Welcome to the Voynich Manuscript mailing list.

Send mail to voynich-request@rand.org to get off of it again or if you're
having distribution problems or problems with the FTP archives.

Send substantive mail to voynich@rand.org and it'll get to the whole group.

A transcription by Mary D'Imperio of a good chunk of the Manuscript is
available for anonymous ftp at

	Host:   rand.org  (192.5.14.33)
	Dir:    pub/jim
	File:   voynich.tar.Z

Here is a list of material in the archive the last time this message was
updated:

   Log              Changes from original D'Imperio transcriptions
   Welcome          Welcome to the Voynich Manuscript mailing list
   biblio           Bibliography of especially relevant articles
   checklist        List of folios in Voynich Manuscript with locations
   cognate.zip      Determine whether words in two languages are cognates (PC)
   cur2frog.zip     Convert Currier notagion to Frogguy, by Guy (PC)
   currier          Description of Currier notation for Voynich text
   currier.paper    1976 paper by Currier describing his findings
   currier.sh.Z     Tables from 1976 Currier paper with Postscript formatting
   digest           Digest of messages since 4 Dec 91
   f3v.gif          GIF image of folio 3 verso -- text part only
   f79v.gif         GIF image of folio 79 verso, scanned from Poundstone
   finder           List and description of frames on Yale microfilm of V Ms.
   fonted.zip       Voynich font and transcription for PC, by Guy
   fonts.zip        More fonts for PC, by Guy
   guyfreq.pas      Program used to produces statistics in Guy Cryptologia paper
   langchk.pl       Identify the language (A or B) used on a page
   levitov          Analysis of Levitov solution claim, by Guy
   monkey.zip       Program to determine entropy of text, by Guy (PC)
   7.zip            Font that distinguises Currier 7 from J, by Guy (PC)
   uncmt.exe        Program to remove comments from transcribed text, by Guy (PC)
   voyfont.ps.sh    Postscript Voynich font for Currier notation, by Reeds
   voyfont.troff.sh Troff Voynich font for Currier notation, by Reeds
   voynich.now      Current working version of Voynich transcription
   voynich.tar.Z    Original D'Imperio transcription
   voytypo.sh       Voynich typo finder, Voynich parser code in C, by Reeds


The plan is to use this mailing list to coordinate a new investigation of
the Manuscript.  For this plan to achieve anything useful, we need to
agree on some ground rules.  If you have a problem with these ideas or
have spotted a bogosity, SPEAK UP SOON!  The time to apply leverage for
course corrections is at the beginning of the project!

The current proposal:

(1) We will try to get one or more high-quality copies of the Voynich
    Manuscript from the Beinecke Rare Book Library, probably on microfilm.

(2) We will make lower-quality "road map" copies of it available by some
    means yet to be determined -- perhaps encouraging Aegean Park Press
    to print it.

(3) If we can find earlier transcriptions, we will get them and convert
    to a machine-readable format.

(4) The next order of business is to complete the transcription --
    the D'Imperio transcription is about half of the 116 folios.
    (That's 131 out of a total of 262 pages, by Newbold's count.)
    We propose to use an extension/modification of Currier's notation,
    including comments, replacing slashes with spaces, and including
    captions on pictures and ambiguous readings.

(5) Jim Gillogly (jim@rand.org) has volunteered to coordinate the
    transcription effort, keeping a current "best guess" in the FTP
    directory with diffs from the D'Imperio transcription.  This will
    involve farming out high-quality text copies of selected pages to
    volunteers.  Ideally we will have three people transcribe each page
    and compare the results... this depends on the labor available, of
    course.