The Great Amiga Author Hunt

[MadAngus]

This thread is for logging the progress of searching out Amiga Book Authors and requesting permission to redistribute their books.

I'll be doing this a batch at a time probably every other month in-between working on the AMOS Docs projects.


The Main project page can be found on ultimateamiga.co.uk -> Here

[MadAngus]

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Asymetrix has scanned to PDF the "Amiga Game Maker's Manual" by Stephen Hill and I would like to contact Stephen to get permission to redistribute the book on Amiga sites.

However I am having trouble finding him, if anybody knows how or where to contact him please let me know, as I can't find him on Linkedin or ppl, it would help if I new what he looks like. Tried Googling and Yahooing but all I'm getting is sources of used copies of the book.

Also any help tracking down Jason Holborn (Ultimate AMOS) and Phil South (Mastering Amiga AMOS) would be appreciated, can't find them either. If I get permission for their books I can get them added to my AMOS manuals project.

Not doing too well am I .

Moved the above from the first post
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Good news folks.

While endeavoring to track down the AMOS Book Authors I decided to contact Aaron Fothergill the Author of the AMOS TOME extension for belated permission to distribute the AMOS TOME extension software and manual and the AMOS Club Newsletters, I also asked permission to reverse engineer AMOS TOME for inclusion in AMOS development environments.

Here the response :

Hi Joseph,
Thanks for contacting me, glad to see there's still AMOS activity out there
Feel free to use the TOME manuals and software as well as the AMOS club newsletters.
Aaron

Big thanks from the community go to Aaron.

[Edit] Oops, can't forget to thank asymetrix for creating the PDF and HTML version of the manuals, so big thanks to asymetrix.

[MadAngus]

More Good news.

Managed to find Phil South Author of Mastering Amiga AMOS and he has given permission to convert his book to PDF etc and redistribute it.

Please note that when I'm asking for permission to redistribute I am asking permission for Amiga related sites not just Ultimate Amiga where the project is based.

I'll now add that book to the project todo list.

On behalf off the community more big thanks go to Phil South.

[kriz]

Great work and news !!

[MadAngus]

Cheers.

Found Jason Holburn on YouTube thanks to peter on AmiBay and verified by one of Hungry Horace's video posts of the book. Sent a message, fingers crossed I get a reply, although he may be away on a dive.

[MadAngus]

I'm now extending the search to add a couple of extra AMOS books so any help locating the authors would be appreciated.

Name AMOS in Action: A Practical Guide to Mastering AMOS on the Amiga
Author Anne Tucker and Len Tucker
ISBN-10 ISBN 074570221X
ISBN-13 ISBN 978-0745702216
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=074570221X

Name Writing role playing games for Amos
Author Dicon Peeke
ISBN-10 ISBN 0745702473
ISBN-13 ISBN 978978-0745702476
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Role-P.../dp/0745702473

Oh and add Peter J Hickman to the list. Author of the "All About AMOS" Newsletters. I've got Volume 1 issues 1&2 and Volume 2 issues 1&2 to convert to PDF.

[MadAngus]

Update on the author search, I've located Stephen Hill via the publishers and they are forwarding the request for redistribution of the 'Amiga Games Maker's Manual'. So fingers crossed he is still at the address they have on record and the outcome is positive.

[DDNI]

Have any of these authors maintained an interest in the Amiga? Would they come back?

[MadAngus]

From the impression I get most have moved on in their professional career, although those that have given permission have requested to be updated to the progress of the AMOS projects.

Would they come back? Difficult question to answer, I'd say it would be What would it take to bring them back?

And the answer to that I don't have either.

[MadAngus]

Unfortunately at the moment I can't find any good leads to track down Anne Tucker and Len Tucker, Dicon Peeke and Peter J Hickman.

Two members of of UltimateAmiga (shock and amigaoneproductions) have stated in previous posts that they knew them and I have contacted them but they have not been active here for quite some time.

I've contacted Aaron Fothergill and Phil South in the hope that they might have some information.

So if anybody else can provide a lead it would be appreciated

Unfortunately Kuma Publishing was dissolved around 1997 so that option is no longer available.


Anyway On a side note a little summary - AMOS reunited, sort of

François Lionet as you know gave his permission for the AMOS software and Manuals and runs a software development company Clickteam with Yves Lamoureux.

Aaron and Adam Fothergill have given permission to use and redistribute the TOME software and manual. Their running Strange Flavour Ltd. a small UK based independent games developer.

Phil South Author of Mastering Amiga AMOS has given his permission for his book. Now a full time writer, writing coach, building his own training business, Going Down Writing.

I've located Stephen Hill via the publishers and they are forwarding the request for redistribution of the 'Amiga Games Maker's Manual', he's somewhere in Canada.

Contacted Jason Holborn via YouTube Author of 'Ultimate AMOS', although I think he may be on a shipwreck dive somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic.

[fishyfish]

Thanks for your efforts there MadAngus. It's good to see this sort of stuff preserved, especially for the Amiga where it can sometimes be hard to find good documentation.

If you find yourself with some free time and bored, perhaps you could look into other development tool/language books? Blitz and CanDo I seem to recall having a few 3rd party books.

[MadAngus]

@All
Aaron found a potential lead for Dicon Peeke, I've contacted this person to see if he is the Dicon Peeke I am looking for.

Sort of "Would the real Dicon Peeke please stand up."


@fishyfish.

