Crawly Crypt Collection 1/crawlyvol1.bin/apps/word/spel32/spell.asc

Text File | 1991-04-04 | 31KB | 827 lines

                       Spell/ST User Guide                   v3.2
                 Murray Langton and David Tilley
                           April, 1991

  A versatile English spelling checker and dictionary maintainer

       Text enclosed in square brackets and the Appendices
                may be skipped at a first reading

     0 INTRODUCTION                2 USING MAKEDICT.PRG
        0.0 Distribution              2.0 Introduction
        0.1 System Requirements       2.1 The 'Desk' Menu
        0.2 Files You Need            2.2 The 'Dictionaries' Menu
        0.3 Overview
        0.4 Limitations
        0.5 Your Comments          APPENDICES
     1 USING SPELL.PRG               A What is a Word?
        1.0 Introduction             B Dictionary Format
        1.1 The 'Desk' Menu          C Fatal Error Messages
        1.2 The 'File' Menu          D Background Information
        1.3 The 'Options' Menu       E Known Bugs
        1.4 The 'Dictionaries' Menu  F Improvements

0 INTRODUCTION

0.0 Distribution

Spell/ST and MakeDict are Copyright 1991 Murray Langton and David
Tilley.

Spell/ST and MakeDict are in the public domain. Commercial use of
all  or  any  part  of  this software or its dictionaries is for-
bidden.

Spell/ST's dictionaries were accumulated from many  sources  over
the  years, too  many  to acknowledge individually.  However, the
following deserve special mention:

  Users and staff of the University of London Computer Centre
  Jeff Horne's 'Codebreaker' disc of UK telephone exchange codes

Mistakes in Spell/ST's dictionaries remain our fault, although we
accept no liability for them. We also accept no liability for use
of the Spell/ST and MakeDict programs.

All manufacturers' trademarks are acknowledged.

0.1 System Requirements

You need an Atari ST with at least 400 kilobytes' free memory  to
run  Spell/ST.  On  a 520 ST or a 1040 ST, you may have to remove
one or more of your  desktop  accessories  before  Spell/ST  will
work.  MakeDict requires at least 360 kilobytes' free memory.

Since neither program has been tested on an STE or on versions of
TOS  later  than  1.0  (1985), we would appreciate reports on how
they behave with such systems.

Both Spell/ST and MakeDict work with  Atari's  high-  or  medium-
resolution monitor, but not in low resolution. They have not been
tested with large screens.

Spell/ST  and  MakeDict  are designed to be run from hard disc or
ram disc; they are very slow when used from diskette.

Because MakeDict needs access to the '.WRD' files and enough disc
space to create the MASTER.DIC and MASTER.IND  files,  it  cannot
run  satisfactorily  on  systems  having  only  one  single-sided
diskette drive.

0.2 Files You Need

Before using Spell/ST, you should ensure that you have the  foll-
owing six files:

  File name      Description

  MASTER.DIC     Spell/ST's master dictionary (binary)
  MASTER.IND     Index to Spell/ST's master dictionary (binary)
  READ.ME        Information not in SPELL.ASC
  SPELL.ASC      This document
  SPELL.PRG      Executable Spell/ST program
  SPELL.RSC      Spell/ST's resource file

All should be placed in the same folder as SPELL.PRG  or  in  the
root directory of the drive containing it.

Before  using  MakeDict, you should ensure that you have at least
the following eight files:

  File name      Description

  COMPUTER.WRD   Dictionary of computerese terms (text)
  MAIN.WRD       Dictionary of English words (text)
  MAKEDICT.ASC   This document (same as SPELL.ASC)
  MAKEDICT.PRG   Executable MakeDict program
  MAKEDICT.RSC   MakeDict's resource file
  MAKEDICT.SET   Default location of '.WRD',  '.DIC'  and  '.IND'
                 files (not to be edited)
  NAMES.WRD      Dictionary of names and places (text)
  READ.ME        Information not in MAKEDICT.ASC

All should be placed in the same folder as MAKEDICT.PRG or in the
root directory of the drive containing it.

