Software of the Month Club 1998 May/Software of the Month Club 1998 May.iso/pc/dos/edu/entspn15/readme

Text File | 1998-03-03 | 9.6 KB | 186 lines

                          ENTSPN (Version 1.5)


                             ABOUT ENTSPN

Entspn is a fully functional English-Spanish / Spanish-English translator,
a Spanish-only version of the Entente program for translating among fourteen
languages. It is exactly like Entente, except it runs Spanish only, and is
free.

This is not just another spreadsheet or word processor, but an entirely new
kind of program. As such, it requires a longer explanation than most.
But read on -- it's good!

Entspn is meant for conversation, for saying I WANT TO RENT A BIKE - WHERE
BE A BIKE SHOP?, and getting an understandable reply. You can run it on your
desktop to talk to foreign visitors, or carry it with you in your palmtop
computer to help you get around when you go abroad. Because it uses only
singular nouns and only the infinitive of the verb (3 MAN ROB BANK YESTERDAY),
its grammar is often funny.  Yet it is nearly always understandable, and it
can be used to say almost anything, even to discuss complex and controversial
subjects.

Whenever you use an ambiguous word, the program beeps, and prompts you
to tell it which meaning is wanted ("LIKE" IN WHICH SENSE?
1. I LIKE CANDY  2. JOHN IS LIKE SUSAN). Then you must choose before
going on.  Thus you cannot use it to translate foreign documents or newspapers
(They contain conjugations and plurals, and there is no one to choose between
ambiguous meanings.) The program is for conversation only, with both parties
present, or for printing out (or e-mailing) an informal letter to a friend.
For these purposes, though, it is very good.

It differs from word translators, which give little or no clue to the meanings
of ambiguous words and translate a word at a time, making them agonizingly
slow for conversation. It differs from phrase translators in that they have
only a few stock cliches ("Boy, take the bags to the car"-- as though bellhops
ever did anything else, or had to be told this!)

Entspn differs from document translators such as Spanish Assistant (TM)
because they require you to write a full file on a word processor, then
switch to them, then have them quess the meanings of ambiguous words
(and computers are notoriously poor at this!), then tell them which person,
mood, and tense you want for each verb, and then at last they'll produce a
beautiful, grammatical translation --"Help!  My car is on fire!" -- which
the foreigner may read, provided he hasn't left or died in the meantime...
Such programs are meant for documents, and they're good for documents, much
better than the Entente programs. But only Entente is good for conversations,
only Entente covers most of the world with fourteen major languages, and only
Entente allows any pair of people (eg. a Pole and a Korean) to converse on any
topic.

Entente gives you about the same communication ability as a fourth year
university "A" student fresh out of class, but in fourteen languages instead
of just one, and after ten minutes of studying its rules, instead of four
years of classes. Entente aims to be the long-sought grail of artificial
intelligence, a Universal Translator.

Not everyone will like Entente.  Computer net people may be offended that it
writes in all caps (BUT IT ISN'T SHOUTING AT YOU, IT'S JUST THAT THE LOWER
CASE IS USED FOR THE FOREIGN FONTS SUCH AS RUSSIAN AND ARABIC. Foreigners
must tolerate even greater afronts, such as stand-alone letters instead of
properly connected script, but most people quickly get used to such things,
and are tolerant once they understand the necessity.) Other people may be
too rigid to accept foreign word orders and the lack of conjugations,
for the lack of grammar does grate at first. But if you have the flexibility
to laugh at these quirks and go on, then Entente will let you talk to the
whole world.

The Entspn freeware version allows you to evaluate the idea for yourself,
and enables you to converse with two hundred million speakers of Spanish
in the process!

                                USING ENTSPN

All the files take only about 300K bytes, and the document is just 31 pages.
(Furthermore, only the one page of Translator Instructions and the three
pages of Practice Sentences really have to be read.)

The program has only six commands (three important ones) and is easy to learn.
The commands needed "to make it work enough to play with it" appear on the
first screen of the program, but for satisfactory use you must spend five
minutes reading Translator Instructions, Practice Sentences, and A Session
Using Entente, all in MANUAL.DOC (the full document and instructions.)
To view this, you may either type EDIT MANUAL.DOC, TYPE MANUAL.DOC|MORE,
or PRINT MANUAL.DOC.

