The Atari ST magazine preservation project

[StickHead]

Hi guys,

In order to stop poor Jez's thread from being railroaded any further, I thought I'd create a topic here concerning collecting, scanning and proliferating Atari magazines.

At the moment I am trawling the internet for any scans which already exist to lighten the scanning workload. If you can help by pointing us towards some scans, or by providing them, please let us know. Eventually, I will scan in my own collection of magazines and make them available online. If you have any advice on how best to scan for good readable quality, or concerning good, cheap online storage, please chip in.

My hope is that one day we'll have a cooperative effort to maintain a central online library of magazines that can proliferate the content far and wide and ensure the content's permanence in computing history.

Any ideas?

Progress Report: Magazine scans found

Multi format magazines:

ACE magazine: #1 - #55
Computers and Video Games magazine: #60 - #125 (should be the period where the ST has content)
Your Computer: 1986 - 1988 (again, most relevant period, but earlier issues available)
The One: #1 - #31
Zero: #1
PC World: May 1986 (ST Review only)

ST Magazines:

STart: v01_01 to v05_07
Atari User: v01_01 to v04_07
Page 6/New Atari User: #18-#85
ST Action #68
Atari ST Review: #11
Atari ST User: #97,#104
ST Format: #02,#39,#45,#47, Autumn 89 special edition, all cover discs & Issue 12 audio cassette
Atari Explorer: July/August 1988
Atari World: #06
ST Magazine: #142
The One for ST Games: #32 - 35, #37 - 39, #41

ftp account for uploading:

ftp server: ftp://ftp.stmags.com/
user: atarist
pass: magazines

Share to your heart's content!

[Marakatti]

If you have any advice on how best to scan for good readable quality, or concerning good, cheap online storage, please chip in.

If you don't mind ripping your magazines off the spine, I think the best option for scanning is that way.
I once scanned some reviews from ST Format but there's no way to get full page scanned from later issues at once if you only have A4 scanner. So I would say A3 scanner is must with enough pressure to the spine so that text on the centre of spread won't get blurred.

For storage. If it's ok to Franck I think Atarimania could possibly host the scans as we already have many Atari magazines on-line.
Have a look here -> http://www.atarimania.com/list-atari-magazines.html

Only thing we ask in return is that we can use the ads and reviews in our database.

[StickHead]

Thanks for the advice, Marakatti. It's a bit of a destructive method, and it would be a shame to lose the hard copy, but it is important to get a high quality scan wherever possible.

Atarimania seems like an ideal place to store the mags, if they would be willing.

[alexh]

ST/Amiga Format
The One For 16-bit Games(Upto issue 31)
Zero
Advanced Computer Entertainment (ACE)

[atarimania]

Yes, no problem for hosting more Atari related magazines on Atarimania, we already host about 30000 pages of magazine and the site is on a dedicated server so the disk space is not (almost) a problem

You can use the ftp to send them on the server and I'll add them on the site.

Franck

[StickHead]

Thanks, Alexh. The Amiga Magazine Rack is a great resource and an inspiration for the kind of thing I would like to do, but they have a lot of pages missing from their magazines (they are mostly concerned with game reviews, I think). I would like to combine something like this, where a searchable database would link to content you are looking for, or you could browse through entire magazines for reading pleasure.

Yes, no problem for hosting more Atari related magazines on Atarimania, we already host about 30000 pages of magazine and the site is on a dedicated server so the disk space is not (almost) a problem

You can use the ftp to send them on the server and I'll add them on the site.

Franck

That's great Franck, It will be excellent to have all the magazines collected together in one place for people to peruse.

[StickHead]

So far, these are the (full magazine) scans I've found online:

Multi format magazines:

ACE magazine: #1 - #55
Computers and Video Games magazine: #60 - #125 (should be the period where the ST has content)
Your Computer: 1986 - 1988 (again, most relevant period, but earlier issues available)

ST Magazines:

STart magazine: v01_01 to v05_07
Atari User: v01_01 to v04_07
Page 6 magazine/New Atari User: #18-#85

These are all English magazines, as it's the only language I can read I've also found a bunch of disk magazines online, so I've grabbed those too.

[wongck]

So far, these are the (full magazine) scans I've found online:

Multi format magazines:

ACE magazine: #1 - #55
Computers and Video Games magazine: #60 - #125 (should be the period where the ST has content)
Your Computer: 1986 - 1988 (again, most relevant period, but earlier issues available)

ST Magazines:

STart magazine: v01_01 to v05_07
Atari User: v01_01 to v04_07
Page 6 magazine/New Atari User: #18-#85

These are all English magazines, as it's the only language I can read I've also found a bunch of disk magazines online, so I've grabbed those too.

If you let me know the url of these goodies, I will make link for them in the wiki.

[Marakatti]

There are also a lot of french ST magazines: http://www.abandonware-magazines.org/
Generation4 and Tilt also has a tons of ST related articles and reviews.

