few notes:- about the polish magazines:
Commodore C64 - Magazines - Komoda (PL)
IBM PC Compatibles - Magazines - Reset (PL)
Multi-format - Magazines - Bajtek (PL)
Multi-format - Magazines - Gambler (PL)
Multi-format - Magazines - Gry Komputerowe (PL)
Multi-format - Magazines - Secret Service (PL)
Multi-format - Magazines - Secret Service Kompendium (PL)
Multi-format - Magazines - Swiat Gier Komputerowych (PL)
Multi-format - Magazines - Top Secret (PL)
there was some work behind the preparation of these sets: in fact, as usual in eastern Europe, the common file format for documents is .djvu, it's not .pdf.
I don't know if you know this format (probably yes, but if you don't know please see here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DjVu), anyway this file format is very interesting and advanced because every single page is resized using a wavelet-based compression algorithm... this means that when I tried to convert the .djvu files to .pdf, the result was HUGE.. speaking with numbers, a 200Mb .djvu file becomes a pdf file of 900Mb!! So I tried to play with parameters in order to obtain pdf files easier to manage and it took some time.
This part was a bit long, not only because of the language so difficult for me, also because sometimes the conversion process djvu->pdf gave an error without report it and it was necessary to open every single file to check it whether the file is readable..
Currently I'm still checking/renaming these sets
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- about the french magazines:
Atari ST - Magazines - ST magazine (FR)
Multi-format - Magazines - Consoles + (FR)
Multi-format - Magazines - Generation4 (FR)
Multi-format - Magazines - Joystick (FR)
Multi-format - Magazines - Tilt (FR)
I found a good starting point in the RS tracker, some weeks ago. Starting from those sets, I added two magazines (
ST magazine and
Génération4) and I updated three sets (
Console+,
Joystick and
Tilt) using material available on the net, mainly here
http://www.abandonware-magazines.org/this is a brief summary of what i found when I tried to update the sets, since I spent some time for building PDFs starting from the unsorted jpeg files found at that site...
First of all I have to say that I don't like very much the french abandonware site, scans are often in bad quality, they need deep postprocessing, sometimes the original scan is not complete, and so a lot of home work is needed to reach a decent pdf..
Anyway, I started to check only new issues, trying to update the sets downloaded and to prepare them for the next round of PIX.
But, really often, the zip files downloaded contained a txt file with details about the list of missing pages. This could be useful, yes, but sometimes inside the zip there were also the *missing* pages, added more recently, but with a different filename structure... So, the result was to do a double work of renaming, first the jpg scanned pages, and then, the renaming of the generated pdf files. Sometimes happened that the new pages were scanned in a single page while the rest of previous scanned files were done in a double page scan... A lot of time to organize just 5 sets, really!
referring to abadonware-magazines site, I report:
CONSOLE +:
Incomplete issues (with too many missing pages):
No. 011, 013, 015, 020, 021, 023, 024, 025, 028, 032, 036, 041, 044, 045, 064, 095, 102
bad quality scans, pages need cutting and deep postprocessing:
071, 072, 073, 075, 076, 077, 079, 080, 081, 084, 085, 086, 087, 088, 089, 090, 092, 094, 113,
these issues are missing in the actual round of PIX candidates, since I decided to not include them
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JOYSTICK:
Incomplete issues (with missing pages):
081, Hors Series 08
bad quality scans, needs page cutting:
085, 086, 087
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TILT:
Incomplete issues (with missing pages):
075, 076, Hors Series 58
Instead, for 'Tilt' there are some issues with a few missing pages but at the end of the day it is acceptable (because the missing pages are cards for annual subscription, so nothing really important), so they are included in the current candidates. Of course the TOSEC guys have to decide if these 'candidates' are good or not (I'll send the files to Aral in the next days/week).
More in detail:
Tilt - No.006 missing pages:17,48
Tilt - No.012 missing pages:24,25,86,87
Tilt - No.025 missing pages:19,20
Tilt - No.032 missing pages:79,80,81,82
Tilt - No.033 missing pages:36,37,136,137
Tilt - No.034 missing pages:3,4
Tilt - No.037 missing pages:3,4
Tilt - No.039 missing pages:3,4
Tilt - No.062 missing pages:36,37
Tilt - No.063 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.064 missing pages:36,37
Tilt - No.065 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.066 missing pages:67,68
Tilt - No.069 missing pages:71,72
Tilt - No.071 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.073 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.074 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.079 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.080 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.081 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.088 missing pages:33,34
Tilt - No.090 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.093 missing pages:35,36
Tilt - No.096 missing pages:68,69
Tilt - No.097 missing pages:99,100
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I'll keep you updated about the progresses,
cheers,
_vAn_
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Tools used:
A-PDF Page Cut (to split "landscape" scanned pages)
DjVuLibre (for DJVU->PDF conversion)
ImageMagick (for JPG->PDF conversion)
DATutil (to make DATs)