You do not need MakeDict to run Spell/ST.  They could be supplied
separately by your BBS or archive system.

0.3 Overview

Spell/ST reads text from a file, breaks that text up into  words,
looks up each word in a dictionary, and displays those words that
it couldn't find.  It has some knowledge of plurals, suffixes and
prefixes.  Spell/ST  ignores  some  text-formatting  commands and
works on 1st. Word Plus '.DOC' files. It also detects consecutive
duplicate words and most common split infinitives.

Various optional facilities are available:

  o  four formats for the display of unrecognised words

  o  ignore words containing only upper-case letters, digits, and
     special characters

  o  suggestions for the correct spelling of unrecognised words

  o  supply up to three personal dictionaries to  supplement  the
     standard dictionaries

  o  supply a personal 'reject' dictionary containing words which
     are  to  be  treated as unrecognised, even if they appear in
     another dictionary

  o  which, if any, of the dictionaries should be used

  o  create a dictionary

  o  log unrecognised words

  o  add Spell/ST's report to a file

There are many words which can be  spelt  with  either  'ise'  or
'ize' at the end, recognise or recognize, for example.   For such
words,  Spell/ST  will accept either form (or most variants), but
will report those words which are spelt inconsistently  within  a
document.

The master dictionary used by Spell/ST is constructed from  three
smaller dictionaries for ease of maintenance. The 'main' diction-
ary  contains English words (but not words valid only in American
English), the 'names' dictionary names of people and places,  and
the 'computer' dictionary computing terms. A few words may appear
in more than one dictionary. The master dictionary may optionally
contain  a  reject  dictionary  and three other dictionaries con-
structed by you.

As far as Spell/ST is concerned, all dictionaries  are  contained
by  one  file called MASTER.DIC.  The MakeDict program is used to
construct a MASTER.DIC file from the various '.WRD'  files  supp-
lied  with Spell/ST or constructed by you.  MakeDict is described
in chapter two.

0.4 Limitations

Please note that Spell/ST merely reports words  from  a  document
which were not found in a dictionary; these represent _potential_
spelling mistakes rather than actual mistakes. In practice, there
will be some spelling mistakes, some technical terms, some abbre-
viations, and some  words which are correctly spelt but which are
not (yet) in a dictionary.

Spell/ST cannot locate mistakes which produce some other correct-
ly spelt word, nor does it check context, grammar or punctuation.

Spell/ST has no facilities for interactive spelling correction.

Areas where Spell/ST is known to be weak include the following:

  o  No distinction is made between upper- and lower-case letters

  o  No attempt is made to check that  's  is used  correctly  at
     the  end of a word, though other abbreviations using  '  are
     checked

  o  Hyphenated words are not always  recognised,  especially  if
     they are split at the end of a line

Please see Appendices D, E and F for further discussion.

0.5 Your Comments

Comments  on  how  Spell/ST or MakeDict may be improved should be
e-mailed to David Tilley at:

    [e-mail]                  on JANET
or  [e-mail]  on Internet

or telephoned to [phone]; but please see  Section  0.4
and  Appendices D, E and F before making them.  Your  suggestions
for additions or corrections to Spell/ST's dictionaries should be
sent by e-mail; other people could benefit from them in  a  later
release.

1 USING SPELL.PRG

1.0 Introduction

Double-click on the SPELL.PRG icon.  You will then see the titles
of five drop-down menus.  Their functions are described below.

1.1 The 'Desk' Menu

The 'Desk' menu looks something like the following:

    ----
   |Desk|
   |-------------------
   | About Spell/ST... |
    -------------------

Our copyright notice and Spell/ST's  version number are displayed
when you click on the 'About Spell/ST...' item.

