Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Robert17 on August 07, 2011, 12:32:50 PM
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Afternoon all,
I have stacks of old Amiga Magazines and coverdisks kicking around, which I'd like to get rid of. I know folk aren't generally interested in taking these items - they're bulky and cost too much to post if you can't find someone local.
Anyway, not sure if it's been done before but I had an idea - instead of just throwing the magazines in the bin, I was thinking of taking each page out, and scanning, then re-assembling each magazine in a PDF document for all interested people to download/view and possibly sharing images of the coverdisks too.
Naturally I'd have to make a few enquiries to the authors to ask for permission, and it would be very time consuming so it is just an idea for now.
What I'd like is to first gauge interest from folks here to see if it's been done before, and if not if it's worth doing now as it seems a shame to throw so much paper history in the bin.
Robert.
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Well I can tell you that a few people on our Dutch forum have done it for the Amiga Magazine which is also in Dutch.
http://www.amigascene.nl/modules/magazines/index.php/index.html
Like you said, it's contacting all those people, that is going to be the most time involved.
If I may give a scanning tip, make sure you have an all in one that has got an ADF, that way you can dismantel the magazine and just lay about 30-50 pages in it and scan them in less time.
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Afternoon all,
Anyway, not sure if it's been done before but I had an idea
This gentleman has been doing this for quite sometime and has an excellent collection of books, magazines, instructions, and brochures for free download. He also covered Amiga, Commodore 8 Bits, and lesser computers: Atari and Apple. :-) I kid, I kid!
It also has images of the magazine discs too I believe (I could be wrong though, I've never actually looked).
The site is here:
http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/
You know, I believe that David's site (bombjack.org) is one of the most import sites on the Internet. David deserves so much more credit than he receives and in a historical context, he has done much to help future researchers.
About 10 years ago, I had a colleague at another university that wanted to do a paper that including 80's technology. My first thought, was that magazines such as Compute!, Byte, and Creative Computing would be the perfect resources to mine for information.
To my utter shock, we could not find an academic library that had a single copy of any of these. No matter who we contacted or where we went the story was the same: "Too many technology publications coming too fast so we had to start throwing old ones out."
Unlike some other area, technology publications came too fast and too much for anyone to archive and they just through them out. At the time, I realized that the history I grew up in, that I loved, that I felt was important in human history was just being thrown away.
I then came across another colleague that wanted to study programming from the 70's and 80's but had to abandon the project because nobody kept a copy of the software and when he did find copies he couldn't find the hardware to run them on.
We can study a manuscript that is 2500 years old but a researcher can't run software for a Mattel Aquarius that is 20 years old.
What happens in a 150 years when somebody wants to cover the birth of personal computing? I think they will be horrified at the lack of documentation, software, and hardware that will be available.
What makes David's efforts so commendable is that he is archived so much without comment. As a researcher, looking at a site like a.org isn't very useful because all the comments are subjectively biased because of history. We post about Amiga hardware in 2011.
Having magazines, books, brochures, manuals, and other documentation scanned and not modified is exactly what researchers will want.
I think many will agree here that the 70's, 80's, and 90's were a great time to live through for the birth of the personal computer. I think it is a worthy area of study for future researchers and I hope that we save as much as possible so they have the most material to study from.
Anyway, cheers!
-P
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That's a brilliant website! I wasn't aware of it's existence so many thanks for pointing it out, I'll be sure to share it with the other members in our user group too - I'm sure they will be interested.
As for my stock of magazines - I may as well bin them as this guy seems to have done all the leg work. I'll have to email him and see about making a donation for sure.
Robert.
Quick Edit:
I just looked through the site, and noticed there are quite a few issues missing from some magazines. I've emailed the chap to see of he'd like any of mine to add to the site before I dispose of them.
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That's a brilliant website!
... I've emailed the chap to see of he'd like any of mine to add to the site before I dispose of them.
I'm about in your situation. I just need to open the cartons of magazines, stacked to the ceiling!, and compare with his site. If everybody did this, we should be able to get a fairly complete selection on line.
