How can I contribute?

[Galaxy]

If you have magazines that are have not been scanned or indexed in AMR and you would be willing to help out by scanning or doing some indexing we'd be keen to hear from you.

Common questions about contributions are answered in the AMR FAQs (http://amr.abime.net/faq).

If you would like to contribute scans please contact me first as I we have a lot of scans that are yet to be added to AMR.

If you would like to index some magazines please download the contributor excel template (also available from the link above). Please read the instructions within the file and let us know if anything needs clarification.

[PaoloGi]

I'm sending this Amiga World special cover.

Larger than mirror so I pasted: is it good enough ?

I should have more somewhere ( I moved so I have things [a lot] in boxes)

Saluti (my english is low)

[idrougge]

The FAQ doesn't say anywhere where to send the indexes and scans.

[Codetapper]

Answer is it depends - so few people have actually done anything we haven't had a need yet!

If you have scans, we usually like to check a sample before deciding. If the quality is good (ie. they are straight, complete etc) you can upload them directly to the abime.net servers and we can move them from there. If they need processing, we get them sent to us to work on and then upload.

For the indexes, email a sample to either myself or Galaxy. I will see about adding a contact us form of some kind and change the FAQ.

[oneshotdead]

Instead of scanning the pages in as images, just OCR them. That way, I can just get the information, not the silly pictures.

In fact, why not just OCR all the pages and put them up on some site to download as a nice, simple archived *.txt.

I... would help to do this, but I'm busily engaged in caring for the sick, the elderly, the homeless, and those with disabilities, saint that I am.

Thankyou for your consideration of this issue.

[Codetapper]

Both seconds I considered the idea for?

[idrougge]

If you have scans, we usually like to check a sample before deciding. If the quality is good (ie. they are straight, complete etc) you can upload them directly to the abime.net servers and we can move them from there. If they need processing, we get them sent to us to work on and then upload.

For the indexes, email a sample to either myself or Galaxy. I will see about adding a contact us form of some kind and change the FAQ.

I have mailed you an index. Since I have no spreadsheet program, it is in tab-delimited format.

Where do I put sample scans?

[idrougge]

If I index a multi-format magazine, should I enter also non-Amiga reviews?

Also, should reviews of serious software and hardware be indexed?

[bLAZER]

It's up to you... games are a first priority, but feel free to index other software and hardware if you want to. What magazines do you have in mind?

[idrougge]

Blazer: Svenska hemdatornytt as a first attempt.

[Codetapper]

For anyone considering indexing - can I just say one thing.

We will not add new magazines to AMR unless there will be a fairly useful number of entries with at least a cover scan. It's not particularly useful to see a magazine online when there were 100 issues made, click the link and find a single issue, with no scans and little information.

On the other hand, if anyone is prepared to scan the cover and do some research (how many issues were there, find out price, editor, number of pages, type in the cover and spine text) etc then we are happy to add them!

[oneshotdead]

I think all reviews and previews should be OCR'd and pasted into plain text format.

This would be incredibly convenient, for all those who want the information only, not the fluff.

Imagine them all indexed, in their relevant folders, for easy perusal, much like Gamebase does with walkthroughs/instructions.

I can't believe people bother scanning in ads, contents pages and the like, and pages filled with screenshots, when most people really only want the information at the end of the day.

Sure, scan every page in if you must, but why not OCR those previews and reviews? I think it would be simply marvellous!

[Codetapper]

OneShotDead: Feel free to OCR the 25,000 scanned pages and send us the text nicely formatted.

[P-J]

OneShotDead: Feel free to OCR the 25,000 scanned pages and send us the text nicely formatted.

Hi mate.

It might be useful to do from the point of view of making the articles searchable. The text would not need to be formatted, but kept in a database to link the search criteria to the article.

Yes, it's a huge task, but I thought you may have overlooked this possibility for the future when you have complete sets. Maybe there is a tool that can batch OCR the text or something.

[alkis21]

I have several early 90s issues of the two most popular Greek home computer magazines: Pixel and User. I'm wondering if you would like me to scan them; I've been meaning to throw them away due to extreme marital nagging, but it will be a pity if they're lost into oblivion. There are only two problems that might make you not want them:

-They're not strictly Amiga mags, although most of their contents are Amiga related other Home computers of the era are mentioned as well. Perhaps I could scan only the Amiga pages.
-They will all be Greek to you.

