Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/other/atm/atm.doc

Text File | 1991-08-18 | 19KB | 425 lines

           OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE COMPUTERIZED TORAH TREASURY

                                    (ATM)
                         (Aotzar H'Torah HM'Muchshav)
                          ^        ^        ^


                         COMPUTERIZED TORAH TREASURE
                   424 Sterling St. Brooklyn N.Y. 11225
                              [phone]







                         The principle Behind the
                       COMPUTERIZED TORAH TREASURY

     The Computerized Torah Treasure Institute is proud to announce the
availability of the Computerized Torah Library, which will revolutionize the
search and retrieval of sources from the Oral and Written Law and Torah
literature in general.

    A Computerized Torah Library - To What End?

    The invention of the printing press, the telephone and the tape-recorder
were technological developments which at the time of their appearance
assisted thousands in the learning of Torah and in spreading it among the
masses of Jews throughout the world. In the same way, the development of
personal home computer (P.C.) technology and the innovative software of "The
Computerized Torah Treasure" has made available to the public the
Computerized Torah Library, which will facilitate the rapid and accurate
retrieval of sources from the Bible, the Babylonia and Jerusalem Talmuds,
Meimonides, the Shulchan Aruch, the Zohar as well as the books of all other
basic Torah sources. The Computerized Library saves a tremendous amount of
time in the search for a necessary Halachic source or one of the Sages'
writings. The computerized Library assists the Torah student to take
advantage of his time for fruitful in-depth study of a topic or discourse.

    How do the great sages and scholars feel about resource collections
which make it easy for learners to find valuable material?

    Maimonides wrote in his commentary on the Mishnah (Sanhedrin, Perek
Helek, paragraph 13): "...I found value in it, since I collected helpful
things which were scattered throughout great books." And in the book Pele
Yoez the author writes: How great a service did the master of the resource
collections perform in every generation; they merited and helped others to
merit; the merit of the many depends on them... and especially in our
generation of orphans, when we are troubled by the lack of time and a short
span of concentration ... Indeed through collections of sources we can, in a
small way, fulfill our obligation. and in every generation these
collections, like those of Early Sages, will provide benefit to the many
...And don't think to mock them... since the books of these master
collectors are better than all the writings of the hair-splitters and
dialectists.

    The "S'dei Hemed" in his introduction wrote: "And the Gaon... who
compiled indices for the Rosh's rulings from scattered sources, not always
in their place, how great is the benefit from his work... The general
conclusion is that these works are desirable to make the Torah greater and
to glorify it.

    The sages of our generation who have seen the Computerized Torah
Library, which facilitates rapid retrieval of essential material, gave their
blessings and their encouragement to the project.

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              Who is The Computerized Torah Library Intended For?

For Torah institutes, libraries, authors of books and articles, teachers
and everyone who studies Torah, even young students, can enjoy the Torah
computer.

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            What does it take to acquire A computerized Torah Library?

Perhaps it is better to begin by saying that it is unnecessary to have a
Mainframe or a large business computer whose price is in the tens of
thousands of dollars. Nor are there ongoing expenses for every hour of use
and maintenance. For the Computerized Torah Library one only needs to have a
regular home computer (IBM PC or compatible) with a small hard disk which is
commonplace today in many homes and offices and which has a variety of uses.
The entire Computerized Torah Library (which includes hundreds of the most
important sforim (books) from our sages of many generations), fits into a
80meg drive WITHOUT the Shaalos & Tshuvos (Responsa). With the Responsa
320meg is required.


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      Is Any Prior Knowledge of Computers Necessary To operate And Use The
                       Computerized Torah Library?

 No. Even someone who never saw a computer in his life can, in a matter of
hours learn how to operate the Program. The library comes with a
clearly-written instruction manual on its use. In addition, in the course of
operating the program there is an on line help option,  when one runs into
trouble or forgets something.


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         Who Supports The Institute of The Computerized Torah Treasure?

    Substantial financial support for establishing the Institute and seeing
it through to its completion has been amassed from investors in The U.S.A.
who recognized the importance of the Computerized Torah Library and its
contribution to the study of Torah. The entire Institute is administered by
Torah scholars who are not dependent on any institutional body and who
represent the whole spectrum of the Torah world.

    At the head of the Institute sits the Sage, President of the RabbinicCourt, Rabbi Shmuel Baruch Werner shlit"a.

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          WHAT OPERATIONS CAN THE COMPUTERIZED TORAH LIBRARY DO?

 What Retrieval Functions Are Available With The Computerized Torah Library?

