marktrade's work in progress

[marktrade]

Here is the disc that came with PC Entertainment 28. I always loved the difference in length between the Mac and PC instructions on the disc label.

https://archive.org/details/PCENTERTAINMENT28

[marktrade]

I scanned 2002 issue of PLAY today, but I want to rescan a few pages because some intermittent dirt lines appeared.

I actually put on a pair of latex-free cleaning gloves, like the kind archivists make people wear when they examine medieval books, and started going through it page by page wiping it with a dry sponge brush to remove small particles. I got about halfway until I started getting impatient and thought the issue looked pretty good and didn't need that kind of attention. Who knows if it really helped? Maybe I don't need to brush the pages, but I'll keep the gloves.

[marktrade]

Okay, here you go. PLAY Magazine Issue 12 December 2002.

I have several more from 2002 and other years that I need to sort.

[marktrade]

Next Generation magazine issue 23 November 1996.

https://archive.org/details/NextGeneration23Nov1996

What's so special about Next Generation issue 23? It was the first issue to come with a disc! Filled with QuickTime movies of gameplay videos, previews, and game demos all packaged in a multimedia presentation. And you can find it here!

https://archive.org/details/NextGeneration23Nov1996Disc

Future discs contained features and interviews with members of the game industry. I have almost all of the discs and will be uploading them as well.

[marktrade]

More from that magazine that can't figure out its own name, issue 16 from April 1995, when it was called Electronic Entertainment, or "E2" for short.

https://archive.org/details/ElectronicEntertainment16Apr1995

Complete with disc!

https://archive.org/details/ElectronicEntertainment16Apr1995Disc

[marktrade]

Spending the day ripping PC Accelerator discs and scanning their covers. Going to make a trip later to someone who can repair scratches on my Next Generation discs.

[ArcaneSylph]

Again, great work! However, I must warn you: Play Magazine was run by Dave Halverson, who doesn't like his magazines being put on the Internet, apparently. At least, not the Gamefan ones (which are not available on this web site because Dave requested they be taken down). Besides Gamefan and Play, he also ran Gamer's Republic (which I've found some issues of online---I still need to read them!).

It's a shame. Play Magazine was an interesting magazine. Sure, some of its reviews were a bit...out there (Sonic 2006, for starters), but that magazine was still a great read. But, yeah, don't be surprised if Dave comes along and wants you to take those issues of Play down. Until then, though, keep scanning. I haven't seen Play's early years yet, so this is super interesting.

[marktrade]

Of course I will respect the wishes of magazine creators and their property. That is why I'm here, to return property being lost to history, inattention, and indifference.

I'll listen for official word.

[ArcaneSylph]

Of course! Your hard work is making me want to buy a scanner of my own...I want more people to know about the importance of video game magazines.

[Areala]

Holy cow--you're a scanning machine! I've run through my quota of likes for the day, which is the only reason I can't give more thumbs up. Seriously, seriously amazing work, Mark! Thank you so much!

*huggles*
Areala

[marktrade]

Thank you so much for the warm welcome, Areala!

Here are some more mags:

Electronic Entertainment 19 July 1995

With disc!

And Game On! 06 October 1996

[marktrade]

​Electronic Entertainment 20 Aug 1995

And disc.

https://archive.org/details/E2August1995

[Phillyman]

Fantastic job, your making me want to go buy one of those super scanners!

[marktrade]

Fantastic job, your making me want to go buy one of those super scanners!

It feels like I'm always cleaning it.

[KiwiArcader]

Worth every penny though :-)

[marktrade]

As long as I keep using it. I'd like to put a thousand magazines into this thing.

Here's another one:

Electronic Entertainment 21 Sep 1995

With disc.

[marktrade]

This was the "final" issue of Electronic Entertainment. Starting January 1996 with issue 25 they changed their name to PC Entertainment. This issue was also one of the largest, over 200 pages, so I scaled back the size of the images to 2600 pixels tall so the file size of the CBR would be less than 400 MB. Still big enough to read all of the small text.

So far everything I've uploaded has been 2600 or 2800 pixels tall, when I can get away with it. Even that big-ass issue of Next Generation I uploaded last week (over 400 pages) was 2800 but it ended up compressing very well, probably because there is a lot of white space on the review pages. Electronic Entertainment likes to have fading sidebars on top of fading background gradients and images so I guess that's why it doesn't scale as well.

