Magazines in ZXDB

[Einar Saukas]

I have been so busy lately, that I didn't have time to mention our recent efforts to improve magazine support in ZXDB and SC. I suppose most users didn't notice it yet, so I think it's a good idea to provide a "quick tour" to help people understand how it works...

From SC homepage, clicking on "MAGS" will take you to this page:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=92

it contains a list of all magazines stored in ZXDB. Now click on "The Spectrum Show" and you will see this page:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... mag_id=213

It contains all "The Spectrum Show" magazine issues. Clicking on issue #1 will take you to this page:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... ue_id=4518

It shows the entire content of "The Spectrum Show" magazine issue #1. For instance, page 12 of this magazine issue contains a review of "Dingo". Click on "VIEW" next to Dingo will open this magazine page, so you can read this review yourself. Or click on "Dingo" to open this page:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=27162

Inside this page, if you click on "MAGAZINE REVIEWS", you will find links back to issue #1 of "The Spectrum Show" magazine. Also near the bottom of this page about "Dingo", there's a link called "The Spectrum Show (Youtube) (English)". Clicking on it will open the video on Youtube, at the exact moment it starts to talk about this game.

There are other interesting features related to magazines, that I will present later. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments about it, feel free to post them here!

[Rorthron]

Very nice. A few suggestions:

1. "Idiom" should be changed to "Language". (I think "idiom" in English means something very different from "idioma" in Portuguese: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... lish/idiom.)

2. "Cataloged" should read "catalogued".

3. I previously trawled through and catalogued White Dwarf in the first "little bugs in the database" thread, so they can be indexed in ZXDB. See viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1046&start=100.

4. White Dwarf's language is "English" and type is "PAPER". It is no longer available on archive.org.

[8BitAG]

I like the feature... I'm guessing that this is only a beta and that the results shown aren't yet accurate? There are links to view the PDFs of magazines when those magazines aren't actually archived.

Perhaps this needs to be clearly labelled as BETA?

For example, looking at stuff in my particular area of interest, say Adventure Probe. (Whose publisher is wrongly shown as The Guild, by the way)

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... &mag_id=14

Most (all?) of the PDF/VIEW links to that magazine don't work.

I'm also confused as to why my website is listed on that page... That is not a public-facing page of the site; it's just for community researchers. It's not intended for wider distribution.

Adventure Coder... for the issues that are archived, the "PDF" links don't work but the "VIEW" ones do.

From Beyond is shown as having a "mirror link"... What is that? There are no PDFs or files linked to on those pages. (A large number of From Beyond magazines were in the old WOS magazine archive, including many that I'd done in the past)

Red Herring is archived at archive.org (which takes the files from Mocagh) [I'd personally scanned different versions for WOS] but the database only lists 6 issues.

This will be a really great resource... so useful... but it might be worth outlining the exact status of the feature at the moment and let us know what additional work/help is needed to get everything sorted.

[StooB]

Every issue of Personal Computing Weekly is now a "special" and they're listed by "Week #" rather than date or issue order:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... mag_id=154

[Alessandro]

Could my Annual also be added to the database?

[Ralf]

I need to check it out more thoroughly yet but may already say that online reading of these magazines has never been so friendly before.

I definitely like it!

[Einar Saukas]

Very nice. A few suggestions:

1. "Idiom" should be changed to "Language". (I think "idiom" in English means something very different from "idioma" in Portuguese: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... lish/idiom.)

2. "Cataloged" should read "catalogued".

Thanks! They are both fixed now.

3. I previously trawled through and catalogued White Dwarf in the first "little bugs in the database" thread, so they can be indexed in ZXDB. See viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1046&start=100.

4. White Dwarf's language is "English" and type is "PAPER". It is no longer available on archive.org.

Thanks! White Dwarf issues will appear in the next ZXDB update.

[Einar Saukas]

I like the feature...

Thank you!

I'm guessing that this is only a beta and that the results shown aren't yet accurate? There are links to view the PDFs of magazines when those magazines aren't actually archived.

Perhaps this needs to be clearly labelled as BETA?

I guess everything in ZXDB (and perhaps SC) could be considered as BETA, in the sense that we may never be able to locate 100% of Spectrum programs and magazine issues that are still missing...

For example, looking at stuff in my particular area of interest, say Adventure Probe. (Whose publisher is wrongly shown as The Guild, by the way)

This information came from old WoS, at the bottom of this page:

https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infosee ... re%20probe

Do you mean "The Guild" should only refer to Adventure Probe Offer Tape, not the magazine itself?

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... &mag_id=14

Most (all?) of the PDF/VIEW links to that magazine don't work.

That’s because only a few issues of this magazine are available online:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=adventure%20probe

What happens is, ZXDB doesn’t store links to individual magazine issues. There’s just a single generic “mask” link for the location of all issues of a certain magazine at Archive.org. Based on this information, SC dynamically generates all individual links for each issue. This way, when a new magazine issue is uploaded to Archive.org, it becomes automatically available at SC for instance. Notice that neither ZXDB or SC have any control over files uploaded to Archive.org, thus it would be hard to synchronize individual changes in ZXDB and Archive.org otherwise.