To run Entspn type SENT (enter).

HP100/200LX:  For small memories, copy to the HP only the files starting with
 "S". eg.  COPY S*.*   .  This way you avoid copying the manual, README, etc.
Set working RAM to 556k (more is fine if you have more than 1 meg RAM).  To
set memory, from the opening menu press & S (Setup) Menu O (Options) and S
(System) , which should display Volume, Contrast, and Memory.  TAB down to
Memory, use the cursor keys to adjust, Enter, and Enter again to restart.
To run SENTENT, quit the System Manager by pressing  & menu A T and Enter,
go to the \ENT directory, and type SENT (Enter). The program should start and
display the first menu in about 30 seconds. Note that you cannot quit Sys.
Manager via D or the DOS icon.  This leaves the S.M. running in the background
and taking up 200k so Entente can't run -- you'll simply get the message
"Cannot execute Entente." And, if you get "File not found" or "Input past end
of file", that's probably because there wasn't room in RAM Disk to unpack the
vocabulary -- you must have  about 130k free and may need to delete other
programs, memos etc -- a one meg memory is small. To return to System Manager,
type 100 (Enter).


                 ENTSPN COMPARED TO OTHER ENTENTE PROGRAMS

Entspn has all the features of the full Entente program for English to
Spanish. The full program has a slightly enhanced vocabulary (3500 words vs
3200), and it comes with a larger, printed manual. It is also available with
vocabularies for Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin, with both Mainland and Taiwan
alphabets), French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese (Romaji and Hiragana
alphabets), Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian(Yugoslavian),
and Spanish.

Entente II is a similar program that translates between any pair of the
above languages (including English).  For example, it can translate between
Hungarian and Arabic, or French and Russian.

Prices as of August 1995 are: Entente, with your choice of foreign language,
$79.95.  Entente II, with any pair of languages, $99.95.  Additional
languages, which work with either program (but NOT with Entspn!!), $39.95
each. Prices subject to change; full refund within a year for any reason.
There is a small discount for those ordering through this freeware package--
our advertising cost is zero through freeware, and we pass that on to you.
To order Entente or Entente II, or for more information, see the file
ORDER.ENT or write :

                        Entente Corporation
                        1441 Mariposa Ave.
                        Boulder, CO 80302
                        USA

                        CHANGES IN THIS VERSION

Differs from v. 1.1 by addition of Introduction in Spanish at end of
MANUAL.DOC, corrections of typos, improved displays invoked by F1 & F2
commands, and inclusion of E-mail address at end of this document. Differs
from 1.2 by addition of first-screen basic instructions, and typo corrections.
Differs from 1.3 and 1.4 in that it will run well on either a VGA system or an
HP100/200LX palmtop or other CGA system.
And,it's much easier to load to an HP.

                               FILE LIST

The following files should unpack from ENTSPN15.ZIP.  If any are missing or
the wrong size, the program may not run right or there may have been a
virus added. (But, alas, the villains who write viruses could also alter
this file to show that the virused file was the right size!  So to be safe,
always run a virus check. Note to villains: Do not remove this warning... :=)


README           9868 This document, not needed to run the program.
CHECKIT.EXE     44684 Used to check syntax of extra vocabulary added to SEXTRA
SEXTRA            348 Extra vocabulary you or others may add, so size may vary.
SENT.BAT          237 Starts the program
SMGLOB.EXE      56047 Main Vocabulary (Not user modifiable)
SEN1GLOB.EXE    26665 English Vocabulary (Not user modifiable)
ORDER.ENT        2915 English Order Form, not required to run program.
FILE_ID.DIZ       834 Description, For BBS operators
ORDERS.ENT       1425 Spanish Order Form, not required to run program.
SENTENT.EXE    125190 The Program
MANUAL.DOC      82465 Instruction Document.  If you understand everything,
                      you need not keep this cluttering your hard disk.
                      Handy to have, but not needed to run program.

                  Working Files Produced by Running Program

CHK        (any size)  A file created if you run CHECKIT.
ENTMSG.TXT (any size)  Default name of text file created if session is written
                       to a file.


                        CONTACTING ENTENTE

You may write to Entente by mail at:

                        Entente Corp.
                        1441 Mariposa Ave
                        Boulder, CO 80302
                        USA

-- or by e-mail at:
                        [e-mail]