Why is Popular Computing such a ghost magazine?

[dudeslife]

Your first comment to me was that I'm selfish.

 

... selfish ability to read with no power. <----- JOKE

 

as far as the other sites, check out archive.org.. Jason Scott is doing good work in preservation.

[jhd]

Slightly O/T, but this attitude is not limied to retro computer enthusiasts.

 

Over the past 20+ years, I have amassed a very large collection of material relating to a particular subject matter of interest to me -- lots of out-of-print books, small press items, printed ephemera, etc. (This has NOTHING to do with video games, classic computers, or even technology of any sort.)

 

This is my personal library, and, as such, I do not advertise its existence. Yet, over the years, I have had more than one request from individuals who wished to come into my home to review this material! One person was actually quite demanding that I provide her with access to my collection.

 

So, Ed, rather than scan your collection of magazines, how about you just let interested people come over to your place and review them in person?

[dudeslife]

Over the past 20+ years, I have amassed a very large collection of material relating to a particular subject matter of interest to me -- lots of out-of-print books, small press items, printed ephemera, etc. (This has NOTHING to do with video games, classic computers, or even technology of any sort.)

 

This is my personal library, and, as such, I do not advertise its existence. Yet, over the years, I have had more than one request from individuals who wished to come into my home to review this material! One person was actually quite demanding that I provide her with access to my collection.

 

oh, pr0n.

[+Ksarul]

Leave my 100+ years worth of Tom Swift books alone please. LOLOL

 

Seriously though, I understand the need to protect the stuff that one collects (whatever it might be), as the spark that made it into a collection is also the spark that helped preserve it in the first place. I scan the truly rare stuff I've found (like the majority of the developmental engineering documents for the TI-99/8, gleaned from several of the engineers who worked on the system), as my copies are probably the only ones left in some instances. That gets me in hot water with the collectors who had one or the other of these documents and protected it like their "preciouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssss," but being in that hot water is fine by me, as the information needs to be available to those with the system. It helps that TI gave the community permission to use the information for noncommercial purposes a few years back.

 

It would be nice to have the magazines we don't have available yet digitized--even one helps, as that puts the community one step closer to access to a complete set. We're a community, and we're mostly dedicated to our retro systems--and that is something that is good all around.

[dudeslife]

It would be nice to have the magazines we don't have available yet digitized--even one helps, as that puts the community one step closer to access to a complete set. We're a community, and we're mostly dedicated to our retro systems--and that is something that is good all around.

 

agreed. it is our responsibility to preserve the written word of our community.

[KiwiArcader]

Hi Ed,

 

Don't take things too seriously here. It's just great that someone who frequents the site happens to have some of the mags that are yet to be preserved. I know I don't have any of this particular title or I would have scanned them for my website. Well, I might have. I have over 1200 mags in my collection awaiting scanning so they would get done at some stage as time and scanning preferences go anyways.

 

I used to use (still do for some mags) an A3 flatbed scanner but given the sheer volume I have I purchased a Fujitsu A3 document scanner as I decided that the PDF meant more to me (trying carrying 100 mags to read while on holiday vs a tablet) than having the print copy so it was an easy decision for me to debind my mags. Each to their own though. Some of my site contributors scan on a flatbed by pressing the mag down while others have also gone down the doc scanner path. I am happy with whatever comes my way at the end of the day as having them preserved is more important than missing a few millimeters from the spine.

 

If you do decide at some point that you want them scanned I am sure someone here will offer to take them off your hands. Of course, that assumes those same people don't alienate you by making you feel like a leper for your current stance causing you to turn you back on the idea forever. Of if you decide to have a go yourself, get a scanner that suits your preferences and go for it. Scanning using a camera in my opinion is a waste of time. I've never seen results that equal using a scanner.....

[KiwiArcader]

 

... selfish ability to read with no power. <----- JOKE

 

as far as the other sites, check out archive.org.. Jason Scott is doing good work in preservation.

 

Archive.org is an abomination.

 

Bucket loads of content is simply taken from years old torrents or magazine preservation sites and posted verbatim so in reality they simply steal the work of others, make no effort to acknowledge where they got it from or make submitters say where they got it from, and apply no level of quality control whatsoever.