1.2 The 'File' Menu

The 'File' menu looks something like the following:

    ----
   |File|
   |-------------------
   |  Scan document... |
   |  Report to disc   |
   |-------------------|
   |  Quit Spell/ST    |
    -------------------

Scan document:
Use this item to bring up the usual (or your preferred) file sel-
ector.  Choose the name of the file  containing  the  text  whose
spelling  is  to  be  checked.  The first time you use this item,
Spell/ST loads its master dictionary;  this takes about four sec-
onds from hard disc, and about fifty seconds from  diskette.  You
can use this item to check in turn as many documents as you wish.

The  time  taken to produce a complete report varies according to
the size of a document and your equipment.  For example, Spell/ST
took  about  one minute to scan a copy of this guide held on hard
disc and about one-and-a-quarter minutes for a copy on diskette.

Report to disc:
Spell/ST normally sends its reports to a scrolling  window  only.
By  clicking  on  this  item,  the report will also be added to a
file, SPELL.REP in the folder from which SPELL.PRG was executed.

The report produced by Spell/ST will contain:

  o  the location of split infinitives and consecutive  duplicate
     words

  o  the number of lines and words in the file being checked

  o  the time taken to check the file

  o  how many unrecognised words were found

  o  a list, in alphabetical order, of unrecognised words

By default, only the 'main' English dictionary is used.  You  can
stop a report by pressing 'q' or 'Q' at the 'More...' prompt.

You can use the 'Options'  and  'Dictionaries'  menus,  described
below,  to  alter  the  format  and  content of the report and to
select additional dictionaries.

Quit Spell/ST:
When  you're  finished, click on this item to return to the desk-
top.

1.3 The 'Options' Menu

The 'Options' menu looks something like the following:

    -------
   |Options|
   |----------------------
   |  Alphabetical order  |    This item will have a tick mark...
   |  Order of occurrence |
   |  Words in context    |
   |----------------------|
   |  Duplicates          |    ...so will this...
   |  Split infinitives   |    ...and this...
   |  Make suggestions    |
   |  Ignore u/c words    |
   |----------------------|
   |  Statistics          |    ...and this
   |  Frequency counts    |
   |----------------------|
   |  Log unknown words   |
    ----------------------

Items marked with ticks are Spell/ST's default options.

Alphabetical order:
This item causes an alphabetical list of all  unrecognised  words
to  be  produced.   Note than a frequency count of how many times
each word appeared is not included; see  the  'Frequency  counts'
option  below.  [Because  Spell/ST  has  to sort all unrecognised
words into alphabetical order, it will take longer to start prod-
ucing a report compared with the 'Order of occurrence' and 'Words
in context' options (see below).]

Order of occurrence:
List all unrecognised words in order of occurrence with each word
preceded by the number of the line in which it occurs.  Note that
all occurrences of any unrecognised word will be displayed.

Words in context:
Display all lines containing an  unrecognised  word,  preceded by
their  line  number,  and  underline  each unrecognised word with
carets (^).

Duplicates:
Report consecutive duplicate words and their line number.

[A  common  mistake,  especially after a document has been edited
several times, is to have two consecutive words the same. Genuine
duplicated words are rare in English, so Spell/ST will report any
duplicated words and the relevant line number.  One of  the  dup-
licates may be at the end of the previous line. Since blank lines
are not significant to Spell/ST, repetitions can be unnecessarily
reported between a section heading and  the  text  which  follows
it, for example.]

Split infinitives:
Report split infinitives and their line number.

Make suggestions:
Use this item to ask Spell/ST to make suggestions for the correct
spelling  of unrecognised words.  Unrecognised words for which no
plausible suggestions can be made will be listed next  in  alpha-
betical  order.  We  recommended  you  use the 'Ignore u/c words'
option  (see  below)  when you use the 'Make suggestions' option;
this could help Spell/ST save time trying to find correct  spell-
ings for file names and computerese, for example.

Ignore u/c words:
Use  this  item  to  make  Spell/ST  ignore words containing only
upper-case letters, digits and  special  characters.  This  could
help Spell/ST avoid checking non-existent words like file names.

