Archiving

 Another couple of books this afternoon. The first is Computer Games to Play and Write by Dan Isaaman (1983). My previous 150 dpi scans disappointed me, so I've returned to 200 dpi. Quite a bit cleaner. Here are the front/ back covers; The link for this download is here . The next book is Graphics on the BBC Microcomputer; The BBC was in no way famous for the quality of its graphics! But I do remember giving it a very spirited try at the time. Twin Kingdom Valley is still my favourite game! The link for this download is here .

Before scanning a book, I always search the Internet to see if a good, previously scanned version exists. This is particularly true with paperback editions like this, as the scanning process is destructive. To get the best quality copy, the book will end up in the bin when I'm done. It also makes it much quicker if I'm not re-doing work someone else has already done.  This book was a little different. The US edition has already been scanned and is available here . It has this cover; This book clocks in at 404 pages. Looking at the edition I had in my hands, it had this cover; And clocked in at a mere 388 pages. Looking through the index, it was clear that some of the example programs existed only in the US version, and no copy of the UK version was already archived. The scan took about three hours to complete. I'm always torn between a readable resolution that is "good enough" and a high-quality one that is worth preserving. Hopefully, 200 dpi is the right level! ...

This is a really special item. I am absolutely fascinated by this whole era! This is a high-resolution scan of the 1961 book The Space Race (the PDF is 1.7GB). Here are the front and rear images; The book is a slightly unusual format (which always makes scanning a challenge), and because of its age and interest, I didn't want to do my usual trick and take it apart to scan it. It's staple-bound, and they always tend to get fiddly over time. The page size is about 21.5 cm (or 8.5 inches) by 27.6 cm (a little under 11 inches), which is slightly (millimetres) narrower than A4 and a fair bit shorter.  All the files are available (via the Internet Archive) here .

I'm not entirely sure about these, but it's always interesting when I find a DVD I'm interested in at the car boot and discover that a previously scanned cover is not available online. I may have just missed it, but I don't think so. Anyway, let's get the ball rolling; Spike Milligan: I Told You I Was Ill ... A Live Tribute! I am a huge fan of Spike Milligan, not just on the Goon Show but notably his series of biographies (where he actually reads the Audiobooks!). How much did it cost? 20p. Fantastic.

One of the biggest bug-bears I have when archiving things is not knowing either what the source is, or what the date it was printed is. This item, unfortunately, combines both. From the look of things (mainly the Russian on the back), this might date from the 1960s or 1970s when the Space Race was underway. I have no way of knowing. Rather than split this into three uploads, I've made this a single one available  here .

Second upload of the day, but not particularly happy with this scan, so I will probably look to "fix" it at a future date when I have the manual to hand (I don't at the moment).  While I was down with my parents, I stumbled upon this and, using ScannerPro on my phone, took some pictures of each of the pages. The main (quality) problem was the lack of light and the distorted nature of the material - it needs a good few weeks under a heavy flat wait to make it suitable for scanning. Anyway, it is available  here  (Internet Archive), and hopefully, a new version will be uploaded to the same place.

I picked this up at the car boot on Sunday. Unfortunately, it was just the cover and the box and very damp. I brought it home, dried it out, and here is the scanned cover image for the game; This is available on the internet archive here. I scanned the cover at 1200 dpi, so the images are large (approximately 35MB each). 

 This month started with a magazine from 1968 from the Sail Training Association. I picked this up at a car boot on the 2nd and scanned it the same day. For its age, it was in incredible condition. It was interesting to see that it was printed in two colours (black and blue), which is unusual (but does give you some idea of the amount of money involved)! It is available here - from the Internet Archive (as usual). Next, in a lot picked up from Bar Hill, there are several items which I will get around to scanning in addition to a lot of "space" material (including the Apollo 13 "Night Final" edition of the Cambridge Evening News). The next item was a scan of a magazine called "The Fountain", published by Sawston Village College in 1963; This is available here . The issue has been signed by several people - was this the graduating class? One of the unfortunate parts of scanning any significant collection is when you find historically interesting items - but...

Well. Yesterday was a revelation. One of my neighbours has started work on their biography. Nothing unusual in that, however they decided to hand-write it (they aren't on the internet). Again, nothing that unusual there. Now, they gave it to me to see what I could do to publish it. I publish a magazine, so while that's the first time, it isn't much of a stretch. Unfortunately we then hit the problem; how to convert the hand-written documents into something we can print. Here is an example of the documents; As you can see, this is going to be a challenge to convert, but as it has been a while since I did anything like this - I'd give it a go; technology moves on, after all. The first thing I did was feed it through OCR. This was the result; : S\\pot ad ous | J og born GLE a poorbetel bear Dor ew Bar AAD NAS, Gms Won ‘+ ogn As ugh Ke wena ow ea Dn RAMA sre,» WD Nex Vay done to om Se ca eel vig oes MA Ww PRL a, ReQue Dood - \\0s eet DRA EBS BeoomoKes : comaker and ALararer...

 So, this month, I've added five items to the archive. On the 14th, the January 2025 issue of the Bar Hill News ; The January issue of the Bar Hill News hasn't been published in quite a while. The original reason for ceasing publication was the time it took to print (and collate) over Christmas. When the Residents Association printed the magazines for the village, it took about 25 hours of printing time (on a single machine). The pages then needed to be collated, distributed, and delivered during Christmas week. However, printing is now done externally by a much more automated process, which makes it much more manageable. Shifting the deadline also allowed the magazines to be with the distributors before Christmas, taking much of the pressure off.  It has worked, but we shall see. Fundamentally, this just wasn't practical.  The next upload, on the same day, was the February 2025 issue ; There's not a great deal to say about this one; there was quite a lot more local con...