[Galaxy]

@P-J: OCR is not practical for what we are trying to achieve, and certainly isn't a priority. We might add some review text to aid searching but this is a longer term goal.

@alkis21: By all means if you are able to do nice scans of the pages then I'd be happy to add them if the content is Amiga relevant - but you'll have to do the indexing too. As you say - they'll be Greek to us.

[alkis21]

Sounds like a plan. It will take quite some time as it's not something I can do overnight, but I believe it will be worth the trouble.

[Codetapper]

Yes, it's a huge task, but I thought you may have overlooked this possibility for the future when you have complete sets. Maybe there is a tool that can batch OCR the text or something.

Just thinking about the numbers, if it takes 10 mins to OCR each page (that would be extremely quick including fixing mistakes) x 25,000 pages would take about half a year if you were working 24/7. That is simply not feasible.

If someone is particularly keen on a certain game and wants to OCR all the reviews of it, we can certainly include that text. But doing the whole lot is simply too big of a job.

[P-J]

If someone is particularly keen on a certain game and wants to OCR all the reviews of it, we can certainly include that text. But doing the whole lot is simply too big of a job.

That's a fair comment. Let's hope in 10 years the technology is available :)

[oneshotdead]

I'm not talking about OCR'ing every page of every magazine; I'm talking about OCR'ing reviews and previews, and perhaps other interesting gaming articles, which would then be easily searchable and cross-referenced.

Admittedly, I'm ignorant of OCR technology (i.e., how long it takes to scan a page, almost totally free of errors), but I remember OCR'ing stuff one decade ago that even then seemed quite feasible. Surely, the concept has evolved since then.

Gone are the days of salivating over screenshots of the latest game, or over the advert for it. I was a kid back then. Now I would rather the information, and only the information, shrug.

A whole game, through killergorilla's non-bloat WHDLoad site or through some ADF source, can be downloaded almost as quickly as a four page review scan whereas one could OCR the reviews and previews for 100s of games, which could be downloaded in the blink of an eye, and search through in milliseconds.

If someone would OCR these reviews and previews, starting with the most famous, critically acclaimed games, I would happily proof read them, it would be a joy. To my mind, this idea serves more practical purpose than whole scans of magazines, for the Amiga culture as a whole, since information about Amiga games would be deciminated faster and more efficiently.

Yes, it can be nostalgic to see the actual pagescan of a magazine you purchased as a child, keep on scanning. But there should be alternatives for Amigans who don't want pretty pics, but just raw info.

[T_hairy_bootson]

but there should be alternatives for Amigans who don't want pretty pics, but just raw info.

No ones stopping you from doing it, the team already said they are not interested in doing it. So its time for you to either step up or leave it be.

[Codetapper]

If someone would OCR these reviews and previews, starting with the most famous, critically acclaimed games, I would happily proof read them, it would be a joy.

Why don't you start the ball rolling then, save the magazine pages from these critically acclaimed games of yours and run them through your OCR software. It's easy to sit back and ask others to do it without even attempting a single page yourself. I'm sure you'll find it is a lot harder and more time consuming than you think.

I await your text files with baited breath!

[oneshotdead]

I await your text files with baited breath!

Really? You come across more as the picture-book type.

[bLAZER]

To just OCR a page and proofreading it doesn't take that long, but the question is what you gonna do with the resulting text? It's not going to be anything readable. The layout in magazines with images scattering everywhere and etc. makes it impossible to just OCR the page and get a textfile with all the text in "readable" order. The only reason I can see is that you could include the textfile for searching, but reading - no way.

[idrougge]

Not to mention that 90s magazine design, the kind with blue text on green backgrounds, white Helvetica on top of a pixelated screenshot or red text on top of a plasma fractal, is difficult enough for the human reader, let alone a computer program, to discern.

[oneshotdead]

Thanks for the comments, guys. I myself have excellent eyesight, and to be honest I find reading plain RTF or TXT quite easy in programs like Context (a kind of Notepad variant), on my LCD monitor.

It would be possible to effectively format the columns in such filetypes, poviding one used a fixedwidth font and the same number of characters per line, or thereabouts. I've read whole textbooks this way. Hehehe, who needs PDF or LIT for books?

Of course, the pics would have to be ommitted, but that is no big deal, not to me, and not to most Amigans.

Currently, to view pagescans, I use XnView, which is an excellent program for zooming in to and dragging about the scan, but I have noticed many scans are blurry (and not even aligned straight), and although my eyesight is good, I can't read them for long with such annoyances.