Anyways, enjoy! I still have a couple more issues of Electronic Entertainment and will be on the lookout for more. It's a fascinating look back on "the multimedia revolution," the rise and fall of commercial multimedia software in general, and the emergence of gaming as the dominant form of computer entertainment.

Electronic Entertainment 24 Dec 1995

Oh and the disc for that issue is in BIN/CUE format this time because it contained audio tracks.

[marktrade]

Tried my hand at scanning an issue of Computer Gaming World. The paper stock was really thin, like catalog paper. Good thing I had no paper jams or they might have torn right in half! Another strange thing about this mag is that they counted some of the mail inserts as pages in the page numbering. At first I thought I was missing pages but then I realized, "wait a second, that's where an insert was." So I felt obligated to scan them and include them so readers would not think pages are missing. That is cumbersome, though.

I have not scanned the mail inserts from other mags, although I haven't thrown them away yet. I know someone somewhere might be interested in them at some point in time but even from an historical perspective I think they're just junk. Ugly, annoying, awkwardly placed junk. But then it was only some of the inserts that were treated as "pages."

Computer Gaming World 140 Mar 1996

Of course you can download the official online version for free already at cgwmuseum.org. You can compare my version with theirs at:

http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1996&pub=2&id=140

Although this is my lowest resolution upload so far at 2400 pixels tall, it is still considerably higher than theirs and should also have a drastically reduced number of dirt lines.

Worth it, huh?

[JohnSmith]

God, this output is incredible. It can take me a full day to do one magazine based on the flatbed method. How expensive was your feed scanner so I can easily know that I'll never be able to get one?

[KiwiArcader]

Take a look at the full price and secondhand prices on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-fi-6670-Professional-Document-Scanner/dp/B001D4OGQG/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?ie=UTF8&dpID=31ad3WG6uHL&dpPl=1&keywords=fi-6670aπ=AC_SY200_QL40&qid=1433533392&ref=plSrch&ref_=mp_s_a_1_1&sr=8-1

[Areala]

Good heavens! Five thousand dollars??

I am cry. :(

*huggles*
Areala

[JohnSmith]

I think that the only way that I'd be able to get one of these machines is if a company was liquidating or closing and just gave it away. i really love the idea of having one and being able to preserve magazines quickly and efficiently.

[KiwiArcader]

That's precisely how I acquired my FI-5650c. I bought it off EBAY and the seller was a recycling company who buys up company equipment when they are upgrading to the newest generation. They generally pay very little per item as they purchase large volumes from the companies and as a result these appear on EBAY for significantly less than what they are worth.

Sure, you take a chance with a purchase like this but I got mine for $200 and she's all good barring needing to get the local service agent to give it a clean at some point.

[marktrade]

I believed very strongly in bringing professional-level attention to game and tech magazine preservation, and lacking professional archivists for so many years, I resolved to teach myself! And I needed equipment that would address the large volume of magazines being forgotten, and a lot of those are large format, so that left very few options.

But like I said before, I feel like I'm always cleaning my scanner, since even microscopic amounts of dirt can manifest as long lines on a page. Until today I've always been able to clean it so that it looks pristine but today I noticed one particular speck/line that is not going away. It's extremely small, as small as a speck/line can be and still be noticed at 600 DPI, so I'll keep scanning, but I'll need it professionally serviced eventually.

It's still a lot of work. I still have to go through each page before scanning them to make sure they're separate aren't still attached by a small amount of glue. Every now and then a page will glitch and I'll have to rescan it. I still have to open every page in an image editor to crop and align it, sometimes editing out imperfections.

I'm not totally convinced that my workflow is more efficient than using a CCD large format flatbed like the Epson Expression 10000XL, but then I've never used one. I just knew that I didn't want to sit at a flatbed all day pulling the cover up, pulling the mag off, turning the page, putting it back, lining it up, putting the cover back down, hitting scan, and waiting. There would be less cropping and aligning involved in post, but I'd rather spend more time at the computer than at the scanner I guess.

http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Expression-10000XL-Wide-Format-Graphic/dp/B0002LC9TC/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1433569853&sr=8-7&keywords=A3+flatbed+scanner

[KiwiArcader]

I would never go back to scanning on a flatbed if I can possibly help it. Just way too slow processing a mag. I still have one in case I need photo's scanned but that's about it.