Emacs - The One True text editor - was written by Richard Stallman.

Manuals, FAQs

• Emacs manual  -- Look here to learn how to use Emacs
• Intro to Elisp- A gentle introduction to Elisp - a lisp dialect used to program and customise Emacs.
• Introduction to Emacs Lisp - An introduction to the language aspects of Emacs Lisp, written by yours truly. Note that the emphasis in the intro above is on enhancing and customizaing Emacs. My document looks at Elisp merely as a high language and there are no tips really on how it can be used to improve your Emacs experience.
• Elisp reference manual. - The complete manual.
• NTemacs- FAQ page for Emacs ported to Windows NT/95/98.

• The Emacs Lisp List (ELL) - Maintained by Dr. Stephen Eglen, this list is actively maintained and steadily growing. The site has a remarkably simple but effective user interface. Over the last few years, this has become the standard place to look for actively maintained elisp packages.
• The Ohio-State Emacs Lisp Archive. This one has come back online recently after a prolonged break. Colin Walters, has pledged active maintenance. However, the community has not really embraced it in its new avtar. It however acts as an archive of some really old elisp code - stuff you may not find anywhere else.
• Google! If the above fail, you should probably search on google ;-)

My Emacs customisations:

I have spent more hours customizing Emacs, than I dare admit and here is the obligatory link to my .emacs. My init file is made up of three files :

• .emacs(html) (text) -- This file was supplied by my sys admin. This is a common Utah practise. The site-init files do the same job, but this model, it appears, is consistent with the init files for other software (for e.g. shells) Over a period of time, I kept modifying the stuff myt sys admin gave me and moving it to .customs.emacs Finally, I ended up with this bare bones file :) And that took me nearly 2 years
  
• .customs.emacs (html) (plain text) -- This contains all the stuff I put in. NOTE: You should be able to save this file as your ".emacs", and life should still be good.
  
• .gnus (html). (plain text). I recently started using Gnus for reading mail and news. This is the cusomisation file specific to Gnus.

NOTE:

1. The html with color and stuff was produced from the awesome htmlize-file command that comes with the htmlize package. This package is shipped with stock Emacs21! The html version shows you exactly how my .customs.emacs buffer looked in my Emacs session.
2. To use this system of files, you need to be using Emacs-21.1 or higher.
3. I use a number of packages that are not part of standard Emacs distributions. If such packages are not found, reasonably unhelpful diagnostic messages are printed out. You can have a look at them in the *Messages* buffer, first thing after you start Emacs.
4. I have had a couple of guys download this stuff and it actually worked "Out of the Box". If that does not happen for you, mail me.

I was introduced to this greatly addictive game, first by my school-buddy, Rajiv(Raa-jeev), and later by dindy(Din-dee) and mafle(Maaf-lay) in CECRI. Dhadi Rajagopal, Scientist in CECRI, and TRR (professor ACCET) helped me refine my game.

I came to the US with high hopes of greatly improving my game, after hearing of university bridge clubs, 16 year old Life masters and the like. But the ten months from August 98 to May 99 have been the most months of my life. In a city of 750,000 people, there is only one bridge club; and that is miles away from the U. and what more, it costs to play.

Then in May, i played for the first time, in a regional tournament , and can you believe it... found a guy who actually played some pretty good precision. Boy! what a feeling that was! Still... I am nowhere near finding a consistent partner. Update: All this changed in the December of 1999, when that fellow left to take up a post-doc position in Lawrence Berkeley Labs. The last I heard of him, he was pretty happy with the work and Bridge in the Bay Area.

Here are some links related to bridge. Ill put in more... my bookmarks file is cluttered with bridge links Ill sieve the wheat from the chaff, and put in the better ones some day...
 
Here are some of the places you can play bridge on the net.

• Floater -
  
  This is a free software, for playing bridge with other humans over the internet. Was written by a team headed by Geoff Pike, a graduate student at Berkeley. Highly recommended 'cause it truly imbibes the GNU philosophy.
• OKBridge -
  
  By far the most popular internet bridge-play site. You can watch the GIB play here. You have to be a subscriber, however.
• Yahoo gaming zone -
  
  another popular site. Mainly because its free, and equally importantly all you need is a java-compatible browser.
• Microsoft Gaming zone- I havent really played here...

GIB (Goren In a Box, or is it Ginsberg's Intelligent Bridge player?)- Written by Mathew L. Ginsberg of the Computational Intelligence Research Labaratory in the University of Oregon, GIB is the first expert level bridge playing software. Here are a few other GIB related links

• Ginsberg- Meet the brain behind GIB. He is a professor in the University of Oregon.
• GIB vs BB- An account of the matchup between GIB and Bridge Baron, once the strongest bridge playing software. Just look at the results to see the difference in levels of play!!
• some more info

Bridge World Magazine. -- THE magazine for bridge entusiasts
Richard Pavlicek's Home Page. -- High in entertainment and educational content
ACBL -- home page of the American Contract Bridge League.
Fifth Chair- A non profit organisation founded to encourage novice players. A fundu name- in honor of the kibitzer or the learner.
ACBL junior page- The official ACBL web page for junior bridge.
District 18, Unit 386- Webpage maintained by Charles Troup, this page has info about upcoming events in and around Salt Lake City.

I realised a while back that many of the links that follow are dead. I will replace them soon...

Here are some links related to various bidding systems:

• Precision system:
  Precision is one of the systems that use the strong 1 club opening. Now a days, in india, all beginners are encouraged to learn Precision. And with good reason. This is a very clean system, with precise rules to follow, which give breathing space to the already confused and overwhelmed beginner. Even experts are beginning to play precision in tournaments. I know of so many expert level pairs who either play or are planning to play precision in pairs events, while continuing to employ "conventional" bidding methods in team events.

  Precision has come a long way since it was designed by C. C. Wei in the 70's. People play simplified precision, advanced precision, power precision, Reese precision and even a currified precision!

  • Wang's Precicion page.
  • Wensheng's page- More complete system.
  • Currified Precision!!- This is an improvised precision variant, which, the author claims, allows opening of "many 8 point hands"! check it out!!
  • "Reese Precision"- Dont know why it is called so. Maybe becuase the author was Terrence Reece?!
  • another precision page
• Standard American and variants:
  • ACBL's Standard American Yellow Card(SAYC) system- Trust the americans to come up with standards. It was devised to address the problems faced by new partnerships.
  • 2/1(two over 1)- The "modern" American standard system. Very popular in the US(along with "sayc" system).
• Misc. bidding systems
  • ACOL
  • Totally Imaginative ACOL
  • The Famous Italian Blue Club.- One of the three bidding systems used by the famous Italian Blue team.

back home....

This page was last modified on : 24th June '99