An electronic version of volume I of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars with improved coordinates

We present a new electronic version of the first volume of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS), fourth edition, which contains data on 10558 variable stars in Andromeda-Crux (the constellations are ordered in the Catalog according to the Latin alphabet). This version incorporates the name lists of variable stars from no. 67 to no. 76 for the same constellations. The main distinctive feature of the new version is that it provides improved equatorial J2000.0 coordinates for 10349 stars (including those for 4587 stars corrected for proper motions). These are based on identifications with positional catalogs using finding charts and on our new measurements. We searched for a number of stars on original plates from the plate collections of several observatories. The version also includes a file of remarks to the first GCVS volume and a preliminary version of the file of bibliographic references to the entire fourth edition of the GCVS. Apart from a complete update of the positional information, the new version incorporates all the other corrections that were found to be necessary after the first GCVS volume was published (1985).