AemulorPro use

OK, Here is a scan from a couple of pages of the book

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/temp/Pages-60-61.png

Some other symbols also need a ‘top hat’ over the glyph, etc.

In addition I had to invent a set of ‘Optical Circuit Symbols’ to be able to draw out the mmwave optical circuits equivalents of conventional electronic circuits. You can see an array of the circuit symbols here:

https://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/sa_1988-9/GroupExpands.html

about midway down the page, along with some photos of the related bits of mmwave optical items, etc.

How OCR would cope I dunno. But I tried once to rescue the original files and after some days gave up!

If I can get a decent PDF I’d make it freely available like my other book. Admittedly, the audience would be somewhat smaller as it was quite specialised. That said you can also use the general argument in audio. :-)

The scan is very clean.

Admittedly, the audience would be somewhat smaller as it was quite specialised.

Yes, but the interest of this type of book is also their educational side.
and (from your book Information and Measurement)

Have you tried opening your (files) book with PipeDream as suggested by Stuart ?

Yes. If anyone is interested I could put up one or two of the old files… assuming I can find them! The problem is with the control codes used for specific ‘extension’ behaviours like choosing a set of ‘graphics’ glyphs or ones for the maths – e.g. a z with a ‘hat’. All at the time in bitmap fonts of a fixed size and shape to align.

The result didn’t look good, but was readable by the typesetters at IoP. They produced what I scanned using old-fasioned typesetting methods. That looks much better.

FWIW I initially did this with a BBC B with an added external processor. Then updated it for use on a Master, etc. But when TechWriter came along I welcomed that and stopped using the old DIY approach.

I also developed a way to ‘squash’ some bitmap graphics. (All mode 0).

FWIW2 I’d happily scan the book, but that would produce a pile of bitmaps of 2-page size. Not very convenient for others to use and probably quite a lot of MB in size in total. That said, some chapters are now irrelevant as back then I also needed to explain things like impatt oscillators and cooing InSb detectors down to liquid-helium temperatures. Its the optics bits that remain relevant.

Arcane and archaic* now, but needed back then.

• Plus more words starting with ‘Arc’… or do I mean ‘Ark’? :-)

Arcane and archaic* now, but needed back then.

One time, when I was quite ill, I passed the recuperation time reading a hefty RSGB tome from the late fifties or early sixties. Lots of schematics with valves, and a detailed description of how they actually did what they do. And some seriously retro-looking stuff. ;)
[unfortunately I had to give the book back]

Just because it is archaic doesn’t mean it should be forgotten. Think of all of this knowledge, all these skills, all this documentation, just dissipating…

@Rick, I agree with you!

A long time ago, I learned about electromagnetism and its equations. But I have never practiced it and I would like to review this area with examples and simulations using RISC OS

@Jim
If you have time to scan the first pages of the first chapter of your book, I can check if your book is accessible at my level of knowledge,and if you have the corresponding text files, I will try to make a Techwriter version…
I do it this way with the Rhapsody4 manual (I haven’t finished yet!)

I’m not in a hurry, take your time.

The book was nominally targetted to someone entering the field (pun alert!) of mm-wave tech a few decades ago. But I’m not a great mathematician, so the maths should be followable by someone who isn’t scared off by ‘hard sums’.

I suspect OCR would do a faster job on the text thn trying to read my ancient ‘view’ files. However as step one I’ll find and put up on the web some example files, along with some scans.

It may be some time because my brain is obsessed at present with writing a !Composcript to plot antenna near-field patterns and the corresponding far-field patterns! I keep getting signs wrong in some of the expressions! So the plotting works fine, just that I keep plotting the wrong pattern! 8-}

Err – doesn’t Pipedream import View files?

OCR has no problems with the text, but there are a lot of equations which it can’t handle; they would need to be input into TechWriter or some other tool — LaTeX for example. I’m assuming the ultimate goal would be to produce a PDF or HTML file(s) as output?

I thought I’d already said that yes PipeDream imports View files. That’s not the problem wrt my old book. It is the way I then defined a set of control codes and how they were rendered to control and change what characters should render in some other way.

Alas, I’ve been looking for the files and not yet found them! Probably on a backup CD/DVD fro years ago, somewhere. I have hundreds of these.

I do have the Quasi-Optical Circuit symbols as DrawFiles, though. Used those for many later reports, etc, having adopted TechWriter!

I suspect the best approach would be to OCR the text with something that then snips’ areas it can’t read as text and inserts them on the page as bitmaps. However, not yet done more scans for people to see. Been busy with ‘household duties’ most of today. Now have to cook our dinner…

If this goes forward we probably need a different thread and title for any discussion as it’s nothing to do with Aemulor! :-)