threatened by being forced through writingas fastas youcantap a key. order of prose consumption rapidly establishes itself). the minutiae, to near nothingness. With GrammatikIVyourletters, memos, Would Baker mind us playing "which came first?" with his "Like Zeno's Paradox, into a mystical nano-instant, so short, reports, proposals. . . allyourwriting will be doubledecker wordwork? "No." And he goes further: "Down­ it's simply the flaying of one synapse," warns Baker. clearer, moreconcise, andmorepersuasivefrom load the novel onto computer, but not just to ease footnote There is, though, another danger to his close-to view of the the veryfirst day. Or yourmoneyback.* following. You can also benefit from the artistic anarchy denied world; a block between brain and computer: "IfI talk about these Call todayto order, or formoreinfor­ by the physical format ofa book." Like most other novelists, he comma-sizedconcerns, t~eyarechanged. They'reprivate thoughts, mation. Becauseuntil November1st, relishes the idea ofcutting out the publishers' middle persons. for the screen only." every50thcaller gets a complete, free Baker also suggests an electronic version ofthe excitement the And for Baker, there's only one way for his brain to contact the Grammatik IV. Andeverycaller gets reader feels as a book's pages-t o-go "disappear" as the book is computer. Imagine. It's dusk. The city's slowing down in bars GrammatikIVproojreadsyvurrejJm1:s, menws and letters/or .free writinghelp: DeWitt new mistakes ingrammor. style, usage, punduanon and sjJellinl!. Scotts read: "Maybe the computer could have red text that gets redder and over TV dinners. N eon' s blinking on. And there's Baker, It'sthefastest easiestway to improveyourwriting. book, Secrets ofSuccessful Writing. .,;;, towards the end." strato-Iounging, sneakers newly laced. He turns the comp uter screen to a low light intensity, a faint green glow. He punches Only $99 (US),Call (415) 541-0 FOR THE SCREEN ONLY keys. Outside's darker still. - FAX: (415) 541-0509

Baker makes investigative forays into such pivotal matters as why "You know some thing's coming out of your brain, but you j (Askaboutournetwork edition**) toothpaste makes a smile audible, and how to put knickers on can't be sure what it is." A faint green glow. "You can't be sure after a shower without your feet wetting the legholes. This quirky what it is." content brings to mind - from another medium - the Talking Until it' s a th ird bestseller! Retrence Ratedthe #1 Grammar N Heads' David Byrne.Though Baker isin it lessfor the exploration Cramrnat-ik Checkerfor thePC ofpsychoses and more in order to strip down what people do and Mark Reid works as a producer for the BBC World Service. Scftuare; Pouerful WritingImprovement J, use like a slightly mad scient ist: He is based in London.

64 Electric Wo r d # 2 0