Posted by Ed Kiser on September 19, 2002 at 01:58:09 from 152.163.188.167 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Ed's magic search engine posted by Jeremy Kriewaldt on September 19, 2002 at 00:35:36:
Be aware of certain situations:
The PD, ML, and GN are not in my list of books I have typed.
The ones I have done (yes, there are 9) are all HAND-TYPED,
not scanned, and are therefor subject to the ever-present
typo error which I cannot guarantee does not exist.
Seems like everytime I go to look up something, a glaring
error leaps off the page for me to fix and update in my
various archives.
Being in ASCII DOS TEXT format, there should not be any
problems with managment of that mode of presentation, as
that is about at "vanilla" as you can get.
My files do not contain any illustrations (how does one
type in an illustration...) but I do include a page
reference and the TITLE of the illustration. Sometimes
when doing a FIND (good ol' DOS utility) on the text, it
will come up with the line that is this picture title,
which is not exactly part of the text of the book proper.
My entries have essentially ignored the usage of italics
in the original books.
It sounds like a lot of work to type in all that stuff, but
it was, as I have said before in this forum, a "labour of
love." I enjoyed the experience. By typing in every word,
every punctuation mark, the re-reading experience was kept
from being a cursory scan. By being forced to look at these
details, I came across so much that I was not aware of, in
spite of the many times I feel I have "re-read" these books.
These books have been a part of my life for the past 60 years,
and continue to bring pleasure, joy, and satisfaction as from
time to time, I return to that land to revisit the playmates
of my childhood, who, I am glad to see, have not grown old.
The interest in MAPS, in CODES, semaphore and morse, all came
into my childhood's learning, a time when learning is easy and
eager.
When the time came to set sail in my new 4 meter catamarin,
I set that sail, shipped the rudders (yes, two of them, twin
hulls) and with full confidence, having never been shown how
to do it, was able to sail right through the mooring area into
the open lake. Stick my toes under the hiking straps, lean way
out, and set it close-hauled into the wind, with the sound of
the water thrumming on the aluminum daggerboards slicing through
the water below, with the wind in my face. I guess what I had
to learn the hard way was that the wind essentially dies at
dusk, and I was quite a ways away from where I wanted to get
back to. So we learn. But the major part of that experience
was the result of sailing with the Swallows, Amazons, and D's.
I heard Nancy coaching me with "Fingers, fingers!" It was a
great experience, one that without my Ransome friends would
have been a big mess of things.
Now, back to the access to these files. Until a more public
access can be defined and set up, feel free to drop me a note
requesting a scan for a certain word or phrase, and I'll be
glad to give it a go. Phrases can be a problem, because if
part is on one line and the phrase is continued onto the next
line, then my search will not locate that particular usage,
as it take each line, one at a time, and scans that line for
the specified text.
Keep on reading...
Ed Kiser, south Florida