The Great Amiga Author Hunt

[ascp]

Originally Posted by 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.

Wow. Maybe you could ask him if he knows what Paul Overaa does today, if he's contactable. Bruce.S published a lot of books by him,, IMHO some of the best written Amiga C/Assembler books done.

[MadAngus]

@prowler
Thanks you.

@jonathan
Unfortunately he doesn't have contact details Paul Overaa, so I'm going to have to do the track and trace for Paul Overaa.

@All
Some updates coming soon.

[MadAngus]

Update More books

Here is the list of books authorised for redistribution and are copyright Bruce Smith and collaborating authors, in addition layout, design and content of these books are copyright Bruce Smith.

Amiga Workbench Booster Pack - by Bruce Smith and Paul Andreas Overaa - Feb 1996 - 512 pages - ISBN 1873308418
Insider Guide Series: Amiga 600 - by Bruce Smith - Jan 1993 - 256 pages - ISBN 1873308140
Insider Guide Series: Amiga 1200 - by Bruce Smith - Feb 1993 - 256 pages - ISBN 1873308159
Insider Guide Series: Amiga Workbench 3 A-Z - by Bruce Smith - May 1994 - 256 pages - ISBN 1873308280
Mastering Amiga - by Bruce Smith and Mark Webb - April 1993 - 320 pages - ISBN 1873308175
Mastering Amiga DOS 2 - Volume 1 - by Bruce Smith and Mark Smiddy - August 1992; 2nd edition - 416 pages - ISBN 1873308108
Mastering Amiga DOS 2 - Volume 2 - by Bruce Smith and Mark Smiddy - August 1992; 2nd edition - 368 pages - ISBN 1873308094
Mastering Amiga DOS 3 Tutorial - by Mark Smiddy and Bruce Smith - Nov 1993 - 416 pages - ISBN 1873308205
Mastering Amiga Workbench 2 - by Bruce Smith - Sept 1992 - 320 pages - ISBN 1873308086
Total Amiga Amigados - By Bruce Smith - Oct 1995 - 416 pages - ISBN 1873308566
Total Amiga Workbench - by Bruce Smith - Oct 1995 - 352 pages - ISBN 1873308558

Also note as a condition of getting permission to distribute these books some restrictions have been put in place as follows.
Distribution of these books unless otherwise stated are restricted to ultimateamiga.co.uk, classicamiga.com and combinedworks.org.
Distributing these books alongside unauthorised work is prohibited regardless of who the author is.

-----------------------

Current status of other books in the search.

Stephen Hill author of 'Amiga Games Maker's Manual'
The publishers forwarded my request to the address they had, but no updates from the publishers or response from Stephen.

However there is a Stephen Hill known as self_shadow who is the 3D Technical Lead at Ubisoft Montreal, Canada. A coincidence, probably. I've attached a picture of this Stephen hill, could be the son of the one I am looking for or he has aged damn well.

Anybody able to confirm this Stephen Hill or am I miles out.

Jason Holborn author of 'Ultimate AMOS'
I contacted Jason Holborn through his website and got a response. He confirmed that he is the author of 'Ultimate AMOS' but he didn't get my first message. I forward the original message to him and am waiting for a response.

Dicon Peeke author of Writing role playing games for Amos
As yet, no response to my eMail, however as far as I can determine Richard 'Dicon' Peeke has not been active on the internet since October 2011. Dicon, hope your okay.

Anne Tucker and Len Tucker authors of 'AMOS in Action: A Practical Guide to Mastering AMOS on the Amiga'
Zero success

Peter J Hickman author of the "All About AMOS" Newsletters.
Zero success in finding Peter. Peter are you there, hello, is anybody out there?

[MadAngus]

Progress Update: Good and Bad News

The Good News
Jason Holborn author of 'Ultimate AMOS'
Just got a reply from Jason (Now Jason Brown, bardophotographic), and he has given permission for Amiga related sites to distribute his book, pending confirmation from future publishing on the copyright status of the book.

Restrictions on distribution: xAMOS and UltimateAmiga must remain non commercial, if this changes a license fee will be required. Also the book may not be distributed with any kind of commercial software or on commercial sites, a license fee will be required for any form of commercial distribution.

I'll contact Future Publishing to confirm the copyright Status and to request permission to distribute if the copyright remains with them.

The Bad News
Current status of other books in the search.

Stephen Hill author of 'Amiga Games Maker's Manual'
Status: I'm Going to give this one last attempt and then I'm closing the book on this one.
Conclusion: Unlikely

Dicon Peeke author of 'Writing role playing games for Amos'
Status: No Response
Conclusion: Permission Denied

Anne Tucker and Len Tucker authors of 'AMOS in Action: A Practical Guide to Mastering AMOS on the Amiga'
Status: Untraceable
Conclusion: Permission Denied

Peter J Hickman author of the "All About AMOS" Newsletters.
Status: Untraceable
Conclusion: Permission Denied

Changing this, got to much work todo to chase this book any further.
Stephen Hill author of 'Amiga Games Maker's Manual'
Status: No Response
Conclusion: Permission Denied

Please check your PM

[MadAngus]

Progress Update:

Permission Granted
With the help of Paul Townsend of AmigaOne Productions I was able to contact Anne Tucker and she has kindly allowed the AMOS in Action book to be part of this preservation project.
Anne Tucker and Len Tucker authors of 'AMOS in Action: A Practical Guide to Mastering AMOS on the Amiga'
Status: Found
Conclusion: Permission Granted

Status Update
Got a response from Future Publishing and although they cannot establish the copyright status of the following books/supplements they have no problem with distribution within this project if they are the publishers. I now need to track down the authors and get their permissions as well.

