pdf of the actual instructions

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Nomad
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pdf of the actual instructions

Post by Nomad »

Is it possible to have the original pdf/scans of the instructions or were they destroyed? Now that hard drive space is no longer such a premium seems a bit backwards to still just be using txt files. I notice some title have the scans retained (like the hobbit).

You loose so much information by not keeping the actual instructions - there is no more information about the layout of the document, the typesetting, choice of layout.

Appreciate the problem with many of the old titles having been processed by other people and therefore the decision is out of your hands.
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PeterJ
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]Nomad[/mention] where they are available we would certainly keep both forms.
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Einar Saukas
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by Einar Saukas »

Yes, we will keep both versions whenever we manage to retrieve them.

As a matter of fact, I wrote about the importance of keeping both a few years ago (before I even considered ZXDB):

https://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/ ... ent_854399

In particular, if anyone still has any of the original scanned manuals removed later from old WoS archive, please contact us!
Nomad
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by Nomad »

I think its probably one of those important but probably un-achievable projects. Its very hard to motivate people to go to the effort of scanning the manuals for the titles. Most can't see the need for it.

But the thing is every year that passes more of the physical copies become un-archival. I figure there is only a few more decades where such a project even is practical for the majority of software.

I agree with Einar post on WOS, from an archivist standpoint it was madness to destroy the original copies. Even microfilm is a better idea as at least it preserves the data and layout on the film. With text you just have an imprecise copy with all of the meta data about the document lost.

A lot of people will say 'its not important' but that is subjective. For someone doing a thesis on typography in early computer software would probably disagree. There is so much that can be done even with what we consider today to be useless tat. :lol: It seems to always come back to we just have no idea what is going to be important in the future so resources permitting as much as possible should be preserved in its original state. Let the future figure out for itself what it does and does not want to look at. :lol:
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Rorthron
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by Rorthron »

I agree we should have the original scans. It's a real shame they were removed from WoS. Aside from the presentation differences, the content of many of the .txt files is actually wrong.

What format is best? Multi-page PDFs? Also how can we submit them?
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Mobygames includes the scanned instructions of some games in jpg format as part of the scanned inlays.
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PeterJ
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]Rorthron[/mention] yes, multipage PDF is best. An upload system is being developed, but for now youo email them to the SC address on the homepage.
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PeterJ
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

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Rorthron wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2018 7:33 am I agree we should have the original scans. It's a real shame they were removed from WoS.
We should have all the scans that were available on WoS in 2013. Can you give me some examples?
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Rorthron
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

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PeterJ wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:56 am
Rorthron wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2018 7:33 am I agree we should have the original scans. It's a real shame they were removed from WoS.
We should have all the scans that were available on WoS in 2013. Can you give me some examples?
I don't have any examples and perhaps I am mistaken. I had thought a lot of inlays were removed from WoS at some point.
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PeterJ
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]Rorthron[/mention] That may well have been the case. I believe the mirror on archive.org comes from 2013.
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Einar Saukas
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by Einar Saukas »

PeterJ wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:56 am
Rorthron wrote: Sun Feb 25, 2018 7:33 amI agree we should have the original scans. It's a real shame they were removed from WoS.
We should have all the scans that were available on WoS in 2013. Can you give me some examples?
The examples are all scans removed from WoS before 2013 :)

To reduce storage and bandwidth, WoS asked users for help typing instructions (you should have seen the message "please help typing this up" on several pages), then replaced them. This is the reason most games have instructions in TXT format only.
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PeterJ
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Re: pdf of the actual instructions

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] hopefully they are on a backup somewhere and with the mammoth server space over at WoS will eventually be released?
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