Statistics:
Produce  statistical  information  on  the file whose spelling is
being checked.

Frequency counts:
Against each unrecognised word reported add the number  of  times
it occurred in the document. This is of use only with the 'Alpha-
betical order' option.

Log unknown words:
Cause  Spell/ST to add unrecognised words to a file, NEWWORDS.LOG
in the folder from which SPELL.PRG  is  executed.  Note  that  no
words  will be added unless the main, names and computerese dict-
ionaries are selected.

[Unrecognised words are added to the log  in  alphabetical  order
and  the  name  of  the source document is not recorded.  You can
periodically add valid words from NEWWORDS.LOG to  your  diction-
aries.]

1.4 The 'Dictionaries' Menu

The 'Dictionaries' menu looks something like the following:

    ------------
   |Dictionaries|
   |--------------
   |  Main        |            This item will have a tick mark
   |  Names       |
   |  Computerese |
   |  Reject      |
   |--------------|
   |  User 1      |
   |  User 2      |
   |  User 3      |
   |--------------|
   |  All         |            or 'None'
   |--------------|
   |  Create...   |
    --------------

A tick indicates Spell/ST's default dictionary.

Main:
Select the dictionary of English words.

Of  the  three  dictionaries supplied with Spell/ST, we recommend
you use only the English dictionary when you first check a  docu-
ment.

Names:
Select the dictionary of names and places.

If you select the extensive  'names'  dictionary  without  having
previously  scanned your document without it, Spell/ST could fail
to detect a misspelling.  For example, 'bangor' could  be  recog-
nised as valid when you really meant 'banger'.

Computerese:
Select the dictionary of computerese words.

If you select the extensive 'computerese' dictionary without hav-
ing  previously  scanned your document without it, Spell/ST could
fail to detect a misspelling.  For  example,  'pascal'  could  be
recognised as valid when you really meant 'rascal'.

There  are  many technical words which would not appear in a nor-
mal dictionary. Spell/ST can be instructed to check words against
personal dictionaries supplied by you, besides checking its  own.
The following four options may be selected if you wish such dict-
ionaries  to  be  used.   Please  note  that,  to  use  your  own
dictionaries, you'll have to construct a  new  master  dictionary
from them with the MakeDict program.

Reject:
Select your dictionary of words to be rejected.

[You  may  often mistype a word as some other valid word, 'my' as
'mu' or 'trial' as 'trail', for example.  To avoid  changing  the
standard dictionaries to cope with this situation, you may  cons-
truct  a  dictionary  containing  words  which  are  always to be
treated as unrecognised, regardless of  whether  they  appear  in
another  dictionary.  A  reject  dictionary could also be used to
cause  the  rejection  of  English  words  which  are  invalid in
American English; this could be used with a user dictionary  (see
below)  containing   words  which  are valid in American, but not
English, English.

You  could  construct Spell/ST dictionaries for another language.
The only restriction is that its alphabet  should  be  reasonably
represented by ASCII.]

User 1:
Select your first dictionary.

User 2:
Select your second dictionary.

User 3:
Select your third dictionary.

All:
Cause all the above dictionaries to  be  selected,  if  they  are
present.

None:
Cause all the above dictionaries to be de-selected.

[When  all  dictionaries are de-selected, Spell/ST will recognise
no words in your document.  'None' may be used with  the  'Alpha-
betical order' option (see above) to produce an alphabetical list
of all the words in your document.]

The following menu item will be of interest to those who wish  to
maintain Spell/ST dictionaries.

[Create:
This  menu item is used to instruct Spell/ST to prepare to create
a dictionary.  Fill the file-selector with the name of  a  '.WRD'
file.  When  you next use 'Scan document', the unrecognised words
in the document will be written to the '.WRD' file you specified.
That file will be suitable for adding to  the  master  dictionary
with MakeDict.

It  is a good idea to select all Spell/ST's standard dictionaries
- and all your own as well - when you use 'Create'.