        * Word retrieval
        * Various types of phrase retrieval where the phrases are not
contiguous, by defining approximate distance between words which are
mentioned in them.
        * Retrieval of synonyms.
        * Retrieval of various spellings and grammatical forms by means of
the root-word with prefixes and suffixes, full or abbreviated orthography
and options for letters which substitute for each other.
        * The possibility for rejecting unwanted phrases, which do not
relate to the subject of the search.
        * Selection of words with a particular spelling or morphology.
        * Review and examination of sections of sources identified through
the computerized search, highlighting important words for the search in the
text.
        * An option for printing references and/or certain sections
identified in the computerized search.
        * When writing  a torah-based article on a word processor, one can
move (by pressing a single button) in the midst of writing to a search mode
in order to retrieve a source or the exact language of a verse quoted, and
afterward to return to the writing of the article with the source in place.

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   It is sufficient to know just a few key-words (very often just one word
will do) from a biblical or Talmudic passage or phrase in order to execute a
search. One doesn't even have to know the exact spelling of the key-words in
order to find what he's looking for in the Computerized Torah Library.

    You key in up to five search words from a desired phrase or passage. if
you suspect that an alternative word might appear in place of one of the
key-words, you can indicate up to three alternates for each word. If you're
unsure of the spelling of the word or of a grammatical prefix or suffix that
will appear in the word, you can add various codes that will expand the
search accordingly. Non consecutive words can also be searched for, by
including the limits of a search range in your search parameters. After
specifying the search parameters, a quick press of a button will bring the
results of a LIGHTNING FAST SEARCH to the display screen.

    You can execute the same search on different databases included in the
Computerized Torah Library (Currently 22 databases are included). Similarly,
you can limit the search to specific volumes in each database.

    The findings of the search will be displayed in condensed form on the
screen. You can then call up the full text to the screen and browse through
it using the cursor movement keys. You can also choose to displaying the
index of the results, without the text itself being displayed. Results can
be immediately sent to an attached printer for a hard copy.


****************************************************************************

                             PROGRAM START-UP

    1. Turn on your computer and move to the root directory in the drive
where the Program resides (C or D).

    2. Type the letters ATM, and press ENTER key.

    On the screen programs logo will be flashing for a few seconds, then you
will see on the screen what we call "The Search Screen", (All your searches
will be entered on this screen).

    Also included on this screen, functioning Instructions with this screen.
These will be explained later in detail.

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              Explanation of Various "Fields" on "The Search Screen":

    (The word "Fields" on the screen means that you can type something on
this part of the screen).

    1. Search Words - (In the upper half of the screen, also called Group
one). type a key-word or words (up to five, one per line) to be searched
for. (Our experience showed that five words is a sufficient number to be
included in any search).

    2. Alternative Words - (In the lower half of the screen, also called
Group two). For each key-word in group one, you can specify (by switching
between group one and two using the PgUp and PgDn keys)  an alternative
key-word ("OR" in computer lingo), up to three alterative words for each
key-word. Enter the alternative word by the corresponding number of group
one.

    3. Code - If you're unsure of the spelling of the key-word (or
alternative word), use one of the following codes in this field (The "CODE"
field). If you are searching  for the exact spelling, as entered, leave this
field blank.

There are six Code letters:

   * (Prefix)
   * (Suffix)
   * (Middle)
   * (Incremental)
   * (Core)
   * (Root)

    The meaning or - terminology  of The Codes are as following:

* Prefix - You key-word represents the prefix to the word to be searched
for.

* Suffix - Your key-word represents the suffix to the word to be searched
for.

* Middle - Your key-word represents the middle of the word to be searched
for, allowing both prefixes and suffixes.

* Incremental - letters, other than key-word, will be allowed at the
beginning, at the end or in the middle of your key-word. This will be
helpful when only the root of the word is known. Various spelling will be
offered.

* Core - Same as "Middle", but the letters of the key-word doesn't have to
stay in the order that it was typed.

* Root - similar to "Core" above, but this code will only change the order
of the letters without adding any letters.

    Be prepared to receive many unrelated results when using the above
codes. To get around, you can filter it with the F3/F4 keys as it will be
discussed later.


    Word +/-
    --------

    Those fields determines just the position of the key-words entered in
group one which was mentioned. The words may be between one and ninety nine
words apart, in either direction. If left blank, the program will search for
consecutive words only.

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                  FUNCTION KEYS (IN THE "SEARCH SCREEN")

    Cursor Movement
    ---------------
    Moving the cursor from field to field. The ENTER key moves the cursor to
the next field. The HOME key returns you to the previous field.

    The Up/Down-arrows move the cursor from line to line. PgUp/PgDn key
move the cursor between Group one and Group two in the compared line
numbers.


    Search Keys
    ___________

F1 - Word Verification.
     Pressing F1 will produce the amount of occurrences and (if "field Code"
is not left blank) forms of the word, in the "Occurrences/Forms" fields. The
curser key will advance to next line. The results will be memory resident
and only the F9 function is needed to execute the search (see more at the F9
function explanation).