[Ed in SoDak]

I got into a pissing match with the op and don't feel a need to continue it. He seems pretty consistent on his opinion, which I don't happen to agree with. I read the 2011 thread he started where he expressed similar disrespect towards another AA member who didn't happen to match his desires. I don't have an urge to satisfy his "request" with his lack of respect for other's ownership of the original copyrights, nor of my own right to treat my own copies as I feel is best. A bit more tact on the op's part might've had a different outcome.

 

I await the flames...

-Ed

[KiwiArcader]

Well, if you have an interest in UK gaming magazines or want to see what the magazines from down under (Australia & New Zealand) feel free to drop by my website and grab a magazine or two if you have a tablet. There's even a small selection of non-gaming PC content as well but it is mainly Australian content. OoPA is also good for UK content if a lot smaller due to slower output by their members. And of course Retromags caters more to USA users but again most of the content is gaming oriented.

 

Don't let one person piss here you off too much.

 

Some members here have truly stood up and been counted in the interests of preserving magazines. Thumpnugget has scanned a veritable deluge of Atari content over the years (books and mags) along with many an issue of Byte magazine for example with other also contributing scans or sending mags to people to scan. The big issue is actually finding magazines, especially the less common ones or those that people never thought worth keeping (I dumped years worth of US PC Magazine and PC Gamer issues for example and am gnashing my teeth now) and if I had a dollar for every visitor who has commented that "they have blah blah magazine and will scan them" and never fronted up I'd be a heck of a lot richer now so I guess I understand some of the comments from people if they have had similar experiences. I burned a whole raft of post-2000 mags after a disagreement with a site op of another site and I got banned and accused of being a Nazi book burner so the comments here are pretty tame in comparison. LOL

 

Ultimately your mags are yours to do with as you please and no-one can deny that so do with them what you will. My only advice as a scanner would be that if the magazines you have in your possession haven't been scanned by now then most likely no-one else has them or is in a position to scan them so it would be a waste if you decided to dump them without at least giving thought to the idea of getting them scanned by someone. Otherwise it just becomes another mag lost forever and which after a while no-one even remembers which is kinda sad given the love that a group of people put into creating them. That's why I scan my magazines.

[jhd]

While I have no actual collection of old magazines to scan -- my collection of Hot Coco was sold at a garage sale back in the early-1990s -- I have tried to compile a list of what is available out there. Sometimes a complete run of a title will be split amongst more than one site, as each has (independently) scanned a partial run. This list is not comprehensive; it is limited to what interests me, personally.

 

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ab443/mags.html

[dudeslife]

I got into a pissing match with the op and don't feel a need to continue it. He seems pretty consistent on his opinion, which I don't happen to agree with. I read the 2011 thread he started where he expressed similar disrespect towards another AA member who didn't happen to match his desires. I don't have an urge to satisfy his "request" with his lack of respect for other's ownership of the original copyrights, nor of my own right to treat my own copies as I feel is best. A bit more tact on the op's part might've had a different outcome.

 

I await the flames...

-Ed

 

hah, are you digging this up again? At least my lack of tact has generated discussion. you have sat on the magazines for 30 years. if you had any desire whatsoever to preserve them, you would have acted by now. I am just providing you an excuse now to just take your ball and go home. And you only prove my point with your narrow focus of this being for me. It's for the whole community. Everyone else is just too polite to point it out to you. I pointed out that you are more likely an investor, not a preservationist. Sorry if this hurts your feelings, but you revisited it.

Edited September 16, 2014 by dudeslife

[dudeslife]

 

Archive.org is an abomination.

 

Bucket loads of content is simply taken from years old torrents or magazine preservation sites and posted verbatim so in reality they simply steal the work of others, make no effort to acknowledge where they got it from or make submitters say where they got it from, and apply no level of quality control whatsoever.

 

I have heard this argument from others and while I respect your opinion, the ultimate goal of preservation is to get the content into as many hands as possible. This makes extinction even more unlikely. Archive.org has the juice and like it or not, there are a lot more people reading Compute, Compute's Gazette, and Creative Computing now than in the past 20 years (or whenever these magazines all but disappeared).