If you selected a 'User 1' dictionary, it will be  extended  into
the '.WRD' file with the unknown words from your document.  Words
added  will  be marked to the right with '<', aiding the location
and checking of the new words.

Please note there is a limit of about 700 on the  number  of  un-
known words which may added with 'Create'.]

2 USING MAKEDICT.PRG

2.0 Introduction

The MakeDict program is a utility for maintaining a Spell/ST mas-
ter dictionary.  It reads some or all of the various '.WRD' files
supplied with Spell/ST - or amended or  provided  by  you  -  and
makes from them two files, MASTER.DIC and MASTER.IND. The idea is
regularly  to  add  to the '.WRD' files and occasionally to apply
MakeDict to them.

[Those who wish to maintain Spell/ST dictionaries should  consult
Appendices A and B.  It is often easier to maintain your personal
dictionaries, not those supplied with Spell/ST.  Incidentally, we
recommend Tempus 2 for editing large '.WRD' files.]

A  complete run of MakeDict takes a long time: about three-and-a-
quarter minutes from hard disc and about  ten-and-a-half  minutes
from diskette, so it's not something you'll want to do too often.
However, it is  worthwhile if you regularly use Spell/ST and wish
its dictionaries accurately to reflect your needs. You'll have to
use MakeDict if you wish Spell/ST to use any of the four personal
dictionaries.

2.1 The 'Desk' Menu

MakeDict's 'Desk' menu looks something like the following:

    ----
   |Desk|
   |-------------------
   | About MakeDict... |
    -------------------

Our copyright notice and MakeDict's version number are  displayed
when you click on the 'About MakeDict...' item.

2.2 The 'Dictionaries' Menu

The 'Dictionaries' menu looks something like the following:

    ------------
   |Dictionaries|
   |----------------
   | Select...      |
   | Save setup     |     This item is disabled on first entry...
   | Make           |     ...as is this...
   | Information... |     ...and this
   |----------------|
   | Quit MakeDict  |
    ----------------

The disabled items will be activated later.

Select:
When you click on this item, a multiple file-selector is display-
ed which you fill with the  names  of  the  '.WRD'  files  to  be
included  in  your master dictionary; at least one must be speci-
fied and you must supply a path for these.  The selector is  also
used  to  locate your master dictionary and its index.  Note that
their path may be different from that of the '.WRD' files.  Click
on the 'Okay' button when you've made  your  selection.  MakeDict
will  complain  if you've typed incorrect path names or the names
of non-existent '.WRD' files.

Save setup:
Once  you  have  decided  which '.WRD' files to use, click on the
'Save setup' item to save your selections for the next time.

Make:
Click on this item to generate a master dictionary. This can take
some time - see Section 2.0.

Information:
Once the generation of the master dictionary is  complete,  click
on  the  'Information' item to obtain the following statistics on
the dictionaries you have used:

  o  the time taken to read or write a dictionary

  o  the number of words each dictionary contains

  o  the number of 'variants' (see Appendix  B)  each  dictionary
     contains

  o  the number of bytes occupied by each dictionary

Quit MakeDict:
When  you're  finished, click on this item to return to the desk-
top.

APPENDIX A What is a Word?

Spell/ST usually considers each line  of  the  source  file  sep-
arately.  The  exception  is when a word appears to be hyphenated
at the end of a line, in which case that line and  the  following
line are effectively joined and the hyphen removed.

Lines and/or words will be ignored when:

  o  a line starts with a full stop

  o  a word is preceded by '\' or '|'  (text  in  round  brackets
     after such a word is also ignored)

  o  a letter is preceded by '$'

  o  the first two characters in a line are '//' or '/*'

The  first  three  avoid  the  text-formatting  commands of GCAL,
LaTeX, PROFF, TeX and Tidy, whilst the last avoids MVS JCL.