However I agree it would work better if SC validated each generated link before displaying them. Although it’s tricky to implement this logic efficiently, considering that each magazine page may have links to a hundred PDFs of 100Mb each. If anyone experienced in PHP development would be willing to help implementing it in SC, please contact [mention]PeterJ[/mention]!

I'm also confused as to why my website is listed on that page... That is not a public-facing page of the site; it's just for community researchers. It's not intended for wider distribution.

Whenever there’s no official website for a certain magazine, we try to provide the best non-official website available, for reference.

If you don’t want your website to be listed, please let me know and I will remove it. Although I hope you don’t!

Adventure Coder... for the issues that are archived, the "PDF" links don't work but the "VIEW" ones do.

I couldn’t find this problem. What’s the exact magazine issue number that have this problem for you?

From Beyond is shown as having a "mirror link"... What is that? There are no PDFs or files linked to on those pages. (A large number of From Beyond magazines were in the old WOS magazine archive, including many that I'd done in the past)

Good point!

It’s because this magazine was only available in old WoS archive as individual pages, but these links currently recognize PDF only. I will fix it ASAP!

Red Herring is archived at archive.org (which takes the files from Mocagh) [I'd personally scanned different versions for WOS] but the database only lists 6 issues.

Can you please provide the link to Archive.org? I could not find it.

This will be a really great resource... so useful... but it might be worth outlining the exact status of the feature at the moment and let us know what additional work/help is needed to get everything sorted.

There are several ways people can help:

* Providing PDFs or Archive.org links for magazine issues not currently linked.
* Pointing out magazine issues not currently listed for a certain magazine.
* Filling lists of software references (reviews, adverts, type-ins, etc) currently missing from magazine issues.

For the last 2 items above, please fill this spreadsheet so I won’t need to retype everything. Either let me know so I can give you editing access to this spreadsheet, or create yourself a new spreadsheet with similar columns that I can import later. Thank you!

[8BitAG]

I will attempt to unpack all these double quoted responses... Actually responding to the questions does bring up some other database changes, which I guess I'll need to cross-post elsewhere...

For example, looking at stuff in my particular area of interest, say Adventure Probe. (Whose publisher is wrongly shown as The Guild, by the way)

This information came from old WoS, at the bottom of this page:
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infosee ... re%20probe
Do you mean "The Guild" should only refer to Adventure Probe Offer Tape, not the magazine itself?

Yeah, that SPEX entry is absolute nonsense. The Guild had nothing to do with Adventure Probe. The only link is that offer tape.

Adventure Probe was a extremely long running multi-format text adventure fanzine, running for twenty-one years between 1986 and 2007, published by... well, Adventure Probe... I guess...

It passed through several hands over the years, being edited by...
Sandra Sharkey https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=12962 (and technically Pat Winstanley)
Mandy Rodrigues https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=8974
and Barbara Gibb [who does not have an entry, but probably should... see below...]

Mandy Rodrigues ran Atlas Adventure Software, both during her time as editor of Probe and after Probe...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=1372
So she should be listed as the owner of Atlas as well.

Barbara Gibb was the longest running editor of the magazine, and the editor who was in charge when the magazine closed, so she should undoubtedly be tagged as the owner for the purposes of the database, I think.

Adventure Probe also had an associated software label... Adventure Probe Software...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... bel_id=434
Which, again, Barbara Gibb was responsible for.

I'm also confused as to why my website is listed on that page... That is not a public-facing page of the site; it's just for community researchers. It's not intended for wider distribution.

Whenever there’s no official website for a certain magazine, we try to provide the best non-official website available, for reference.
If you don’t want your website to be listed, please let me know and I will remove it. Although I hope you don’t!

It's only a temporary page, so I would like the link removed at this time. At some point I do want to make a proper reference page, about the magazine, which would be fine to link to.

Adventure Coder... for the issues that are archived, the "PDF" links don't work but the "VIEW" ones do.

I couldn’t find this problem. What’s the exact magazine issue number that have this problem for you?

From your explanation, I understand now why only some links work.

Red Herring is archived at archive.org (which takes the files from Mocagh) [I'd personally scanned different versions for WOS] but the database only lists 6 issues.

Can you please provide the link to Archive.org? I could not find it.

The Red Herring scans on archive.org came from here...
https://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?get ... redherring

They've not been uploaded with the correct name... but you can see them here...
https://archive.org/search.php?query=redherring

I think my scans were better (which I'm sure I uploaded to WOS) as they were individual pages, rather than double page scans.

[8BitAG]

Just to add...

Chris Hester was the publisher/owner of Adventure Coder, btw
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=2513

Tim Kemp was the publisher/owner of From Beyond...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=14589

Red Herring was edited and published by...
Sue Medley...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=14054
& Marion Taylor

[PeterJ]

Experienced PHP developers are always wanted as [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] says.

