TACT (Text Analysis Computing Tools)
- Last Updated: 2/5/2021 12:00:00 AM
- Site: http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/tact/
TACT (Text Analysis Computing Tools) is a historically important text analysis and retrieval system that was developed from 1986 to 1989 at the University of Toronto in cooperation with IBM and remained in use into the 1990s. It was designed to run in MS-DOS and permitted inquiries on text databases in a number of European languages. Originally available on two 1.44MB floppy disks, the full fileset is now available for free download.
Documentation
Creator(s): John Bradley, Ian Lancashire, Lidio Presutti, and Michael Stairs
Creator's Site: http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/tact/
Creator's Email:
Repository: https://github.com/johnBradley501/TACT
Attributes
- Type of analysis: Search Analysis Discovering
- Type of license: Free
- Background Processing: Not Applicable
- Web Usable: Other
- Ease of Use: Moderate
- Historic Tool (developed before 2005): Influential No longer in active development
- TaDiRAH Methods: Discovering Other (analysis) Statistical Analysis
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Comments
TACT is generally recognized as a historically important text analysis tool within the Digital Humanities. Although no longer in wide use, it is known to have been used as a teaching tool in undergraduate literature courses into the mid-1990s. More information about the tool and its use can be found in the following articles:
Armstrong, Gudya. \"Computer-Assisted Literary Analysis Using the TACT Text-Retrieval Program.\" Computers & Texts 11.8 (1996). Web.
Hawthorne, Mark. \"The Computer in Literary Analysis: Using TACT with Students.\" Computers and the Humanities 28.1 (1994): 19-27. Web.
More information about TACT as a text analysis tool is available via the official guides. The former is maintained by the Modern Language Association as a free PDF:
Lancashire, Ian, John Bradley, Willard McCarty, Michael Stairs and T. R. Wooldridge. Using TACT With Electronic Texts: A Guide to Text-Analysis Computing Tools: Version 2.1 for MS-DOS and PC DOS. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1996. Web.
McCarty, Willard. \"Text Analysis Computing Tools: a brief guide.\" Centre for Computing in the Humanities. 1993.
Information on ARRAS' relationship to TACT is available in:
Centre for Computing in the Humanities. Tools for Humanists, 1989: Software & Hardware: Fair Guide. Toronto: Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto (1989).