O Homem que calculava

[Antonio Eduardo Costa Pereira]

> I don't understand what copyright to Clean?? For lessons?

Dear Jerzy Karczmarczuk

Ana will be back only on tuesday. Since everybody here has a strong interest
in this project of hers, I decided to answer your mail to gain time. Three
years ago
Ana and Luciano  acquired the copyright of
Malba Tahan's complete works for two years. The idea was to create an
electronic edition of Maktub and The Man Who Counted. She did a beautiful
work, I can assure you (since you know Portuguese, ask her to send you
a copy of the CD :).  The electronic edition of Maktub was entirely
programmed in Prolog and Clean.  The contents are:

1- A beautiful overture created with computer graphics.
2- Animations covering about half of the tales. The animations are narrated
by Ana (she has a beautiful voice), with dialogs when necessary.
3- Background music by  Rimsky-Korsakov. The music is synthesized, but
again it is very well done.
4- Every tale that was not animated appears in full text.
5- Games. There are two kind of games: Brain twisters, and platform games.

There are simple theorem provers that allow one to solve the problems
proposed
by Malba Tahan. The animations, computer graphics, games, theorem provers,
music, everything was written in Clean or Prolog. Of course, Ana and
friends do not intend to make a living out of their work (that is the reason
I did not want to join the project myself :). She prefers to earn her money
teaching
Aikido. She and her friends just want to "spread the word".
If it were possible, they would give the book for free. However, the
State of Malba Tahan does not agree with that,
and the publisher wants at least recover his investment. For this reasons,
the CD
will be sold in bookstores. It is inexpensive (only 10 dollars, just enough
to cover copyrights, the publisher, and the profit of the bookseller), but
it
will not be free.  Both Clean and Prolog distributors say that, in this
case,
it is necessary to pay for a commercial license.

> I have no idea how is it possible to marry this with Clean, Prolog,
> or whatever computerized, but the idea is really interesting.

There are simple theorem provers, that are used to solve the braintwisters
proposed to Beremiz. Since young people, who read this kind of book,
love computers, they often want to know how the thing was done.
Therefore, Ana prepared very simple programs in Clean,
easy enough not to scare  young readers, and based on the examples
of the book. The youth can use a ready to go program to solve the
problem. The solution comes with a complete explanation on how the
program works. You can get an idea of this scheme if you take a look
at the following address

http://palaia.ufu.br

Please, keep visiting this address because Ana is adding a new chapter
almost
every day.

Eduardo Costa