M T R T o r a h S h a r e w a r e -- Hebrew Legal Classics MTR (ver. Elul 5757) Copyright 1997 Mechon Mamre, 12 Hayyim Vital St., Jerusalem, Israel (972-02-652-1906): Includes Mishneh Torah, Tanach, Targum, Mishnah, Tosefta, Yerushalmi, and Bavli. After 30 days free trial, the full registration fee for individuals is 120 NIS (or $50 US), and for educational institutions without limitation on the number of users is 200 NIS (or $80 US); people of limited means can register for less, without embarrassment of giving us any explanation. Updated versions of MTR are released about twice yearly, currently without charge to registered users (but notification by letter or email is required); if you have email, please send us your email address with registration so that we can notify you of updates quickly. Registration is by mail only, and payment by check only. We encourage you to share the program with others, and to upload its ZIP files and MTRBINFO.TXT to BBSs. This rather large package (the ZIP files expand to about 28M on the PC) should be of interest to many users of Internet who know Hebrew: In particular students of Jewish law and others who read the Bible in the original Hebrew (two versions here, according to the letter text of the Kether Aram Tsovah manuscript as well as in easy-to-read full spelling) and important Jewish legal classics (the Rambam's Code according to the Yemenite manuscripts and Mishnah according to the manuscript attributed to the Rambam, as well as the Tosefta, Jerusalem Talmud, and Babylonian Talmud according to the popular printed editions). Additional works are in preparation and are to be added in MTR updates. Despite the modest scope of the texts included, MTR is recommended even to those who have one or more of the big CDROM Torah packages, because of the quality of the texts. This package provides Torah texts (in Hebrew only), plus software for browsing and searching the texts, and Hebrew EGA/VGA screen-fonts for DOS. The software is DOS-based but can be run from Windows. Its user-interface (which includes extensive on-line help) is only in Hebrew at present, but the package includes a printable 40 page English manual (without any Hebrew, so it prints on any printer). The Torah texts are stored in unencrypted plain-text files (in IBM- standard, ASCII-Hebrew for DOS.) The search engine, which comes both in stand-alone and TSR forms, can hunt for a multi-word string of up to 75 chars and allows for search of whole words, words with prefixes, words with suffixes, or words with prefixes and suffixes, and supports boolean expressions of several strings. The stand-alone program works on text-mode screens of 25 to 60 lines, and is Windows aware; it can send blocks of text to the Clipboard for pasting in Windows (with options for Word-style or Dagesh-style handling of parentheses), and no Windows for Hebrew is needed to work with Windows word processors such as Dagesh where Hebrew support is built in. The TSR allows the user to choose between seeing either his text-mode DOS word processor or the search engine on a full 25 line screen, or optionally under VGA seeing both on a 50 line screen; the TSR can send blocks of text to DOS word processors. New in this version: The text of Mishnah which has been entirely revised and corrected, thousands more refinements and corrections to texts (particularly in Mishneh Torah and Onqelos, and to a lesser extent in the punctuation of the Bible), and vastly improved and expanded English printable documentation. There are also additional options for running MTR and MTRTSR, and a few improvements in the interface in response to users' suggestions. Special requirements: DOS 3.3 or later, VGA or EGA (unless you have MONO or CGA with a Hebrew font), 28MB free on the destination disk (even more on big disks and on compressed disks). This version is Win95 compatible, and probably Win98 compatible too. Installation: If you already have an old version of MTR on your disk (from before Adar A' 5757), you must download and run MTRBDEL to remove it *before* installing this update; if you have the version from earlier this year, delete it with DELTREE \MTR. To install, you need to download MTRB001.ZIP through MTRB008.ZIP and to UNZIP with the -d option in numerical order only. Use: PKUNZIP -d [path\]MTRB00?.ZIP x:\ - [path\] is the directory containing the .ZIP files. - If the .ZIP files are stored in numerical order in that directory, the ? may be used as is, otherwise you must run this command for each .ZIP file individually, replacing