marktrade

This magazine lasted many years, at least as far back as the early 90s. In 2000 it changed its name to "Computer Games Magazine." There's currently an empty section the database for the title "Computer Games." I suppose this is what it's referring to? I thought there might have been another publication simply called "Computer Games," but I know that Computer Games Strategy Plus was pretty big because I have many issues from over the years, maybe 50 or 60.

I've also updated download links and am marking unedited issues I've uploaded to archive.org as "Editing." I made sure to report Next Generation 23 as broken since its missing half its pages (see earlier posts in this thread about editing late at night ).

I just realized I have the ability to mark unscanned magazines in the database as "acquired." I should really do that pronto. Be sure to check the other PC Accelerator thread for new links to edited issues. I'll be posting them there.

Wow, this is great! Thank you for all this. The ColecoVision ad you edited together looks especially nice. I think it would be nice if it looked like that in the readable archive. If in your opinion as an archivist that gap should be preserved as a resource for people to see how it was actually printed, it might be better to have it as an extra. Otherwise I don't think that's of interest to readers, or at least I've never heard a reader say, "I like that." They're more likely to appreciate the extra work you did in editing it. It looks nice! As for cover fold-outs, this is how I treat them: As I open the cover, what I see as the immediate left face is first, the immediate right face is second, then as I fold out the cover the revealed faces are treated in order left to right as third and fourth pages respectively. The simplest cover fold-outs are designed to create a two-stage experience, what you see first and then what you reveal. So "what you see first" should be the first two pages in the archive after the cover. "What you reveal" are the two pages after that. At least how I treat them and they seem very consistent. The PC Accelerator issues I'm editing and uploading right now have both front and back cover foldouts. The back cover fold outs are treated the same way, what you see followed by what you reveal. When you open the CBR files and read them with facing pages, you can't even tell there was a foldout, because all the text and art on the facing pages go together as coherent experiences. Looking at your archive I can tell what those coherent experiences should've been. Let's say the current way you've ordered the first four pages after the cover are A, B, C, D. I would re-order them as A, D, B, C. That would connect the text and art of the most relevant facing pages. In this case the relevant facing pages are easier to see because of their common backgrounds. The "what you see" pages have a black background and the "what you reveal" pages have a white background. This also keeps the inner fold spread intact so that you don't have to display it as an extra outside the archive. Someday we'll have hi-res VR that recreates brilliant 3D cover fold-outs and all the content is still there for when that day comes but until then I use this method to pair relevant pages. What really drives me crazy are half-page "perfume foldouts" like the kind in fashion magazines that are scented. I had to deal with one of those in an issue of GMR (unscented of course, but just as unwieldy).

Issue 07 is up. Issue 06 already posted above. So that makes issues 04-07 edited and available so far.

A couple years. Longer than some others.

Issue 05 edited

Issue 04 (12/98) has been edited.

I'll be editing my PCXL scans. There's enough interest now where I think we can complete the entire collection in rather short order. Here is issue 4. https://archive.org/details/PCXL04Dec1998 All my PCXL uploads to archive.org will be 3300 px tall at 300 dpi to ensure clear readability of PCXL's small text. This one is a 500 mb cbr. I'll leave it to others to make a size appropriate for their device. As always I'll retain the originals at 600 dpi for when technology accommodates them. For iPad Pro users that might be soon! Sorry for my hiatus. I burned out for a while and really needed the rest. I also became addicted to Elite: Dangerous for about a month. I used the deskew utility I mentioned for this issue and it worked alright. I'd say the failure rate was less than five percent, so for less than one page out of twenty I had to manually straighten them.

Sounds good. In addition to what I already listed, I have issues #10 (06/99) and #11 (07/99). So together I think that means we're just missing 10/98, 11/98, 08/99 and 01/00.

Hey VG, I've been working on this as well and look forward to seeing your scans, especially since you might have better copies to work with. If you like you can see what I've uploaded to archive.org. Here is a fully edited issue from Feb 1999 https://archive.org/details/PCXL06Feb1999 And here are a number of other scans that remain unedited. https://archive.org/details/pcxl_unedited The admins here were working on a streamlined way to make additions to the database for missing magazines like PCXL. I'm sure they will get around to it eventually.