Edited September 16, 2014 by dudeslife

[The Usotsuki]

They have their issues. We had to sift through mojibake on a web page that was converted from the wrong charset (cp1252 instead of sjis), and part of the page content was completely wrecked.

[KiwiArcader]

 

I have heard this argument from others and while I respect your opinion, the ultimate goal of preservation is to get the content into as many hands as possible. This makes extinction even more unlikely. Archive.org has the juice and like it or not, there are a lot more people reading Compute, Compute's Gazette, and Creative Computing now than in the past 20 years (or whenever these magazines all but disappeared).

 

Unfortunately their "juice" seems to be rip off everyone else's scans or MAME ROMS while not actually providing anything new themselves. That's what irks me. If they scanned new magazine content themselves I'd happily amend my thinking but from what I can tell they simply don't.

 

Additionally, they hide under the umbrella of being associated with the Library of Congress so that somehow makes it legal for them to make arcade game roms available without the owners permission. If they do have the copyright owners permission for the complete MAME rom set on their site and can prove it then again I'll happily bite my tongue on that as well but from what I have read they don't which really makes them no better than any other site pirating content out there.

[dudeslife]

 

Unfortunately their "juice" seems to be rip off everyone else's scans or MAME ROMS while not actually providing anything new themselves. That's what irks me. If they scanned new magazine content themselves I'd happily amend my thinking but from what I can tell they simply don't.

 

Additionally, they hide under the umbrella of being associated with the Library of Congress so that somehow makes it legal for them to make arcade game roms available without the owners permission. If they do have the copyright owners permission for the complete MAME rom set on their site and can prove it then again I'll happily bite my tongue on that as well but from what I have read they don't which really makes them no better than any other site pirating content out there.

 

You are misinformed if you think Jason is not providing new scans. You may want to do a little fact checking on your end. As far as the "providing content without permission", I am sure they would honor an DMCA takedown requests. Have you contacted them directly about any content you own that is being shared without permission? Or are you just white knighting?

[KiwiArcader]

Oh, they have plenty of content scanned by me and purloined from my website thanks very much. NGC Magazine, Official NZ PlayStation, RISC User and a whole lot more.

 

That's not a big deal. I have no problem with spreading the love so to speak to ensure magazines are not lost forever. If I was really concerned about others using my scans I'd just do what other websites do and watermark pages with an embedded image on all my scans. But I don't.....

 

However, I do find it irritating that Archve.org allow people to upload straight rips of publisher released content. Games tm is one such magazine where someone has uploaded copies of the PDF's sold on DVD by Imagine. Retro Gamer was another title where the first 50 issues released on DVD were also available there although that seems to have disappeared so maybe someone did remove that at some point? Official Xbox Magazine is another ...

 

However a LOT of content really is sub-par quality wise. You can make the comment that anything is better than nothing which is true but you'd think that they'd apply some level of quality control on content. E.g., cropping raw scans and recompiling into a more aesthetically pleasing product. It seems to be their philosophy of just getting as much content up as they can. On a positive note I do like the fact they make content available in different formats even if magazines themselves aren't suited to epub style formats.

[Czar]

I'm looking for the 1983 Volume 2 of "Popular Computing". Anyone have it or can scan an article from it for me?

Thanks

[Ed in SoDak]

The American Radio History website has the whole run of Popular Computing online. And many other titles as well.

https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Popular-Electronics-Guide.htm

[Ed in SoDak]

On 5/27/2020 at 8:51 AM, Czar said:

I'm looking for the 1983 Volume 2 of "Popular Computing". Anyone have it or can scan an article from it for me?

Thanks

If you mean Number 2, February 1983, here's the direct link to the pdf: https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Poptronics/80s/1983/CE-1983-02.pdf

[jhd]

18 hours ago, Ed in SoDak said:

The American Radio History website has the whole run of Popular Computing online. And many other titles as well.

https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Popular-Electronics-Guide.htm

 

I just discovered that this site includes the (relatively) short-lived Computers & Electronics magazine from the mid-1980s.

 

This was one of the first computer magazines that I read regularly, and I am excited to revisit those old issues (and discover those that I never saw originally).