Subject: RE: Computing "in the field" (was RE: Osborne)

From: "Feldman, Robert" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Mar 26 06:12:56 2003

I was involved in a trial of resistivity surveying in Peru in 1979, but it
was not very successful -- the desert sands were too dry for there to be
much conductivity! We had better luck with a simple seismic unit (womp the
ground with a sledge hammer and pick up the waves on a pair of geophones).

I have a copy of AutoCad 1.4 (that's one point four, not fourteen) that was
customized by John Walker for use on the Otrona Attache at the request of
University of Chicago archaeologists working in the Middle East. It was
successfully used for mapping and architectural drawings at Nippur, in Iraq
(see http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/AGS/About_AGS.html). 

After using the Osborne 1 in Peru, I got an Otrona 8:16 that I also used in
Peru. I wrote a simple program for it to take raw theodolite data and
generate a graphic of the architecture`we were mapping. I also used a
commercial graphing program (Golden Graphics Plotware) to create a contour
map based on pottery sherd frequencies that nicely revealed house patterns
on a wind-deflated site (where all evidence of the cane-walled houses had
been blown away by the wind). We used the computers mainly for writing and
data base applications, though. Just having a portable computer for that was
a great help, though. We owe a lot to Adam Osborne for opening up that
market.

BTW, the acquaintance that I got the AutoCAD 1.4 from, McGuire Gibson, and a
Grad school classmate, Elizabeth Stone, have been lobbying/advising the US
on where _not_ to bomb in Iraq in an attempt to minimize damage to
historical and archaeological sites there.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ethan Dicks [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 9:05 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Computing "in the field" (was RE: Osborne)

--- "Feldman, Robert" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Ah, yes, I got my start in computers on with an Osborne 1...
> I even took it to Peru for the archaeological projects I worked
> on.

Interesting.  We took Kaypros (one 2, and later, a 10, IIRC) to
the dig I worked on in College (1985, 1987, 1989).  One of our
guys tried to write a program to graph our results on-site, but
those efforts didn't appear to be rewarding (we were using non-
invasive survey techniques with a soil resistivity box that I
had to keep repairing, and a proton magnetometer)

-ethan