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Just a tip that could save you some time. For magazines that are glued (not stapled), put the magazine opened down the center face down, spine up, on an ironing board, lay a thin towel over the top, and use an iron on about medium to melt the glue. Then the pages can then be quickly removed before the glue sets again.
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http://amr.abime.net/
This is probably the best site for Amiga Mags
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That's a brilliant website! I wasn't aware of it's existence so many thanks for pointing it out, I'll be sure to share it with the other members in our user group too - I'm sure they will be interested.
As for my stock of magazines - I may as well bin them as this guy seems to have done all the leg work. I'll have to email him and see about making a donation for sure.
Robert.
Quick Edit:
I just looked through the site, and noticed there are quite a few issues missing from some magazines. I've emailed the chap to see of he'd like any of mine to add to the site before I dispose of them.
Please to not trash any of your magazines, at least not before you try to give them away. People like me would much rather have the real magazine in their hands to flip through, than to try to read a scan of it online. Many people like myself would be happy to pay the shipping cost for a box of magazines to take them off your hands, instead of having you throw them out in the trash.
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Just a tip that could save you some time. For magazines that are glued (not stapled), put the magazine opened down the center face down, spine up, on an ironing board, lay a thin towel over the top, and use an iron on about medium to melt the glue. Then the pages can then be quickly removed before the glue sets again.
That's a good tip. I have a scanner with a document feeder. I would remove the covers and scan them separately. Then using a metal ruler as a straight edge, and a sharp utility knife - cut the spine off. Then all the pages go through the ADF.
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related... the excellent german c64'er magazine: http://www.64er-online.de/
ta
Tom UK
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It would be a great service if you could scan them. I've long since given up on paper magazines and books, but it would be neat to read old Amiga magazines on my iPad....
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related... the excellent german c64'er magazine: http://www.64er-online.de/
Woohoo! 64'er is a legend.... And frankly, as much as the preservation of the English language magazines is important, we're in far better shape in that respect... For non-English home computing magazines the situation is really dire... AMR has some stuff, but it's extremely incomplete. Bombjack has a very limited selection, I think - it's been a while since I checked (btw. order his DVD set - it's well worth it)
Some guys over at amiga.dk has archives of some of the most important Danish ones, but it's not online anywhere as far as I know (they seem too worried about the copyright situation, but at least the magazines are preserved for now).
Apart from that I don't know of any decent archives.. There's some very limited Swedish material on AMR, and bits and pieces of German magazines are floating around.
Anyone know of any other non-English archives?
Personally I'm very interested in Norwegian ones (Hjemme Data / Data / Mikrodata / Norsk Dator Magazin would all be fantastic to have archives of). They should at least be safely archived in the Norwegian State Archives, but that doesn't really do anyone much good...
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Afternoon all,
I have stacks of old Amiga Magazines and coverdisks kicking around, which I'd like to get rid of. I know folk aren't generally interested in taking these items - they're bulky and cost too much to post if you can't find someone local.
Anyway, not sure if it's been done before but I had an idea - instead of just throwing the magazines in the bin, I was thinking of taking each page out, and scanning, then re-assembling each magazine in a PDF document for all interested people to download/view and possibly sharing images of the coverdisks too.
Naturally I'd have to make a few enquiries to the authors to ask for permission, and it would be very time consuming so it is just an idea for now.
What I'd like is to first gauge interest from folks here to see if it's been done before, and if not if it's worth doing now as it seems a shame to throw so much paper history in the bin.
Robert.
If DLH wants them maybe we can help with shipping them to him.
I'm sure he would love to have them I myself bought his 8 bit dvd collection 23 disc's of pure heaven..
:roflmao:
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I am definately interested.
Not many US magazines left missing and it is getting harder and harder to find them.
I just scanned 10 issues of Amiga AX, look those the soon.
thanks for the support
DLH
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This gentleman has been doing this for quite sometime and has an excellent collection of books, magazines, instructions, and brochures for free download. He also covered Amiga, Commodore 8 Bits, and lesser computers: Atari and Apple. :-) I kid, I kid!
It also has images of the magazine discs too I believe (I could be wrong though, I've never actually looked).
The site is here:
http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/
Very nice! Thanks for the link :)