Beebug

[Arcadian]

[I believe that Mark Usher may have already scanned in most if not all Beebugs, so you are advised to refrain from scanning any of these in until I've received confirmation from Mark!]

[andrew_rowland]

We have a project under way to scan all the Beebug mags and make them available on-line. If you would like to volunteer to:
- scan
- clean up images
- OCR
- proof-read
- create a database
- index the articles
then we'd love to hear from you. Email beebug at famrowland splot freeuk splot com. [Corrected!]

If anyone has Vol 12 and can offer to scan them or lend them to me while we do it, immense gratitude would be yours.

Andrew

[flibble]

I'm not exactly sure of the issues, but I picked up the first 10 years of Beebug (including the specials and indexes) last night and would be happy to contribute them to any scanning projects.

On another note, it also came with about 8 years of 'RISC User' magazine, which is what I think Beebug did for the 32 bit machines. I would similarly be able to provide those for scanning.

[andrew_rowland]

Flibble,
Thanks for coming forward! We have already scanned (but not processed) Vols 1 - 11 and are still on the lookout for Vol. 12. I don't know about the 'specials and indexes' though -- Mark?

Scanning RiscUser is something we might be interested in, but would have to liaise with Richard Hallas, who owns the copyright (but I know would be interested).

Personally, I really want to get Beebug finished before taking on another project -- I'm finding it hard enough to get time as it is, but others may want to start scanning.

So: we might want the specials and indexes, and if no-one else contacts you about RiscUser, we'll ping you again at some time in the future. Are you planning on holding onto them indefinitely?

Andrew

[flibble]

Yes I can hold them. They're only a couple of (heavy) shoeboxes worth. I'll also sort out the indexes (white paper things that list all the articles in a volume) and specials, take a quick photo, so you can see if you already have them.

[manitou1997]

Hi guys,

I'm after scanned copies of Beebug Vol. 5, Nos. 1 & 3 - are they available at all?

Many thanks,
Gerald.

[MartinB]

Do you need the full mags or are there specific articles that you're after?

[manitou1997]

Hi Martin,

Just two articles, really: I was after the Mandelbrot article by Kate Crennell, and the Wordwise Plus review.

Cheers

[MartinB]

Ok Gerald, I'll scan those articles for you and post them back on here. Won't be too long, should be tomorrow or Monday I would think.

[manitou1997]

That's very kind - thanks, Martin!

[andrew_rowland]

Gerald,
I think you're going to be disappointed with the Wordwise article, which isn't a review, but I've scanned it for you anyway. You didn't mean the Fontwise review, did you?
These scans are very rough and ready. We hope to do better when we finish the work!
Andrew

[MartinB]

Ho Hum - I just scanned the Mandlebrot article and was about to post it . I didn't do the Wordwise Plus article because, as Andrew suggested, it's not a review but is a Memo Pad utility.

Actually, to make me feel better, I'm gonna attach mine too

[andrew_rowland]

Sorry to pip you to the post there, Martin. I think your scans are better than mine, too!

By the way, I strongly recommend PNG rather than JPG for scans of text. You usually get a smaller file and there's no deterioration of the image that you get with JPEG around sharp lines.

We'll hopefully get an index online before long, which will make it easier to pinpoint the articles you want. I'll try to post the MagScan index when I get a moment. In the meantime, you can use MagScan in an emulator. I attach the disc.

[manitou1997]

Thank you both very much!

Greatly appreciated

[andrew_rowland]

MagScan index in XLS format.

[MartinB]

No worries Andrew - I needed the practice

Although...

I think your scans are better than mine, too!

Really ? I can't begin to imagine why. You'd be seriously underwhelmed by the complete lack of err.., well anything really, that went into those scans

I strongly recommend PNG rather than JPG for scans of text.

I did try and find such an option but couldn't see one. I have already been enlightened to the virtues of PNG by Lion - in fact, I've had my whole house converted to PNG and if I don't see PNG on the label I don't buy it

[andrew_rowland]

LOL. Maybe you pressed harder. I was having problems with the gutter -- shadows and light text.

Well, my scanner doesn't save PNG files either, so I choose something neutral like TIFF and use IrfanView (on Windows) to reduce colour depth and resave as PNG.

http://www.irfanview.com/

[MartinB]

Actually, Andy F suggested irfanview to me in another thread where I was having problems reading some tiff pages of an already scanned manual so I'll give your suggestion of tiff_to_png a go next time I scan something.

Incidentally, the only change I made from the defaults was to select greyscale instead of colour or mono because the latter previews looked pants.

But hey, let's not get carried away and pretend I'm an expert here - I only succeeded because the other 999 monkeys failed

[TopBanana]

I have Vol 12 of the Beebug magazines:D

I have access to a copier that scans, so the files would probably be in TIFF format, although I'll have to check when I get on site and verify.

Andy

[dom]

Hi folks,

I believe I have quite a few Beebug folders with magazines in, I can scan any which people with scanners are missing, I'll check exactly which I have next week and report back.

Do you have a link to the magazines or articles you've already scanned, please?

thanks

Dom

BBC Micro Model B owner

[andrew_rowland]

Hi Dom,
We're still working on the clean-up and don't have anything out there for the public yet. If you would like to join the team pm me.
We haven't got Vol 12 scanned yet, so if you want to have a go at that please scan at min of 400 dpi (makes the clean up so much easier) and reduce to 256 colours.

Cheers,
Andrew

[dom]

Hi Andrew,

sadly the set of Beebug magazines appears to have been lost in the move, which I'm gutted about. My brother has one particular edition as he wrote a sort program which was featured in it, but aside from that I have nothing further to offer.

If you do put the archive online, I would be very interested in seeing it, as I hadn't looked through these magazines for many years, and have enjoyed much nostalgia with emulators recently, and using the occasional Beeb at museums such as Bletchley Park,

cheers

Dom

[matelot]

hi Andrew,
I am following the hope that the beebug mags will be available to view in the near future.
You say its not complete and there is vol 12 to do, is this the only set to do?
I have the end of vol six and the start of vol seven I would gladly include.
Bob.

[andrew_rowland]

Thanks for the kind offer, Bob. We do have scans of Vols 1 - 11 and Mark has Vol 12 too. The main requirement at the moment is for programming expertise, with experience of image processing an optional bonus. We need to develop routines to clean up and convert the thousands of pages of scans into nice images for the web.
I have a pretty good idea of what needs doing, but too little time. Anyone with anything to offer, please PM me or use email address above.

Andrew

[richardtoohey]

Tried to email you but got bounced - definitely the right email address above?

Anyway, I do websites, I've used PHP & ImageMagick - I might be able to help if you provide more details on what exactly needs to be done.

Thanks.

[andrew_rowland]

A full collection of Beebug scans is now available at http://8bs.com/beebugmags.htm so I am wrapping up this project. I made it too complicated and other people got there before us.

Big thanks to all the volunteers who contributed.