Within a line, a word is a sequence of characters satisfying  the
following conditions:

  o  each word is as long as possible

  o  a word starts with a  letter,  or  a  digit  followed  by  a
     letter,  or the digit 1  followed by a digit followed  by  a
     letter, and may contain letters and digits

  o  a  word  may  also  contain   full   stops,   hyphens,   and
     apostrophes,  provided  that  each such special character is
     preceded and followed by a letter or digit

Note that upper-case letters are effectively converted to  lower-
case  and  words  truncated  to a maximum of 26 characters.  One-
letter words and the two-character sequence 's at the  end  of  a
word are ignored.

APPENDIX B Dictionary Format

Within  a  Spell/ST  dictionary  (with  a name ending in '.WRD'),
words are ordered first by length  (shortest  words  first),  and
then  alphabetically,  one word per line, with no leading spaces.
All letters are treated as if they were in lower case.  A  '.WRD'
dictionary  may  contain comment lines preceded by an exclamation
mark.

If you use Spell/ST's 'create' facility to extend a '.WRD'  file,
the comments it contains will not appear in its extension.

Spell/ST's master dictionary, contained in MASTER.DIC  and  cons-
tructed  by  MakeDict  from the various '.WRD' files, is a binary
file not readable by you.  MakeDict issues a warning if the  size
of  a master dictionary grows to within one per cent of the maxi-
mum allowed, 290,000 bytes, at  present.  The  master  dictionary
supplied  with  Spell/ST  has room for about a further 275 eight-
letter  words,  excluding  variants.  Versions  of  Spell/ST  and
MakeDict having  larger  or  smaller  dictionary  capacities  are
available on request - see Section 0.5.

Alphabetical order is as follows:

     . - ' abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

The size of the main dictionary has been reduced by a  factor  of
about 2.5 by attaching affix flags to word stems.

A backslash '\' separates the word from the affix flags.  Various
letters after the backslash represent rules for deriving affixes,
as shown in the table which follows these examples:

  Word\flags        Represents

  stare\abc         stare, stares, staring, stared;
  pose\bcstw        pose, posing, posed, unposed, repose,
                    reposing, reposed, dispose, disposing,
                    disposed;
  divide\abcfhims   divide, divides, dividing, divided, divider,
                    division, dividers, divisions, undivided;
  affect\abchlmqs   affect, affects, affecting, affected,
                    affection, affectation, affections,
                    affectations, unaffected.

The affix flags, listed below, are ordered  so  that  prefix  and
suffix flags appear in separate groups arranged in order of freq-
uency of occurrence.

 Flag   Action/condition           Prefix/suffix

   a    add                        -s
   b    replace       -ee     by   -eeing
        else replace  -e      by   -ing
        else add                   -ing
   c    replace -<consonant>y by   -ied
        else replace  -e      by   -ed
        else add                   -ed
   d    replace       -ic     by   -ically
        else replace  -y      by   -ily
        else add                   -ly
   e    replace       -y      by   -ies
        else replace  -f      by   -ves
        else replace  -fe     by   -ves
        else add                   -es
   f    replace -<consonant>y by   -ier
        else replace  -e      by   -er
        else add                   -er
   g    replace       -ate    by   -acy
        else replace  -ant    by   -ancy
        else replace  -ent    by   -ency
        else replace  -e      by   -y
        else add                   -y
   h    replace       -mit    by   -mission
        else replace  -ibe    by   -iption
        else replace  -ume    by   -umption
        else replace  -de     by   -sion
        else replace  -e      by   -ion
        else add                   -ion
   i    apply rule f,  then   add  -s
   j    double last letter,   add  -ed   or  -ing
   k    replace       -y      by   -iness
        else add                   -ness
   l    replace       -e      by   -ation
        else replace  -y      by   -ication
        else add                   -ation
   m    apply rule h,  then   add  -s
   n    replace       -ble    by   -bility
        else replace  -acious by   -acity
        else replace  -ous    by   -ity
        else replace  -e      by   -ity
        else add                   -ity
   o    replace -<consonant>y by   -iable
        else replace  -e      by   -able
        else add                   -able
   p    replace       -e      by   -est
        else replace  -y      by   -iest
        else add                   -est
   q    apply rule l,  then   add  -s
   r    apply rule b,  then   add  -s
   s    add prefix               un-    apply rules c,j(-ed) only
   t    add prefix               re-    apply rules a-r,x
   u    add prefix               un-    apply rules a-r,x
   v    add prefix               in-    apply rules a-r,x
   w    add prefix              dis-    apply rules a-r,x
   x    check consistent use of    -ise  and  -ize

