Hacking at the Voynich manuscript - Side notes
073 VMS page descriptions for the 25e1 release

Last edited on 2026-01-16 18:45:26 by stolfi

  This Note described the compilation and formatting of the page-by-page
  descriptions of the VMS, both text and illustrations.
  
  This page covers the preparation of the 25e1 release only. For the
  16e6 release, see note 040.
  
  The planned release 20e1 was abandoned and replaced on 2025-05 by the
  planned release 25e1. See Note 074 for the transcription proper.
  See Note 079 for the description of quires and folio folding.

LINKS

    ln -s ../.. work

    ln -s work/error_funcs.py

    ln -s work/replace_pixels_by_mm.gawk
    ln -s work/tabulate_frac_counts.py
    ln -s work/list_N_top_words.sh
    ln -s work/ivtff_frac_word_counts.py
    ln -s work/process_frac_words.py
    ln -s work/ivtff_format.py

    ln -s ../../L16+H-eva JS
    ln -s ../670/GR
    ln -s ../040/data data-16e6

PRIOR WORK

  See "Note-074-20e1.txt" for the work done on the aborted 20e1 release.

PREPARING FOR NEW RELEASE

  Revising all page descriptions, using the scans available at the 
  Beinecke site as of 2005-05:
  
    cp cmhd20e1-03.txt cmhd25e1-50.txt
    cp cmdc20e1.txt cmdc25e1-50.txt

  Edited cmhd25e1-50.txt and cmdc25e1-50.txt by hand.
  
  Splitting both into page file, in order to merge:
  
    for tt in dc hd ; do 
      dir="${tt}-pages"
      rm -rf ${dir}
      mkdir -p ${dir}
      ( cd ${dir} && splitsep < ../cm${tt}25e1-50.txt )
    done
      
    for tt in dc hd ; do 
      dir="${tt}-pages"
      ( cd ${dir} && ls ) | sort > .${tt}-files
    done
    prdiff -Bb .{hd,dc}-files
    
  Some discrepancies first time around, fixed by hand and 
  repeated until no diffs:
  
    for ff in \
        dc-pages/A00todohd dc-pages/A01introhd \
        hd-pages/A00todo hd-pages/A01glossary hd-pages/A02quires \
        dc-pages/f0 hd-pages/f101r2 dc-pages/f101v2 dc-pages/f102r1 \
      ; do
      echo "???" >> ${ff};
    done
  
  Getting the list of pages in reading order from the temporary version
  of the interlinear interlinear:
  
    ln -s ../074/SAVE/2025-07-04-190000/text25e1-51.evt 
    
    cat text25e1-51.evt \
      | egrep -e '^[@][@]' \
      | sed -e 's:^[ @]*::g' -e 's:[ ]*$::g' \
      > page-list.txt
    
    cat page-list.txt | sort >  .ev-pages
    prdiff .dc-files .ev-pages
    
      --- 1,7d0 -----------------------
      < A00todo
      < A00todohd
      < A01glossary
      < A01introhd
      < A02quires
      < SPLITSEP.UNNAMED.00000
      < f0

      --- 11,12d3 -----------------------
      < f101r2
      < f101v1
    
  Panels f101r2 and f101v1 are just parts of logical pages f101r1
  and f102v2, respectively.
  
  Edited  page-list.txt adding those files in the desired sequence.
  
  Merging all header and description files in a single file
  
    ofile="desc25e1-51.txt"
    rm -f ${ofile}
    for ff in `cat page-list.txt` ; do
      echo "==================" 1>&2
      dicio-wc {hd,dc}-pages/${ff}
      echo "~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~" >> ${ofile}
      echo "@@ ${ff}" >> ${ofile}
      cat hd-pages/${ff} >> ${ofile}
      echo "......................................................................" >> ${ofile}
      cat dc-pages/${ff} >> ${ofile}
    done
    dicio-wc ${ofile}
  
    chmod a-w cm{hd,dc}25e1-50.txt

  Editing "desc25e1-51.txt" by hand.
  
  Replaced old-style locators "<fXXX.YYY.ZZZ>" by new-style "<fXXX.WWW>", 
  but only those on column 1.
  
    cat desc25e1-51.txt | map_locators.sh > desc25e1-52.txt
    
    now=2025-07-04-191200
    mkdir -p SAVE/${now}
    chmod a-w desc25e1-51.txt
    mv -vi desc25e1-51.txt SAVE/${now}/
    
  One problem of the switch is that all comments that talk about "units" 
  are now meaningless.  Should replace them by line numbers.  HUGE task.
  
  Edited "desc25e1-51.txt" creating "desc25e1-52.txt"
  
  
RENAMING

  Renamed "desc25e1-53.txt" to simply "desc25e1.txt"
      
SPELL CHECKING

  Ran {ispell} within {emacs} on the file "desc25e1.txt"
  
  Saved the buffer dictionary to "desc25e1.txt.dict" for future 
  spellcheckings.
  
  Also extracted from it three subsets :
  
    "${HOME}/spell/voynich.dict" terms that may be used in many other files.
    "work/eva_quires.txt"        list of Rene's two-letter quire IDs (incomplete).
    "work/eva_frags.txt"         fragments of EVA that occur in "desc25e1.txt".

  The first one may be useful for spellchecking any other text about the VMS.
  However it includes many of my own abbreviations (such as "horz" and "horzly")
  and jargon (such as "grushed" and "mousetail").
  
    now="`yyyy-mm-dd-hhmmss`"; echo "now = ${now}"
    mkdir -p SAVE/${now}
    cp -vpL desc25e1.txt desc25e1.txt.dict eva_frags.dict SAVE/${now}/
    chmod a-w SAVE/${now}/*.{txt,dict}
    
      now = 2025-07-23-213456
      now = 2025-07-26-172631
      now = 2025-07-29-104350

SPLITTING OUT QUIRE DESCRIPTION

  Split out the quire description to a separate file, "quir25e1.txt"
  And a separate note, "079".
  

>>> STOPPED HERE 2025-07-23