Here's couple of ST User and ST Review issues: http://www.oldgamemags.com/index.php?ti ... arch&ns0=1

I also have most issues of The One for ST Games in scanned format.

[StickHead]

There are also a lot of french ST magazines: http://www.abandonware-magazines.org/
Generation4 and Tilt also has a tons of ST related articles and reviews.

Here's couple of ST User and ST Review issues: http://www.oldgamemags.com/index.php?ti ... arch&ns0=1

I also have most issues of The One for ST Games in scanned format.

Thanks, Marakatti, those links are the biz. I have found scans for The One when it was multiformat, before it split into ST/Amiga variations, so it will be nice to have a full set. Would you mind ftp-ing them up to my hosting when I've set it up?

There's lots of magazines on the the French site, and I've got a whiff of a truckload of German ones too, but I'll concentrate on the English ones first then branch out. I don't want to bite off more than I can chew (my mouth is pretty cramped already ).

[alexh]

The Amiga Magazine Rack is a great resource but they have a lot of pages missing from their magazines

Magazines used to have a very high number of adverts remember.

STart
C&VG
GamesMaster
STFormat

I also have most issues of The One for ST Games in scanned format.

Share??

[StickHead]

Magazines used to have a very high number of adverts remember.

True, but I'd like to preserve the ads too. They are of their time, part of history, and certainly part of the magazine. Thanks for the links, the scanning load lessens!

[Marakatti]

Would you mind ftp-ing them up to my hosting when I've set it up?

Share??

Sure
8 issues total of 537 megs waiting for a place to go. As far as I know it's missing 3 issues (36, 40 and 42)

[Mug UK]

I picked up 330gbs worth of bits and pieces whilst visiting the Retro Computer Museum last weekend by way of a kind-of up-to-date TOSEC collection. Inside the TOSEC-PIX section are a load of pre-scanned magazines - I'll see which ones are of use.

[StickHead]

8 issues total of 537 megs waiting for a place to go.

I've ordered some 'unlimited' hosting, and as soon as the domain is up and running, I'll set up an ftp account that you can use to upload the mags.

I picked up 330gbs worth of bits and pieces whilst visiting the Retro Computer Museum last weekend by way of a kind-of up-to-date TOSEC collection. Inside the TOSEC-PIX section are a load of pre-scanned magazines - I'll see which ones are of use.

Excellent Mug! It will be interesting to see what's in there.

[StickHead]

OK, ftp account set up:

ftp server: ftp://ftp.stmags.com/
user: atarist
pass: magazines

Share to your heart's content!

[Shredder11]

Shall I upload my ACE magazine 4.10GB pdf files?

[StickHead]

Shall I upload my ACE magazine 4.10GB pdf files?

If you want to upload a sample, I will compare the quality of the scans I have to yours and we can decide which to keep.

[Shredder11]

Okay I will do that now.

[StickHead]

Thanks for that, Shredder. Take a look:

OK. Here's the comparison. (Right click and 'Open Image in new tab' if you can't see it all) My ACE scan on the right.



These are obviously the same set of scans, but resized. They share all the same imperfections/scanning artifacts.

My set's resolution is six times larger (note the zoom), yet much smaller file size. The one on the left is slightly better in terms of readability, most noticeably on the red box-out, but only if you are really looking. I think we may as well stick to the smaller file size version.

[wongck]

My set's resolution is six times larger (note the zoom), yet much smaller file size. The one on the left is slightly better in terms of readability, most noticeably on the red box-out, but only if you are really looking. I think we may as well stick to the smaller file size version.

I beg to differ.
We should keep the better quality version. HDD space is relatively cheap nowadays.
Once we discard the better quality version, it's gone forever.
But with the better quality version, we can reproduce the smaller size version anytime.

[StickHead]

My set's resolution is six times larger (note the zoom), yet much smaller file size. The one on the left is slightly better in terms of readability, most noticeably on the red box-out, but only if you are really looking. I think we may as well stick to the smaller file size version.

I beg to differ.
We should keep the better quality version. HDD space is relatively cheap nowadays.
Once we discard the better quality version, it's gone forever.
But with the better quality version, we can reproduce the smaller size version anytime.

Yes, but the version with the larger file size is 6 times smaller in terms of resolution! But I take your point. We should preserve the best we possibly can. To hell with bandwidth!

Now I think about it, the difference in physical size must be a dpi issue, as when one is zoomed, you really can hardy tell the difference.

OK, Shredder, if you can spare the time/bandwidth/sanity, would you upload the ACE scans you have?

[Shredder11]

Thanks for the comparison test as I found it useful too. I would say the quality of our scans is moderate but plenty readable. I'm on a 50Mb Cable service and my upload speed is 5Mb, so uploading will take approx two hours providing my other torrents do not slow it down too much.

[alexh]

I recommend you make your FTP site write only to begin with (i.e. no DIR listings) or limit the number of simultaneous accesses otherwise you'll get hammered.

[Shredder11]

Half of the issues have now uploaded...