The main advantage of OCR'ing is, as I said, searching, cross-referencing, and their minimal size, which means they can easily be deciminated throughout the Amiga community.

Lemon Amiga is a site I avoid, and Amiga Game Database I love for reviews. Why? One is bloated with graphics and other fluff, along with shallow comments by people who know nothing, and the other is written by experts and amateurs and is presented in plain HTML, which each review in TXT. Although the reviews aren't anything amazing, they are fun and easy to read, and I have learnt more from that site than that lemon.

[idrougge]

If it's easy, why don't you do it, Oneshot?

[alkis21]

E-mail sent, Galaxy.

[oneshotdead]

[idrougge=quote]
If it's easy, why don't you do it, Oneshot?[/quote]

Sadly, all my magazines were incinerated in a fit of rage as a teenager, but even if I had them, I don't have a scanner or OCR software.

But anyway, if someone could OCR a few interesting reviews, and upload them somewhere, I would happily download them and proofread and format them, just to see how viable it is. But if no one's interested at all (I think only P-J has expressed any kind of sentiment in favour of this idea), I will drop the idea.

[Codetapper]

OneShotDead: Either get yourself some OCR software or simply type up the reviews yourself from the page scans on the AMR site, or shove a cork in it.

We don't need you to explain how great your eyesight is, what software you use or the advantages of text over pictures - we are not complete morons you know. All you have done is give excuses so far.

[oneshotdead]

OneShotDead: Either get yourself some OCR software or simply type up the reviews yourself from the page scans on the AMR site, or shove a cork in it.

lol, as if I'm going to download your bloated, blurry, skewed JPEGs, or whatever, wasting my crappy dial-up bandwidth, when someone might like my idea (doubtful at this point) and OCR something and upload it as a TXT for me to proofread and edit. If you deem my ideas infeasible, there are less rude ways to express it ("shove a cork in it", yawn). How infantile.

We don't need you to explain how great your eyesight is, what software you use or the advantages of text over pictures - we are not complete morons you know. All you have done is give excuses so far.

This response is also infantile.

I think you should stick with coding, if that's indeed what you do, and leave community communication to the literati, since not only do you lack both tact and wit, but also comprehension skills.

I see little practical purpose in your idea, you see none in my idea. I suppose we should just leave it at that, shrug.

[idrougge]

This response is also infantile.

I think you should stick with coding, if that's indeed what you do, and leave community communication to the literati, since not only do you lack both tact and wit, but also comprehension skills.

I think it's neither tactful nor mature to whine about how people who do you a service for free do it in the wrong way instead of following your slightest whim, especially when you yourself seem more prepared to whine in forums than invest a single minute or penny on your own great idea.

If you want something done, do it. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

[Codetapper]

oneshotdead: You finished your trolling-on-dialup session?

[Calgor]

@oneshotdead

If you did want to try your hand at OCR and see what results you may get, the following link with an evaluation version may let you know what is possible. It offers batch OCR (which as suggested earlier is probably the only remotely feasible method - though a custom shell script might turn a non-batch into a batch OCR program) and claims to be able to do 60+ languages. It also notes that colour OCR is much more dependent on input image quality.

http://www.cvisiontech.com/wordpress/?cat=12

[DrBong]

@Codetapper, idrougge

Stop feeding the animals!

[alkis21]

More out of curiosity than anything else, I did put the OCR theory to test while I was scanning a magazine yesterday. A review of Unreal had purple letters over a gray image background. The result was nowhere near accurate. I used Fine Reader.

[alkis21]

I'd like to report an error. This review (http://amr.abime.net/review_7409) is referring to the 1MB Extended version of Kick Off 2, not plain Kick Off 2.
I also wonder why this version is not in HOL! :confused

[Codetapper]

Does anyone have this version? I can certainly break the link to HOL, but I think it's better to mark the review as "to be checked" with a note so it still at least comes up when you search Kick Off 2. (Until the 1Mb version is found that is)

[alkis21]

Yup ;)

***post edited by DamienD***

alkis21: please don't link to .IPF files on EAB.

[idrougge]

So, does anyone have some scanning tips? How do you best scan a magazine without destroying it? What are good settings regarding resolution and descreening? How do you automatise and speed up the process?