[pavero]

However I agree it would work better if SC validated each generated link before displaying them. Although it’s tricky to implement this logic efficiently, considering that each magazine page may have links to a hundred PDFs of 100Mb each. If anyone experienced in PHP development would be willing to help implementing it in SC, please contact PeterJ!

There is possible to use this simple PHP function. But it always depends on a response of the target server. And the response Archive.org probably won't be quick enough for using this function dynamically.

Code: Select all

function url_exists($url){
   $file_headers = @get_headers($url);
   if (stripos($file_headers[0],"404 Not Found") > 0  || (stripos($file_headers[0], "302 Found") > 0 && stripos($file_headers[8],"404 Not Found") > 0)) {
      //echo "The file $url does not exist";
      return(0);
   } else {
      //echo "The file $url exists";
      return(1);
   }
}

[Einar Saukas]

Every issue of Personal Computing Weekly is now a "special" and they're listed by "Week #" rather than date or issue order:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... mag_id=154

This is fixed now. Thanks for reporting it!

[Einar Saukas]

Could my Annual also be added to the database?

Done! It will appear in the next ZXDB update.

[Einar Saukas]

I need to check it out more thoroughly yet but may already say that online reading of these magazines has never been so friendly before.

I definitely like it!

Thank you!

[Einar Saukas]

From Beyond is shown as having a "mirror link"... What is that? There are no PDFs or files linked to on those pages. (A large number of From Beyond magazines were in the old WOS magazine archive, including many that I'd done in the past)

Good point!

It’s because this magazine was only available in old WoS archive as individual pages, but these links currently recognize PDF only. I will fix it ASAP!

This is working now. Although a few issues are missing. Are they available somewhere else?

[Einar Saukas]

Just to add...

Chris Hester was the publisher/owner of Adventure Coder, btw
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=2513

Tim Kemp was the publisher/owner of From Beyond...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=14589

Red Herring was edited and published by...
Sue Medley...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=14054
& Marion Taylor

Information added. Thanks!

[8BitAG]

This is working now. Although a few issues are missing. Are they available somewhere else?

I scanned From Beyond 7-12 & 14-16. Issues 1-6 and 17+ aren't currently archived anywhere at the moment.

[8BitAG]

This may be a Spectrum Computing issue, rather than ZXDB, but certain magazines are producing errors similar to that shown below...



...showing in the various magazine sections.

[PeterJ]

Thanks for the report. We are looking at this issue and will resolve as soon as possible.

[Neil Parsons]

Excellent news! Thank you so much Einar.

You may add INPUT Sinclair link to archive.org, as I recently submitted there all issues in PDF.

Also, all 12 issues of Microhobby Cassette (paper) is in PDF too in the same place, here.

[Einar Saukas]

Excellent news! Thank you so much Einar.

You may add INPUT Sinclair link to archive.org, as I recently submitted there all issues in PDF.

Also, all 12 issues of Microhobby Cassette (paper) is in PDF too in the same place, here.

Done. Thanks!

[PeterJ]

This may be a Spectrum Computing issue, rather than ZXDB, but certain magazines are producing errors similar to that shown below...



...showing in the various magazine sections.

Morning,

This is now fixed.

Peter

[Stefan]

The magazine viewer does not like how Format (INDUG) has been archived. This is an A5 magazine, the pages have been scanned per pair. So page 1 is the back cover and the front cover, page 2 = not found, page 3 is page 2 and page 3 etc.

The result is that every second 'Next page' shows a broken image icon.

The viewer also seems to have no idea what the last page is and will happily attempt to keep serving next pages.

[Einar Saukas]

The magazine viewer does not like how Format (INDUG) has been archived. This is an A5 magazine, the pages have been scanned per pair. So page 1 is the back cover and the front cover, page 2 = not found, page 3 is page 2 and page 3 etc.

The result is that every second 'Next page' shows a broken image icon.

ZXDB doesn't even store information about individual magazine pages. And even if it did, I don't think it should store stuff like "this specific page exists in the magazine but it's missing from that scan"...

IMHO the proper way to solve this problem is fixing the scan, not the database.

If Format scans were consistent, it would be possible to incorporate this knowledge directly in the magazine viewer. But they are not. For instance, Format v1 #1 was scanned with page numbers 1,3,5 but not 2,4. Format v4 #2 was scanned with page numbers 1,2,4 but not 3,5. Despite the fact all page numbers exist in the actual magazine. Good luck trying to deal with this!

The viewer also seems to have no idea what the last page is and will happily attempt to keep serving next pages.

There are 2 ways for the magazine viewer to know when a magazine issue has finished:

• ZXDB could store the last page number of each magazine issue. I will happily add this field to the database, if we can get volunteers willing to provide this information for about 6000 magazine issues.

• Or each site could detect automatically if a link to the next page is valid, before displaying it (as mentioned here).