• Amiga Format Presents A1200s, CD-ROMs and the Things You Have to Know - by Steve Faragher - 27 Jul 1995 - 100 pages - ISBN 1898275262

• Amiga Format ScreenPlay 2 - by Maff Evans - 1991 - 195 pages - ASIN B000XQXOO0

• Complete Amiga C - by Cliff Ramshaw - 1994 - 314 Pages - ISBN 1898275106

• The Amiga Format Bumper Book of Amiga Hints and Tips - by Veitch nick (edited) - 1993 - 98 pages - ASIN B0000COLJ2

• The Amiga Format Guide to Amiga DeskTop Video - by Derek Whiteley - 1 Dec 1993 - 300 pages - ISBN 1898275084

• The Amiga Shopper PD Directory - by Ian Wrigley, Phil South and Jason Holborn - Dec 1993 - 526 pages - ISBN 1898275114

• Amiga format: Get the most out of your Amiga - Unknown Author - 1992 - 168 pages - ISBN 1872666051

• Amiga Format Presents: Get into CD-ROM with your A1200 Start-up Guide - Unknown (Author - year - pages - ISBN) - Magazine Supplement

• Amiga Format Presents: Get into the Net with your Amiga Start-up Guide - Unknown (Author - year - pages - ISBN) - Magazine Supplement

[copse]

Originally Posted by MadAngus

Progress Update:

Permission Granted
With the help of Paul Townsend of AmigaOne Productions I was able to contact Anne Tucker and she has kindly allowed the AMOS in Action book to be part of this preservation project...
Status Update
Got a response from Future Publishing and although they cannot establish the copyright status of the following books/supplements...

Your efforts are appreciated

[DH]

• Amiga Format Presents: Get into CD-ROM with your A1200 Start-up Guide - Steve Faragher - 1994 - 48 Unknown (ISBN) - Magazine Supplement

• Amiga Format Presents: Get into the Net with your Amiga Start-up Guide - Davey Winder - 1994 - 48 Unknown (ISBN) - Magazine Supplement

This should help you MadAngus, although I can't find any ISBN's. This booklet was a single book which contained both sections. The instructions were for you to:-

Now flip this book over to find out how to .....(either Get into your CD-ROM or Get into the NET, depends on which you read first)

[MadAngus]

@copse
Cheers, appreciated.

@DemonHellraiser
Cheers, also appreciated. That will help with the people search.


Has anybody ever met Stephen Hill of AMOS fame (author of the Amiga Game Makers Makers Manual and some of the AMOS User Guides).
Pop over to this post on UA and scroll down to the bottom of the post. There is a picture of a Stephen Hill is that him?
[Edit 08/12/12] Just had it confirmed that is not the Stephen Hill I'm looking for.

[Peter]

Awesome work MadAngus!

[MadAngus]

Cheers Peter.

Forgot to ask has anybody got a copy of AMOS in Action that they would be willing to scan (or even sell).

This book is one of the rarest Amiga books I've searched for.


I'll say it for you.
Nooooooooooooooooo! he said the word Rare, Aaaaaargh!

Yes, I have a copy, would you like me to scan it, if so what format should it be saved in ?

[MadAngus]

@a1productions

If you have a modern OCR application a straight to PDF scan would suffice. Could you include the front and back cover too.

I normally rip out the raw text from the PDF and cut out the images, then completely re-create the book in OpenOffice ODT. As long as I have the original layout of the book that is.

Alternatively png format at 300dpi, although this would produce a rather large zip/rar/7z file of images. I would need to arrange somewhere to upload this without making it awkward, assuming the straight to PDF scan is not feasable.


I would be immensely grateful if you could do this.

[emufan]

great work MadAngus. some of the books are already on bombjacks website.

Hmm, I don't think I have anything that would do the job that you need, how about I loan you the book ?
I don't really want to sell it as as you say it is a hard one to get copies of, it took me over a year of searching to get it, but I am willing to loan you the book for as long as you need if that would help. If that is acceptable, please email me a postal address and I'll send it to you.

Paul

[MadAngus]

@emufan
Cheers, I've got that site bookmarked (At least I think so).
I never turn down a link as I might not have the one provided.

@a1productions
email on it's way.
[Edit]
Forgot to mention in the email, I wouldn't have the book for more than a week. More than enough time to do the camera scan.

[MadAngus]

A big massive thanks to a1productions for the kind loan of AMOS In Action by Anne Tucker and Len Tucker.

The book has been copied and a digital version will be with you in the next couple of months.

Thank you a1production

No problem, the book has now been returned in the same condition as it left me, as if it had never left me. MadAngus knows how to look after books, I would have no problems in loaning him a book again.

[prowler]

Wow! Thanks very much to you both for making this happen.

[AlfaRomeo]

@ MadAngus:

Great work. I´m very grateful for your efforts



Merry christmas for all Amiga community