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Robert Musil: Nachlaß (PEP)

Currently, the contents of this CD are inaccessible.

I. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF STRUCTURE AND CONTENT:

This is a CD-ROM edition of the Musil Nachlaß, which is currently unavailable in print. It provides the same information as the original handwritten manuscripts do, indicating all variants, strikeouts, transpositions, insertions, and marginal notes, and giving detailed material descriptions of the manuscript: format, type of paper, ink or pencil, etc.

The edition comes with two search software programs: PEP, which was created expressly for this edition, and which gives kinds of information (such as details of color and emendation) inaccessible to WordCruncher; and WordCruncher, which was designed for use with a variety of text editions, and which makes possible more complex word searches than PEP. WordCruncher is a much more user-friendly search-tool than PEP, but (again) can only search words and not manuscript detail.

The following instructions are only for reading and searching the Musil Nachlaß using PEP.

All users wishing to work with the Musil Nachlaß are advised to consult the detailed user's manual (in German). Modified from helpsheet provided by Susanna Pathak, the ETIC, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD 21218.

II. STARTING UP THE MUSIL NACHLAß:

  1. Place the Musil Nachlaß disc in the CD-ROM tray of the PC. (Press the button just beneath the CD-ROM tray to open and close the tray.)

  2. Click on the Start menu (in the lower left-hand corner of the screen). Move to Programs, and then click on the Robert Musil icon (near the end of the list of available programs).

  3. The PEP program will launch and access the Musil Nachlaß CD-ROM.
    NOTE: The PEP program runs on DOS, but it will appear within a window in the Windows environment.

  4. When the initial screen (the flashing PEP) appears, press Enter to dismiss it.

  5. The main menu appears. You are now ready to begin searching the Musil Nachlaß.

III. USING THE MUSIL NACHLAß:

NOTE: The Musil Nachlaß has been set up on a keyboard which uses the German diacritics (Umlauts and "ß"). A template of the German keyboard will be provided to assist you in your search. Please note the reversal of the "Y" and "Z" keys!

NOTE: If you get any strange messages when you attempt to exercise a menu option, please return to the main menu, choose Systemkonfiguration, and hit <F4>. This should convince the computer that there is actually a CD in the drive; you will then be able to read and search the data.

The main menu bar appears at the top of the screen. Make your selections either by moving among the menu options with the arrow keys or by holding down <Alt> and pressing the appropriate letter. Then hit <ENTER>. (An overview of menu options appears on pp. 24-25 in the manual. Please note that you will need to type in all commands, as the mouse will not work with this database.)

SELECTING

Limiting your search within the Nachlaß:

Begin your session by specifying the parts of the Nachlaß you wish to work on: Select Datei from the menu, and within Datei, select Auswahl. As you can see from the table of contents that appears here, the Nachlaß is divided into nine folder-groups (Mappengruppen), plus the diaries (Tagebücher). (See the manual, pp. 26-27, for more details.)

Make your selection by moving the cursor to the item and marking it by hitting <Ins>. Hit <Ins> again to choose from among the available folders (Mappen) in the Mappengruppe. You can select more than one Mappe or Mappengruppe by repeating this procedure, or even the entire Nachlaß by selecting Alle Mappen und Hefte from the table of contents. E.g., if you wish to limit your search to Mappe I (and its 81 Seite) of Mappengruppe I, use Ins over each of those selections in turn.

Then press [Enter] to store the Mappe in a Referenzliste. Although you will have no proof on the screen that the program has recorded your search limitation at this point, your following searches will be restricted to this choice.

Note that you may save a current Reference List for future use. Select Referenzliste, Speichern from the menu, enter a filename and press <F4>. To load a previously saved Reference List, select Referenzliste, Laden oder Löschen, choose from among the previously saved Lists, and press <ENTER>. At this point, you can also delete a previously saved Reference List by making your selection and pressing <F4>.

READING

To read your selection from the beginning, select Lesen, then Text from the main menu. You are now in the text window. Note that the Mappengruppe, Mappe, and page numbers are given at the top left of the screen. The numbers on the upper right tell you how many lines are on this page, the range of lines currently displayed, and the line you cursor is currently on.

Example:

VII/11/1 67 1-18 8

tells you that you're on page 1 in Mappe 11 of Mappengruppe VII. This page has 67 lines, of which lines 1-18 are displayed. Your cursor is now positioned at line 8.

Use the arrow keys to move within the current page. Further commands are:

<Alt-N> go to next page

<Alt-V> go to previous page

<Alt-G> go to desired page number via the Reference List

<Alt-E> stop reading and return to main menu

A summary of these and other available commands appears when you press <Alt-X>. To return to the previous screen, press <Esc>.

Understanding the Transcription:

This electronic edition of the Nachlaß provides all the information contained in the original handwritten manuscripts: it indicates all variants, strikeouts, transpositions, insertions, and marginal notes, as well as giving detailed material descriptions of the manuscript. This information has been recorded in various ways:

Color codes: Ordinary text appears in black, underlined text in dark red, double underlining in light red, subscripts in blue, superscripts in light blue. Finally, there are Musil's own special symbols (Musilzeichen), displayed in white.

Editorial symbols: For a complete key to these (including examples of transcriptions from manuscript to this edition), see pp. 32-39 in the manual. A few examples follow here.

{{ }} double brackets surround an unreadable passage or a partly unreadable word

{{GAMMA}} double brackets surround a Greek letter, in this case, an upper-case gamma ()

1 indicates a symbol which could not be transcribed to be readable on screen. An explanation is contained in the footnote. (Since superscripts appear in light blue, so will footnote numbers)

Text1 indicates text that is emphasized in the manuscript, or that requires commentary in a footnote.

