

Re: VMs: Babelfish translation [plus question for Dana]

John Grove John@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote

> Round, round, we go...
> I remember when I first joined the list, I couldn't quite get why
> Jacques lambasted all the various attempts I made at trying to deal with
> the VMS as a tonal-substitution made to look like readable text. A lot of
> what Jeff is presenting is quite reminiscent of the 'wow - now this looks
> like something!' that I had way back when.
> Okay, so he's trying to make the EVA transform into a poly-alphabetic
> cipher -- of course, we'd all be quite surprised if it worked (but it
> and
> he'll eventually see that). In the meantime it is worth it to point out
> the minor flaws (like the fact that ch is quite odd - not to mention
> in
> its oddity). Consider once again those odd-combos that look like ch - but
> end
> in an 'o' or 'y' and aren't the same as cho and chy. Any kind of
> cipher-system
> is going to choke quite often on the VMS. If somebody pulls off a good set
> of
> rules for what happens when 'this' occurs - great; but, lets keep the set
> rules
> for changing the algorithm to within reason.
> I still favour the concept of large-glyphs built out of an opening c and
> finishing
> with one of five ligatures - but the VMS still won't produce any
> text for
> me either.
> Keep plugging away Jeff, Nick, et al... You might just shake something
> loose.
> John.

Well all I can say is I'm getting Italian words out of it and if no one else
can see it it ain't my fault. I am comparing it with 1550 Italian. Some
letter combinations aren't yet in the table, others need adjusting as I
don't read or speak Italian and am having to go very slowly. It isn't simply
a single letter pair substitution. That's what makes it difficult and why
the VMS resists most methods. When I get 90% Italian I assume I'm onto
something. Maybe I'm just naive! If it looks like a dog, barks like a dog
and wags its tail then maybe it isn't a dog after all. Maybe just some badly
structured genetic experiment. A dog by any other name.......


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