Originally Posted by fishyfish

Thanks for your efforts there MadAngus. It's good to see this sort of stuff preserved, especially for the Amiga where it can sometimes be hard to find good documentation.

Cheers

Originally Posted by fishyfish

If you find yourself with some free time and bored, perhaps you could look into other development tool/language books? Blitz and CanDo I seem to recall having a few 3rd party books.

Although what you suggest is not something I'm opposed to there are some issues that would have to be resolved.

Firstly Books:
As my interest lies primarily with AMOS, I do not collect Blitz or CanDo books, others would have to commit to scanning the books. Either scans at 300dpi (bmp images) or to OCR'ed PDF's, no image PDF's, they are next to useless for reworking. Some books may have already been scanned and posted on some ftp, these would have to pointed out to me.

If these commitments were made then yes I would track down the authors. Also if these authors would permit the books to be redistributed and ported to AMOS then I would definitely take on book conversions.

Please note, all books I release are required to have bookmarks, Linked Index's and Linked Contents and be released with PDF, ODT and HTML versions which requires quite a significant amount of work. The final releases that is, early releases are done to get the books out there and do not necessarily meet the above requirements.

Secondly licenses (not really a big deal the books are more important):
I've never heard of CanDo, was it open sourced and under what license.
Also, what open-source license is Blitz released under I think it's GPL.

I mention licenses as I'm not going to chase books for software that has not in some way been released to the community by the copyright holders, unless of course I can make use of the books for AMOS .

[Samurai_Crow]

I've heard of CanDo. It is a multimedia sequencer: something like AmigaVision, Scala, and Hollywood Designer. According to ClusterUK on Aros-Exec and various other Amiga forums, the source code to CanDo has been lost but the instructions and some documentation remains. He is in contact with the original authors as well.

Although my efforts to recreate an AmigaVision-like sequencer are on hold, I was hoping to be able to import old CanDo stacks into the new format. Is there any more information you'd like to have?

[MadAngus]

As far as Blitz is concerned, I'd have to reconsider. The reason being there is a significant community following Blitz/Blitz3D/AmiBlitz and that community certainly could cover getting permissions if they wanted to.

@Samurai_Crow, cheers for the info.

<scrub> A multimedia sequencer is on my projects todo one day list. As in the past I have had a great deal of fun creating DVD menu's, especially the ones that were released with newspapers using pgedit, vitualdub and a host of other tools. Unfortunately multimedia sequencer documentation is out of my current project remit and I would not be willing to commit the time to that at the expense of the primary goals. At least not this year. <scrubed, why did I right this >

Some semi-good news , is that I have definitely located Jason Holborn , I was only guessing uptill now. I have contacted him via another website, so let's hope he's feeling generous.

[MadAngus]

Update on the author search.

Found a good lead on Dicon Peeke and traced Dicon Peeke the graphic artist that worked for Level 9 Adventure games and I believe this is the same person that wrote the 'Writing role playing games for Amos'. I have no solid link but it seems to me that this has a high probability of being the correct person. I have contacted him to ask for confirmation of identity and permission.

If anybody has the book could you let me know if there is a mention of Level 9 Adventure games in the book or a photo of Dicon in the book. Just for the sake of confirmation.

That just leaves Anne and Len Tucker and Peter J Hickman to find.

[MadAngus]

Update on book permissions:

Bruce Smith confirmed that the copyright for the Phil South book 'Mastering Amiga AMOS' has indeed reverted back to Phil. Infact for all Bruce Smith Books published all copyright's have reverted back to the authors.

And

Got permission to reproduce and distribute all Bruce Smith authored Amiga titles. I have asked Bruce to confirm the exact titles this permission covers.

But here is the possible's list to get your mouth watering:

Mastering AmigaDOS 2 V1 by BS & MS
Mastering AmigaDOS 2 V2 by BS & MS
Mastering Amiga Workbench 2 by B.Smith
Mastering Amiga by BS & MW (Mastering Amiga: Beginners)
Mastering AmigaDOS 3 Tutorial by BS & MS
A600 Insider Guide by B. Smith
A1200 Insider Guide by B. Smith
Workbench 3 A-Z by B. Smith (? Unlikely as it is still available from Amazon.co.uk)

Once confirmation is received and were relevant for the AMOS Pro resource kit project I'll add those books to the todo list. The rest will be done as part of the classicamiga.com bookshelf project and will also be available at UltimateAmiga.co.uk depending on server space.

I will searching out any books that have already been scanned, but if you already know of any of these books that have been scanned please point me in their direction. Also if you are willing to do scans of any of these books please inform me.

[emufan]

Originally Posted by MadAngus

And

Got permission to reproduce and distribute all Bruce Smith authored Amiga titles.

congratulations and thanks for your effort

[Supamax]

Thanks for what you're doing MadAngus .

[MadAngus]

@emufan, Supamax
Cheers.

That's me done for the current batch. I'm going to work on my AMOS projects for the next month. I'll do another batch of author search/permissions after that.

I'll be using the ClassicAmiga.com wiki book list as the basis for the search as part of the ClassicAmiga.com Bookshelf project, this will probably take a couple of years to do. I really should get this thread renamed to "The Great Amiga Author Hunt", can this be done.

If I get any more leads on Anne and Len Tucker, and Peter J Hickman, I'll let you know. I post the outcomes of the current requests.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by MadAngus

I really should get this thread renamed to "The Great Amiga Author Hunt", can this be done?

Yes, of course. All you have to do is ask.