Integrated Chameleon Architecture (ICA)

A subset of the OSU Chameleon Project's more recent SGML translation tools has now been made freely available to the academic community in. See "Free Data Translation Software," EPSIG News 4/3 (September 1991) 8-9; cf. "Integrated Chameleon Architecture Plans for 91-92 Year," SGML Users' Group Newsletter 19 (April 1991) 12-13. A preliminary posting from Sandy Mamrak to Usenet Newsgroup comp.text.sgml on January 30, 1992 included the following description.

"The Integrated Chameleon Architecture (ICA) is a toolset for generating data translators. In particular, the toolset can be used to generate translators to and from a constrained subset of instances of SGML DTDs. A beta release of the ICA will be available for public distribution in mid-March (1992). The primary goal of the ICA is to provide a software environment for DEVELOPING translators. However, sample translators between instances of a DTD for book and LaTeX, and between these instances and a macro version of -roff, will be provided with the distribution. Sample translators between instances of a DTD for a bibliographic database and BibTeX, and between the instances and refer, also will be provided. The distribution will be by way of anonymous-FTP from Ohio State. Documentation (in a series of postscript files) will be provided via anonymous-FTP as well. A mailing list will exist for those who would like to solicit and exchange ICA information. A mailing list to report bugs will also be available."

ICA (Release 1.2) was announced on 24 March 1992: "We are pleased to announce that a beta release of the Integrated Chameleon Architecture (ICA) is available for public distribution. The ICA is a toolset for generating data translators. In particular, the toolset can be used to generate translators to and from a constrained subset of instances of SGML Document Type Definitions (DTD). There are several example translators included. The first is a book DTD and includes specific translators for the LaTeX book documentstyle and a specific troff macro package. The second is a bibliographic DTD and includes specific translators for BibTeX and refer bibliographic database formats. Please note that the ICA is for developing translators and not providing translators.

"The ICA runs in the Unix environment, using the X Window System for the basis of the graphical user interfaces. Unfortunately, there are many variations on the above so the following list fills in the details. The primary development platform is a Sun4 with SunOS 4.1.1 using X11R4 from MIT. The primary window manager used during development is tvtwm.

"The distribution is located on archive.cis.ohio-state.edu (IP address 128.146.8.52) in pub/chameleon/ICA-1.2.tar.Z as a compressed tar file. The postscript documentation is in pub/chameleon/ICAdoc-1.2.tar.Z. This postscript file is split into several smaller files. The manual is 186 printed pages. A mailing list, ica@cis.ohio-state.edu, exists for those who would like to solicit and exchange ICA information."

The ICA documentation also may be obtained by sending an email request to jenkins@cis.ohio-state.edu: request the document by S. A. Mamrak, C. S. O'Connell and J. Barnes, "Technical Documentation for the Integrated Chameleon Architecture,' OSU Technical Report OSU-CISRC-1/92-TR3. March 24, 1992. (Please include a POSTAL mailing address to expedite the response to this request.)