#Text# indicates text that has been crossed out.

\Text| indicates text that has been inserted.

::Text:: indicates a marginal note by the author

*Text* indicates a variant (both alternatives will appear)

+Text+ indicates a transposition (both the original order and the transposed order will appear)

'Text' indicates text that is not written but is implicitly repeated here (like "ditto marks")

Footnotes are indicated in the text, and can be accessed by moving the cursor to the (light blue) note number and pressing <Alt-F>. The note will appear in a separate window. It contains special information about the text immediately preceding.

Documentation Pages (Seitendokumentation) have been prepared separately for each page and can be accessed by pressing <Alt-D>. This will give you a material description of the manuscript: format, type of paper, ink or pencil, etc. To return to reading the text, press <Alt-Y>.

SEARCHING

i. While reading a specific page:

(a) Search for multiple complete words:

Press <Alt-S> and enter the Zeichenkette, or search string (e.g., Mann ohne Eigenschaften). If there is a single result, the text will scroll so that the line containing the result will appear at the top of the window. If there are several results, darts will appear in the left margin marking each line in which one occurs. Press <Alt-U> to clear the search string.

E.g., you happen to have read through Mappe I up to Seite 26. Suddenly the urge strikes you to search for Mann ohne Eigenschaften. You press <Alt-S> and enter Mann ohne Eigenschaften as your search string. Since your search was successful, you will hear an annoying melody (which you can turn off by [Enter]). To view the results, go to Lesen on the menu bar, then go to Text, and the screen will scroll down to display the entry marked with a dart in the left margin.

(b) Search for truncated word (Wildcard usage):

You can widen your search by using wildcard suffixes: [Ctrl-B] allows for one unknown letter (e.g., Eigenschafte<Ctrl-B>), and [Ctrl-W] allows for indeterminate unknown letters (e.g., Eigenschaft<Ctrl-W>). The spirit moves you to search for a word -- you can't quite remember which word -- beginning Gen-. You use <Alt-U> to clear the old search string, and you begin to search (<Alt-S>) using "Gen[Ctrl-W]." The result (viewed under Lesen) shows you 3 words on that page beginning with Gen-: Genie, Generation, and Genauigkeit.

ii. Within the current Referenzliste:

Select Recherche from the Menu. To search text only, select Volltextsuche. To include the information given on Documentation Pages in the search, select Kombinierte Suche. Enter the search string at the > prompt. <Ctrl-V> specifies a variable range of lines within which to search. In addition, you may search special characters by holding down <Alt> and typing the ASCII code on the number pad; and editorial symbols used in the transcription simply by typing them in as part of the search string. Finally, those text features that are displayed by different screen colors (underlining, super- and subscripts, Musilzeichen) may be searched using the codes listed on p. 50 of the manual.

Press <ENTER> when you have entered your search string.

(a) Search for multiple complete words:

E.g.: You have just chosen to limit your search to the Referenzliste I/1 (Mappengruppe I, Mappe 1 [81 Seiten]). In order to search at all, you choose Recherche from the menu bar, and then Volltextsuche. Enter Mann ohne Eigenschaften as your search string, and then [Enter]. You will see a graphic displaying the progress of your search through the Mappe, and you will hear the same annoying melody accompanying the triumphant announcement that you have found four instances in your search.

To see these results, go to Lesen on the menu bar. The screen will display the four instances (I/1/1, I/1/26, I/1/29, I/1/52) once again marked by left-margin darts.

(b) Search for truncated word (Wildcard usage):

E.g.: You wish to see what other forms Eigenschaft takes in the same context (I/1/1-81) you've just searched for Mann ohne Eigenschaften. You go back to Recherche, and enter <Alt-S> and Eigenschaft[Ctrl-W] as the search string. The melody plays, you turn it off, and the screen tells you it found 13 Seiten with other forms of Eigenschaft-. Go to Lesen to read the results.

If your search was successful, the pages on which the term appears will be stored on a new Reference List. Access these pages by way of this Reference List, by selecting Referenzliste, Bearbeiten.

NOTE: Any search that you do will create a new Reference List; consecutive searches will constrain this list further. In order to return to your original list, you may exercise one of the following options:

1. Return to the main menu, choose Datei, Auswahl, and recreate your original list.

2. Save your list by selecting Referenzliste, Speichern from the main menu, as described under "Reading and Searching" in this helpsheet . You will then be able to put it away for future reference.

Very detailed searches of Documentation Pages (e.g. by date, transcriber, or material) are available by way of the Kombinierte Suche (combined search) options. See pp. 52-78 for more information.

PRINTING AND DOWNLOADING

NOTE: To print from the Musil Nachlaß on the HP LaserJet III, paper must be fed using the manual paper feed (so as to override the software's expectation of paper in A4 format). Ask the Graduate Assistant to load paper in the manual feed. When you are done printing, it may be necessary to turn the printer on and off before it will accept regular Letter size paper again.

To print the current page you are reading, type <Alt-X> and then <Alt-K>.

To print all texts in the current Reference List, select Drucken, Text. The number of pages to be printed will appear on screen. Press <ENTER> to confirm, <ESC> to cancel.

To print Documentation Pages for texts in the current Reference List, select Drucken, Seitendokumentation. To print Documentation Pages along with the texts in the current Reference List, Drucken, Text und Seitendokumentation. To print the current Reference List, select Drucken, Referenzliste.

IV. EXITING THE MUSIL NACHLAß AND REMOVING THE CD-ROM:

To exit the program, select Datei, Programm beenden from the main menu. You will be returned to the Windows desktop. Please remove the disc from the CD-ROM tray, return it to its case, and give it to an Etext Center assistant.