the ? with 1, 2, 3, etc. - x is the drive letter of the disk you are installing to. If you are currently in the directory x:\ this may be omitted. MTR may be installed on any local or network drive from C: to Z:, but must be installed at the root. - Note: some UNZIPs do not properly interpret the x:\ at the end of this command; so if your UNZIP is not from PK, use cd x:\ before unzipping with the -d option. If you do not, you may get an error message, or you might even get MTR in a subdirectory, and it will not work at all from there. After installation, the following will be found in directory \MTR: MTR.COM stand-alone search engine MTRTSR.COM TSR search engine MTRFONTS.COM Hebrew font support (stand alone or TSR) HAMACHON.COM Hebrew documentation on Mechon Mamre and how and why MTR was prepared AZHAROT.COM Hebrew documentation on MTR and limitations in its use BAT.COM Hebrew documentation on loading MTR with batch files KETIV.COM Hebrew documentation on our spelling PISSUQ.COM Hebrew documentation on our punctuation MTR.DAT MTR's internal data file MTRTSR.DAT MTRTSR's internal data file MTR.HST MTR's search history file MTRTSR.HST MTRTSR's search history file HADPES.OTI printable Hebrew manual (you need a printer with a Hebrew font) PRINTME.ENG printable English manual (no Hebrew used at all, so any printer will do) including Hebrew keyboard layout M.BAT loads Hebrew font and runs MTR MP.BAT ditto (for portable) M2.BAT loads Hebrew font plus both MTR and MTRTSR for learning in two places at the same time M2P.BAT ditto (for portable) MW.BAT loads Hebrew font, loads MTRTSR, and runs your WP.BAT for working with your word processor MWP.BAT ditto (for portable) MTR.ICO Icon for Windows The .COM files must not be erased or changed in any way, or else MTR stops functioning; the rest can be erased to save disk space, but MTR will regenerate .DAT and .HST files, if needed. The six .BAT files are prepared as example batch files for running from C:\MTR and need to be revised for use on disks other than C:. If you run MTR, MTRTSR, or MTRFONTS with the /? option, you will see all of the possible loading options, some of which you may wish to add. The following subdirectories under \MTR\ contain the Hebrew text files of the works included in this version: MTR Mishneh Torah TNK Tanach in easy-to-read spelling TNX Tanach in masoretic spelling ONQ Targum Onqelos MSH Mishnah TSF Tosefta YER Yerushalmi BVL Bavli None of these should be erased or changed in any way, or else MTR stops functioning from that work and onwards (obviously if you change or erase something from \MTR\MTR, the search engines will not work at all). On the other hand, if for example you do not need the Bavli, just erase its files (saving over ten megabytes) and MTR will notice this and work in Mishneh Torah up to the Yerushalmi. Please do not erase the TNK files, even if you do not like our full spelling, because that will leave you with Mishneh Torah only (unless that is really what you want). Printing the Manuals: The manuals have been prepared for printing from DOS with the PRINT command (just type PRINT \MTR\PRINTME.ENG or PRINT \MTR\HADPES.OTI from the DOS command prompt). The files have been paginated and arranged for successful printing, even on the newer printers that can only print 58 to 60 lines of text on 11 inch paper and cannot print in the first and last half inch of each page. If you have an older printer that does start printing at the top of the page (like a dot matrix printer with continuous paper), just roll down about half an inch of paper before starting printing, and your manual will look ok, with just under 10 inches of text with half an inch top margin and bottom margin. If you have one of those new printers that print only from Windows, do use a monospace font, not a proportional space font. If you have limited disk space, or just want to check out the program, you can download and install MTRB001.ZIP and MTRB002.ZIP for Mishneh Torah only (add MTRB003.ZIP to add Bible and Onqelos, and also add MTRB004.ZIP to add Mishnah and Tosefta). You can later add the rest, or download MTRBDEL.ZIP to uninstall (if you have DOS 6 and above, DELTREE \MTR can uninstall this version of MTR). To save downloading, send 45 NIS or $20 US (including shipping world wide) to our address above for a set of installation disks (3.5" HD disks only), including our easy to use bilingual installation program. For additional help (only _after_ reading the instructions, please): email tsiona@www-mail.huji.ac.il.