F2 - Word verification.
     Same as F1 but the cursor will stay in the current line.

     The two following function keys work only when the field "Code" is not
blank:

F3 - Word selection.
     After giving a code to the word, use this key to scan the list of the
form related to key-word, and choose the relevant.

F4 - Word selection.
     Same as F3, but in addition to the list of words, their frequencies
also appear.

F5 - Word exclusion.
     If you want to stipulate a word that should not appear in your key
phrase, use F5.   Stipulate (+/-) if you don't want the word to appear
within a range around the previous key-word. if you don't want the word to
be excluded from related words (See F3/F4), stipulate a (+/-) of "0".

    Example: you want to search for the word "go", with all its variations
except "goes". Enter "go" as key-word (line 1) and "goes" as key-word (line
2). Before executing the search, Add "0" to the (+/-) field in line 2, press
F5 while the cursor is on this line, and all occurrences of the word "goes"
in place of the word "go" will be excluded.

    F9 - Execute after Prior Confirmation. After having confirmed your
key-words (with F1/F2) or after choosing specific words (with F3/F4), press
F9 to execute the search. It will be carried out very quickly since the
first stage was already done.

    F10 - Confirm and Execute. This key carries out the search without prior
confirmation of your key-words. The computer combines both tasks, first
giving occurrences and forms, then executing the search. While searching,
the program opens windows on the screen, showing a real-time clock and
occurrences which tracks the computer's progress.



                            SPECIAL FUNCTION KEYS

    The ALT F# Combination
    ----------------------
    (To use an ALT F-key combination, keep the ALT key pressed down while
pressing the desired F-key).

    ALT  F1 - Clear screen and memory. When you desire to clear all key
words and codes, in order to begin a new search, use the ALT F1 combination.

    ALT F5 - Display text. When you want to display text on the screen,
without executing a search, use ALT F5. You must know the exact reference as
it appears in the heading produced by a search or else the text will not be
displayed. (Currently not operational).

    ALT F2 - Exits from ALT F5 and returns to the search screen.

    ALT F7 - Limit the search. When you want to limit the search to part of
a database (e.g. while in the Bible data base, you only want to search
Genesis), pressing ALT F7, will give you a list of the books found in that
database. move from book to book with the up/down arrow keys and include
books in the search by pressing F1.

    CTRL F7 - discharges the limit of the search defined by ALT F7.

    ALT F8 - Choose database. By pressing ALT F8, you get a list of the
available database to be displayed on the screen. Move from one database to
another with the up/down arrow keys and select the desired database by
pressing the ENTER/ESC key.

    The "Search Screen" will be the same after switching a database, only
the memory will be cleared, but the key-words will stay in their fields.
They can be cleared from the screen by pressing ALT F1.



                              SECONDARY SCREENS

    (There are functions in the "Search screen " that will result other
screens with various available functions. Those "screens/functions" will be
explained next.)

                             SEARCH RESULT SCREEN

    Chose An Occurrence
    -------------------

    F1/F2 - (To view the full text of one of the occurrences, press F1 and
place the cursor anywhere on the chosen occurrence).

    To disable this function, just press F2.

    Display An Occurrence Text
    --------------------------

    F3/F4 are used to display full text. With F3 only a paragraph is
available while using F4 a full chapter text displays.

    F9 - By pressing F9, a table of titles will be displayed.

    Printing Text
    -------------

    The letter "P" will print the occurrence selected previously with the F1
key.

    With ALT-P you print all occurrences find for the search.


                          WORD-CONFIRMING SCREEN

    When entering a search word and a code, a listing of words with
different forms will be listed on this screen. the following choices are
available:

    F1: Choose each word separately by moving the cursor key between
the word and pressing F1.

    The F2 function key will disable the word chosen by F1.

    If an entire screen is desired to be chosen, press ALT-F1.

    ALT- F2 will disable this entire screen.


***************************************************************************
All ATM database programs are in Hebrew ASCII. Your computer must be able to
display Hebrew text to the screen to use the ATM DEMO program or the full
working version. If you have an EGA or VGA screen, you can use any one of
several free programs available from L'Chaim BBS to display Hebrew to the
screen. If you have a MONOCHROME or CGA monitor, then you need a Hebrew chip
installed on your video card. Contact L'Chaim BBS at 718-756-7201
(FDX-N-8-1) for details or call voice at 718-774-3997 for pricing.

ATM database now includes Tanach, Talmud Bavly, Talmud Yerushalmy, Rambam,
Shulchan Aruch, Medrash Raba, Zohar, Tikuney Zohar, Zohar Chodosh, Tosefta,
Ramban al H'Tora, Masechtos Ktanos and Otzar Medroshim and many Shaalos and
Tshuvos Sforim.