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Intro - Archive Zip - Help using the archive - Add Posts - Delete posts - Archive of just your own posts
This is an opt in archive for the tuning-math forum. This is active research in progress. To find out more about any of the topics, join the forum and ask the members. They will be delighted to answer your questions about their research.
For other topics such as microtonal instrument making, performance of microtonal works, music composition, programming, or other areas, you could do well to start with the main tuning forum. An archive of the main forum will be made in the near future.
All the posts are copyright © and copyright remains with the original posters of the messages.
Incidentally if you wonder why the numbers suddenly jump to 1000 and why it is in two sections, Tuning-Math and Tuning-Math Digests, that is just for practical reasons. There are no missing messages. The first few messages were downloaded directly from Yahoo, while the later messages were extracted from digests. The leap in numbers happens to make things easier for the program used to generate the archive.
You can download the entire archive here, compressed into a single zip file:
Download the file (usually Right Click + Save As) to the place where you want the archive to be. Then open your downloaded file to uncompress the archive. Finally navigate to the frame.html file (if you want the contents) or index.html within the folder you just opened and you will be able to view the archive off-line.
To make it easier to find the archive again you can add it to your favourites. If you are using Windows you can make a desktop shortcut to the archive by using Right Click + Copy on the index.html file, then Right Click + Paste Shortcut on the desktop.
Most modern operating systems will already have capabilities to unzip the archive. If not however, you need to find an unzip utility. One of the best known for Windows is Win Zip which is available for unlimited free evaluation with reminders - if you find it useful then you are expected to purchase it but there is no obligation to do so.
There are many other unzip utilities, and some of them are completely free.
Navigation - Links Titles - Anti Virus
This archive has been indexed in a way that makes it easy to jump to related posts. It is organised in sections of 1000 posts to keep the number of posts in each section manageable.
You can navigate inwards from the contents list to the message that interests you. Or you can navigate outwards to find related messages.
Click on the subject of the post and it will take you to a list of all messages in that section of the archive, ordered by subject, for your choice. At that point, you can also click on the * next to the subject, which takes you out to the list of all the threads for the section. The threads list and subject list are essentially the same thing - however, the threads list shows only the first occurrence of each subject in the subjects list.
Authors work the same way. The Individuals list shows the first post by that individual, while the Authors list shows all their posts. The dates list however only takes you out as far as the list of dates for the section - that is because the dates don't repeat so the dates list for the entire archive would be enormous.
You can also navigate outwards from the links list to find similar links that have been given by other posters. The links are organised by url which usually means that you will find all the links to the same domain grouped together.
Links to web pages and text files show the titles of the file that they link to. This will be the web page title if it has one - or the first "interesting" line. Sometimes though the program wasn't able to follow the link to find the title - in that case, usually you will be given the option to search for it in the Wayback Machine. Sometimes the archive maker is unable to recognise the "Not Found" message, or one may want to go back for some other reason - maybe the current version of that page no longer includes the materiial of interest. So to cope with any possible eventuality of that type, all the links except for links to forum posts have a (Wayb.) link after them to show them in the Wayback Machine,
You will also see "titles" for other file types which can be read in text file format. However - the search for interesting lines is fairly rudimentary - the main thing it does is to skip any lines all of a single character, or blank lines.
For documents and files in other formats such as pdfs, mp3s, .doc files etc, you will see the original url. However, you will also see Type OK after it if the file was of the expected type. If it doesn't exist, or clicking on the file brings up an error message web page, then you won't see this, so it is a way to recognise files that are no lnoger available.
The way this works is that it checks the file signature - the first few characters of the file. It confirms that at the time it was indexed, the file existed and that the first two or three characters of the file were as expected.
To explain how this works - most files begin wtih a few distinctive characters e.g. gif for gifs, MTHD for midi files, pk for zips, and %pdf for pdfs, so this works well in practice. See File Signatures Table. I have only implemented it for a few of those file types - some are legacy formats which are pretty much obselete now and some would be rarely exchanged on forums. Will add more types as needed.
These are live links to files on the internet, and they are not virus checked. So, be sure to scan them with a good anti virus program such as (in rough order of cost) Dr Solomon, Norton AV, McAffee, or AVG. The last is a suitable choice if you need a free solution as it is free for non commercial use
You also need to keep right up to date with the virus definitions. Viruses often proliferate rapidly within a few days, so an anti virus program that is a few weeks out of date is almost useless these days.
Perhaps you trust the authors - that is likely if you belong to the forum - but you still need to scan files. If anyone in the forum doesn't have up to date anti virus software installed themselves, or their virus definitions have got out of date, it is quite possible that they may have a virus on their system without knowing it.
Some of the viruses that spread nowadays are so unobtrusive that you never know that you have one - everything just continues to work as normal to all appearances. That is especially true in the last year or so - modern viruses often run as a background task on the victim's computer, and are often used for mass e-mailing of spam, so they are well hidden. It is possible that they may search for private information too, such as your bank or credit card details
On the subject of keeping your system virus free (slightly digressing from downloads perhaps), nowadays you are strongly recommended to have a firewall as well - Zone Alarm is a good one that is free for non commercial use. That's because some viruses nowadays spread via the internet without even requiring you to receive an e-mail message, via vulnerabilities in your operating system or in Internet explorer if you use that for browsing
You are very welcome to add your posts if you have posted to this list at any time. To do so just contact: Robert Walker and say that you want your posts included, and I will be delighted to add them next time the archive gets updated.
It is an opt in archive.The archive posts will be visible to search engines. A zip of the entire archive will also be made available for download. Later it may get included on a CD for distribution to tuning members and intersted tuning enthusiasts.
The archive gets uploaded only rarely for technical reasons. So your posts may not appear on-line for a number of weeks or months (the entire archive needs to be uploaded, and it is a large upload).
There is absolutely no obligation to include your posts - some members prefer their posts to be left out. If you want your posts included then I will be delighted to include them.
To remove posts from the archive, make a list of the dates of the posts to delete, and send it to me.
It is easiest if you can copy the original date field exactly as it is complete with date and time. To do this: copy and paste the date field from the archive or from the original Yahoo groups entry. One way to do that is to highlight the date on the web page, then use right click and copy, then right click and paste to paste it into your e-mail to me.
By way of example, this is my list of entries to delete for the Tuning list (deletes a message that I posted to Tuning instead of MakeMicroMusic by accident, and my follow up message to apologise for it)
Wed, 28 Nov 2001 11:42:46 Wed, 28 Nov 2001 11:46:15
If you can't do it that way, for whatever reason, just tell me what dates you want to delete and I'll make the list for you.
Again, send your deleted posts requests to: Robert Walker
Deleted posts simply don't appear in the archive at all. This can be a useful way to remove posts that are purely ephemeral in nature.
This is worth doing as it will increase the usefulness of the archive for those looking for information on tuning theory and practice. Please don't hesitate to delete posts of this nature. Naturally you can only delete posts you made yourself.
You can also request an archive with just your posts in it, e.g. for working up with a view to publication. Again, contact Robert Walker with your request.
This option is available to everyone, whether or not you want your posts included in this public archive.