From: scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Scoles)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Request for help: data capture
Keywords: data capture, PC
Date: 4 Sep 92 01:53:27 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <1992Aug31.143743.3875@vbohub.vbo.dec.com> buchanan@heron.enet.dec.com (Andrew Buchanan) writes:


>Hello.

>	I've got some friends who plan to record a great deal of archeological
>data over the next few years, and they want to take advantage of PC technology to help them with the data capture if they can.
[...]
>	In the long run, one can imagine a lot of ambitious multimedia stuff,
>but in the short term, something humbler would suffice.   The requirements
>seem to be:

>	(1) works using a PC, perhaps laptop.   They will be working from a
>boat, so a power supply is available.

>	(2) good, easy word processor

>	(3) integrated transparently with database

>	(4) (the ambitious bit, but to my mind a key requirement) the ability
>to draw sketches of a region, or a site, and for there to be hot spots one can
>click on to enter (or get access to) data about a particular feature.   Some
>kind of Paintbox technology, plus the hot spots facility would save an awful
>lot of mind-numbingly dull text descriptions.

I'd be surprised if somebody didn't say to you, "Hey, that sounds liek a
Newton!"  (Hey, not a bad idea.  Tell your friends to write up a proposal
for Apple -- great PR, wot?)  #4 is a killer, though -- there's nothing
that'll do it that humans can afford, and your friends will spend most of
their time worrying about whether the damp/sand/ice/bugs/etc. will damage
their SPARCBook/PowerBook9000cxi/Dell 586/50 ....

My personal approach would be to go for the cheapest robust system they can
afford.  If durability is the chief goal, look at GriD and their ilk;
Panasonic may still have a line of relatively inexpensive but not half bad
laptops; the new Zeos and Gateway subnotebooks might be worth looking into. 
If you can wait long enough for those new Kittyhawk drives from HP to start
hitting the market, your friends should find some good systems. Once you've
got the hardware, you concentrate on keeping data in regular standard
formats -- e.g., make up your notes with a streaming-text word processor
that can generate generic text files (like XyWrite/Nota Bene or WordPerfect,
or a good editor like VDE), so units falling between hard page characters
can later be treated as "records".  

>	What software configuration would you suggest to address these
>requirements?    Are there any bits of freeware which would help?   Are there
>any points that I should be aware of in putting together a system for my
>friends?

The only software platform I would explicitly recommend staying away from
(and I'm sure I'll catch hell for this 8-) ) is Mac.  Too much baggage.  (I
guess you wouldn't want a Unix based SPARCBook in the field either, by the
same token ....)  Macs are just nto good at dealing with text -- for
example, there's no simple way to just view the contents of a file on a
Mac.  (All my own Humble Opinions, of course.)

>Thanks for your time,
>Andrew.
-- 
Eric Scoles			: <<insert witty, pithy comment 
scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu  :    here >>
University of Rochester --------:
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