APPENDIX C Fatal Error Messages

Spell/ST

"A line is longer than 256 characters."
  The document being scanned has at least one line containing
  more than 256 characters.
  Solution: shorten the offending line(s).

"Can't find <filename>!"
  where <filename> is MASTER.DIC, MASTER.IND or SPELL.RSC.
  Solution: read Section 0.2.

"Error <letter> at address <address> {message}"
  If this occurs, please supply us with full details.

"The master dictionary is too big."
  This occurs if MASTER.DIC is larger than 290,000 bytes.
  Solution: apply MakeDict to fewer and/or smaller '.WRD' files.

"There are too many unknown words."
  Possible solutions: select more dictionaries, use the 'Ignore
  u/c words' option, or correct some spelling mistakes.

"Spell doesn't run at low resolution."
  Solution: select medium resolution or use a monochrome monitor.

MakeDict

"A dictionary word is too short."
  Solution: remove the one-letter word from the offending '.WRD'
  file.

"Can't find <filename>!"
  where <filename> is MAKEDICT.RSC or MAKEDICT.SET.
  Solution: read Section 0.2.

"Dictionary not ordered by size around line <line>."
  Solution: relocate the word in the offending '.WRD' file.

"MakeDict doesn't run at low resolution."
  Solution: select medium resolution or use a monochrome monitor.

"The master dictionary will be too big."
  Solution: select fewer and/or smaller '.WRD' files.

APPENDIX D Background Information

SPELL, implemented on mainframes  under  MVS  and  VM  by  Murray
Langton, doesn't have to worry about how much memory is used. The
dictionaries  are  held  in  human-readable form and converted to
internal form each time SPELL is used.

SPELL, implemented for  the  Atari  ST  micro-computer  by  David
Tilley, has been split into two parts: MakeDict takes the  human-
readable dictionaries and converts them to internal form (includ-
ing  index  construction).  Spell/ST  can then read the converted
dictionaries more quickly.  Split infinitive detection  has  been
added.

The  problems  with SPELL on a micro-computer are the size of the
dictionaries and indices (some 300 kilobytes) and the time  taken
to  read them, especially from diskette.  We are considering ways
of alleviating these problems.

In the meantime, we offer you a versatile, if rather  cumbersome,
package.

APPENDIX E Known Bugs

Spell/ST and MakeDict: window actions are sluggish immediately on
exit.  They soon recover, however.

Spell/ST's  'stack' was increased from 4 to 32 kilobytes to allow
for the detection of a very large number of unknown words.   This
may prove insufficient for some documents when the message 'There
are too many unknown words' appears.

If  you try to use 'Create' to add more than ~700 words, Spell/ST
can crash, after which the machine hangs.

In medium resolution only, if you click on  the  'About Spell/ST'
menu item _after_ scanning a document, the resulting form is cor-
rupted and Spell/ST exits. This annoying bug is proving difficult
to track down but, fortunately, the machine doesn't hang.

Please report bugs via e-mail (see Section 0.5).

APPENDIX F Improvements

The following improvements to Spell/ST come to mind:

  Reduce size of master dictionary. )
  Speed up document scan.           ) see Appendix D
  Save on memory.                   )
  Provide a Spell/ST desk accessory.  No point until the above
    improvements are made.
  Allow a dot in a MakeDict folder name.
  Highlight unknown words in context output instead of using ^.
  Improve treatment of end-of-line hyphens.
  Provide interactive correction.

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