VMs: Re: VMS numbering systems hypotheses...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Gabriel,

> I agree here too, and to me the character <o> has a special meaning, in the
> labels, which is not numerical.

I have a number of separate ideas about what "o" and "9" do, quite 
independent of the numbering: I'm also working on a document describing how 
I think other parts of the code work.

For example, I think that although the *copying* was done from 
left-to-right, the *encoding* was done from right-to-left (which is why I 
think that "zo x" translates as "10 oncia", for example).

More on this another day... :-)

> So I am still a bit cautions about recovering a number system from the vms
> transcriptions, because I have the feeling that if there are "words" and
> "numbers", the words has to be much more common than the numbers (unless the
> document is coded like the Beale cipher) .

A number-based code where even the number system doesn't get recognised for 
500 years would seem to be pretty secure. :-)

Many Vatican codes of the time were entirely numbers - many other systems 
were pure ciphers. Determining that the VMS is somewhere in the continuum 
between the two should be fairly uncontroversial. :-)

> If we are sure that the all vms words are numbers, shouldn't we forget about
> cracking it, until the code book is found? :-/

If we can tell numbers apart from non-numbers, we might be able to 
determine where in the VMS its own code-book is likely to be. :-)

Even if the precise details of the system I propose do turn out to be 
slightly incorrect, it still might be able to help us categorise the 
contents of text better than we have been able to do before.

> Despite this, Nick's number encoding, if correct, could explain why the
> character repetition (and low entropy) of the vms text.
> But at the same time I  was surprised that about half the numbers (17 out of
> 31) decoded in the decoded document finish in "1" .
> (So again, my question: Is this anomaly because the system is incorrect or
> because most of the words are *not* numbers? And if so, which are the numbers
> correctly identified?)

For now, these are all good observations and questions: I'm far from sure 
that I've got it 100% right yet - but thought you'd probably like to see 
where I'd got to. :-)

> You mention that <e> is the only character that appears in sets of 3 (and 
> also
> 4), but this combination does not appear on its own.  In <f39r.7> there is a
> <eee,s> though, so let's give it a chance.

This may be an EVA issue: sharing EVA "s" between EVA "s" (the backward 
"S") and the first half of EVA "sh" (ie, the looped picnic table) was a 
decision I personally wouldn't have made. :-/

>   Even if <eee> is 3 and <e> is 1
> (it appears 5 times), <ee> (2) and. <eo> (4) never appear on their own.
>
> This is no reason to dismiss the idea, but it is a bit curious that there are
> no 2, 3 and 4s.

So far, I've only tried this out on a tiny percentage of the VMS, so the 
sample size is very low. :-/

As a general point, I tried to infer the numbering just as much from first 
principles (and from contemporaneous cipher systems) as from the VMS 
itself: there are numerous instances where the pattern I suggest doesn't 
~quite~ fit the text, so the jury will likely still be out for a while yet. :-/

> All this is worth to further investigation!
> It would be ideal if the vms had some tables... :-(

...perhaps it does! :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....