[bLAZER]

This is how I do it:

I scan the page in 300dpi
I use the measure tool in Photoshop to get the rotation angle (and be sure not to be in indexed color mode)
I rotate the image with the given angle.
Crop the image
Apply various color correction / levels. Depends on the scanner. My scanner gives images with too little contrast and colors. So I use levels to increase the contrast, and then increase the saturation.
I resize it to 150 dpi
Last I apply unsharp mask with amount: 80% and radius: 1.


I've made a macro with steps 5-7.

[alkis21]

Yup ;)

***post edited by DamienD***

alkis21: please don't link to .IPF files on EAB.

I don't mean to complain or anything, I'm sure you had your reasons for editing my post. I'd just like you to know that Steve Screech is the legal owner of the copyright of Kick Off titles and every other Anco title since the death of its owner, Anil Gupta. He is also a personal friend of mine and I have his permission to freely distribute these files.

[Graham Humphrey]

IPF files aren't allowed on EAB full stop, at the request of the SPS team I think?

[Galaxy]

- Scan at a resolution higher than 100dpi (200 or 300 dpi is preferable - please note it down and let us know when you submit.)
- If saving in a lossy format do not use too much compression (unless your scanner doesn't give you a choice.) Our preference is for a non-lossy format if possible (eg. a compressed tif) or fairly minimal jpg compression.
- Descreen must be done automatically on the scanner I use as I don't have problems with Moire patterns
- for magazines that have a spine (as oppsed to staples) scanning with the scanner lid up helps - apply a bit of pressure to the spine area so that the page sits fairly flat on the scanner bed.
- If the magazine is wide format don't bother scanning more than the cover for us unless you have an A3 scanner. To scan the cover scan it in two parts with enough overlapping so we can composite the scans.
- Naming format for files - if you scan a page at a time name them XXX.jpg where XXX is the page no. eg 025.jpg. For magazines that have p1 as the first inside page name the front cover 0001.jpg and inside cover 0002.jpg then number pages 001.jpg etc.
- speed: this really depends on your scanner. I'm lucky to have access to a high speed A3 scanner (otherwise there wouldn't be nearly so many scans in AMR as there are today)
- post processing - don't worry about post-processing the scans - we prefer to do it

[A500-Danny]

@oneshotdead

If you are interested in more than 3000 OCR'd reviews (English and German) of about 1900 Amiga games, just visit the site "Amiga Reviews":
http://amigareviews.classicgaming.gamespy.com/
(Note: lots of ads - maybe you want to turn of JavaScript)

(1 game = 1 HTML page with all reviews as text - mostly)

I've read many reviews (in both languages) and there are only a few errors due to OCR.

[gdhgdh]

I have a box full of Amiga Shoppers from issue 1 -> something - can't remember when I stopped getting it.

This is obv. a large scanning task - is there any real interest in having them online for more than just posterity? Is the Amiga community interested only in games scans?

[StarEye]

Are PDF files of already scanned magazines that I've found on the net of any interest? I have a small amount of DMZs (Datormagazin - from sweden). I know that at least one of them are missing all but the frontpage on AMR.

[bLAZER]

All the DMZ's on AMR are scanned by me. I know there is some dude who has some PDF's on his webpage, but they are of a bit lower quality, but sure, if you extract the jpg's from the pdf's we could add them to AMR.

[Galaxy]

I'm not prepared to add anything to AMR unless we have agreement (for inclusion) from the person who scanned them. Same goes for scans in HOL.

Also, I probably wouldn't add anything (except low quality coverscans) from pdfs due the the over-compression (would really depend on the quality).

[bLAZER]

Yeah, maybe we should ask the guy who scannned them first... but about the quality, pdf has nothing to do with the quality. You can of course choose what quality you want on the images when you create the pdf. These particular pdf's are pretty decent, probably better than a lot of AMR's scans, which I think has too low resolution.

[diablothe2nd]

Like I said in another thread (but no one replied) I touched up a few pages of a CU Amiga magazine and uploaded to the zone, if it's good enough i'll continue with more.

please let me know :)

[stainy]

OK.. so where do I upload disk scans to? HOL Ftp ?

[TheCyberDruid]

Yep :) We'll move it over to the AMR section then.

[zharn]

Im going through a stack of coverdisks i have and saving the ones that arnt int he current amiga tosec (2012-12-28), how do i contribute these images?

[Codetapper]

Upload them to the HOL FTP area and post a note here to say they are done...