I uploaded all the remaining scans of Next Generation unedited here: https://archive.org/details/ng_unedited Of course I welcome any new scans, especially since I haven't yet taken the time to edit all of that.

Oh yeah, I came across that too, but I think some people here said they already have a bunch of those issues?

Oh and I uploaded the first issue of Macworld. Not really for Retromags but some of you might be interested! https://archive.org/details/Macworld01PremierIssue

I've found a nice deskew utility aptly called "Deskew." While other deskew functions seem text oriented or inseparable from other functions, like PDF optimization, this one is independent and entirely image-based. It works by finding lines in an image through Hough transform and, after taking all the lines into account, making a rotation adjustment. http://galfar.vevb.net/wp/2012/deskew-tool-updated/ This seems a lot preferable than to just looking for text or relying solely on the paper edge, especially when I don't get a perfect slice from the stack paper cutter. You'll have to write your own batch file if you want to automate it on multiple images or, if you're on Mac, use Automator with a shell command.

That sounds expensive to me, but if you are willing to pay shipping then I can make scanning them a priority. I've been working on delivering scans faster in higher quality. I could have everything scanned by the end of the year.

This would be so much easier if underground-gamer were still around! I'll ask around some other forums. I can also scan the magazines for you. I live in Arizona so shipping could be quite high. Are there any scanners on Retromags who live in the UK? Oh, btw, KiwiArcader over at OldGameMags has been busy with family visiting him so that probably explains why he has not responded. He might know a scanner in the UK.

I'm not aware of the state of magazine demo disc preservation for Playstation consoles. Is there a community out there organized and working on it? If so then I could help rip those for you and ensure accurate dumps. I seem to be one of the few people at Retromags interested in preserving magazine discs. But I wouldn't know where to share them. I upload my PC and Mac magazine discs to archive.org but I don't think they're interested in console discs.

Next Generation is the magazine I have most memories of, too. I remember the day I saw the "100 best games" issue on the newstand at the grocery store and I very politely asked my dad if I could get it and he said yes. I didn't even have a modern game system at the time. All I had was an NES in September 1996, but I did like to dream about games, and game magazines definitely helped me to do that. There are a few underground-gamer.com veterans here. Not a day goes by that I don't miss that site. I would say Inside Mac Games is the magazine I have the biggest emotional connection with (waiting for my first issue on Christmas morning) but I guess a lot of people would not consider it a magazine since it's not made of paper and you can't read it without a computer. It was all on a CD.

Enjoy! 13 more issues of PCXL. https://archive.org/...s/pcxl_unedited Some of them still need work and the file sizes are very large. I have never seen a magazine with text as small as PCXL so I decided to be on the safe side.

4 more issues of Next Generation: https://archive.org/details/ng_unedited 7 more issues of GMR: https://archive.org/details/gmr_unedited And 13 more issues of PC Accelerator: https://archive.org/details/pcxl_unedited Yes, indeed! They are there. It's taking a while for the PDFs to be derived, but all 32 issues from issue #25 to #56 are there now as CBRs. Also, those PCXL files are rather large at 3300 pixels tall. I've never seen a magazine with text as small as PCXL so I figure as long as they're unedited, might as well be on the safe side.

I will try to have them up in a couple days!

That might be because I've been buying them up in the past couple months! In addition to issue 06 I have thirteen more issues. I'll try to get them uploaded in one batch this week (unedited for now but very readable).

I've uploaded another batch of ten unedited issues of Next Generation to https://archive.org/details/ng_unedited. More up this week.

I'll be uploading unedited scans of PC Gamer to this link: https://archive.org/details/PCGamer_Unedited Issue 09, "The Multimedia Issue," is up. I've gotten into a workflow where I make two scans of everything, one normally and one "backward" so that both the front and back side scanners get a look at every page. Then afterward I'll look through the first scan and replace any corrupted pages with a scan from the second batch. That should cut down on rescan requests, and what rescan requests there are might be easily satisfied.