Manuals, Guide book

hi, i went into the loft today to try and find my amiga, sadly its no-where to be seen (im sure its there somwhere) anyway i found a carrier bag with some games in and some manuals. I will be happy to scan them for anyone that needs/wants them they are:

A1200 Users Guide (i think its what you get with the 1200) may be usefull to someone who has just bought one, basically tells you how to set it up and connect things.

1084S Color Monitor Users Guide, basic setup guide for that monitor

Bruce Smith : Insiders Guide Series for the A1200 (256 pages) really interesting guide (with pictures) to Amiga Dos workbench 3.0 on the A1200...

it says on the back: The insider guide will provide you with the perfect introduction to the workbench and AmigaDos on the commodore amiga A1200.

If you have never used an amiga before then this book will give you the guidence you need to get the very best from your microcomputer. Packed with practical hands-on advice and step by step tutorials, its written in a friendly and simple style by one of the top amiga writers

if anyones interested then just ask, it may take a while though because i dont know what to do so any advice would be helpful

oh and how could i attach a image of the covers to this thread?

[BippyM]

Hey cool..

Scan the insider guide and make a pdf of it!

well ive manages to san the covers hope this works

[Phiber]

Games and such are being preserved, so why not manuals?

Go ahead and scan those.. I'll be happy to get 'em added to my evergrowing collection of C= stuff

[fisken uno]

Great idea! Yes, manuals should definitely be preserved too. I've been looking for the user manual for the A500 that I used to own in an electronic form for years, but haven't found it. So I'd be very interested in checking the A1200 one out.

[BippyM]

What is the best way to scan manuals without damaging them....

For (near)-perfect scans I can't think of a way with most manuals. With manuals that are ringbound (like the old Deluxe Paint II manual) I supposey you could carefully take all the pages out and then put them back in again.

For other manuals you are going to end up having to fold them flat which will screw up the bindings no doubt.

But maybe you should consider the worthwhile cause your sacrificed ebay purchase could be helping

Just had a thought......handheld scanner......

Actually cause I'm bored I investigated this some more..... I am no expert on this at all, this is just the result of primarily some googling and some thought.

Obviously with all solutions the best result would be to scan in all the text and OCR it - only store the pictures as images (rec. 400dpi).

If budget isn't a problem then check out: http://www.infosys-scanner.de/indexE.html They don't list the prices, but I bet you can probably buy a new car with less money.

Maybe for a more economical solution you could hire some 12 year old sweatshop worker from a Nike factory, and pay him $1 more a month to copy the text of the books/mags for you manually and you just scan any images and work on the layout.

More viable solutions......

What you need to find is a flatbed scanner who's platen (the scanning bit) goes right to the edge so you can have the book at a 90 degree angle with just one page sitting in the scanner and the binding overhanging the edge. An alternate is to find a library/office with a photocopier like this and photocopy the book. Then scan the photocopies (preferably with a auto-page feeding scanner so you only have to do the boring work once). You could (I suppose) use this method with a normal scanner (with border around the platen) and type/fill in the missing bits manually if you have the patience.

Use a good quality (3 megapixel+) digital camera with some sort of tripod mounting for steady image. Would require lots of experimentations with distance/light but apparently this would work.

Edit: Check these links out.

http://www.proportionalreading.com/scan.html
http://www.rod-neep.co.uk/books/prod...n/scanning.htm

[Adeptus]

Originally Posted by Jim

Use a good quality (3 megapixel+) digital camera with some sort of tripod mounting for steady image. Would require lots of experimentations with distance/light but apparently this would work.

Only problem with this is, most OEM (or 'bundled') OCR software comes with a scanner & only works in conjunction with the scanner software (ie, you must select 'scan to text' or similar option when scanning).
You can't use it with a picture file.

And non-OEM OCR software usually costs quite a bit.

I think I must have a trojan or something on my computer that has been downloading stuff of the .net.

I mean, this morning I woke up to find something called OmniPage Pro 14 on my hard drive !

A message on my screen said something about a Donkey (or was it a Mule). Must update my AV and delete this crap before it spreads.....

Bippy ?

You never replied on this thread - were my suggestions adequate for your needs ?

If not then I have one more desperate solution. It might be just a little bit far fetched but humour me.

I read on this site that those cool scanners (actually they're not scanners, they're called planetary cameras) cost around £12,500 (about US$20000 for our international viewers).

Quite a steep sum I am sure.

However I was thinking, surely all we would need is for someone to get access to this equipment for one or two days and scan every Amiga book, magazine and whatever we can throw at them (it takes 2 seconds a page).

So, first we need to find a member who lives near Gloucestershire. The better looking the member the better cause here is my next plan.....

Check out the companies "About Me" page: http://www.digitise-it.com/aboutus/index.html

We need a member to get friendly with the staff, I recommend either Sarah or Kelly . Then they can get into the offices of this company late at night for some scanning sessions

So our hard-working member gets the girl, and we get the scans.

Now, who's it gonna be ! ?

[Adeptus]

Originally Posted by Jim

I think I must have a trojan or something on my computer that has been downloading stuff of the .net.

I mean, this morning I woke up to find something called OmniPage Pro 14 on my hard drive !

A message on my screen said something about a Donkey (or was it a Mule). Must update my AV and delete this crap before it spreads.....

[Minuous]

Yes, by all means please do!!

[Medvind]

And after you've scanned, what is the best layout of chioce when you edit it into, like, a PDF file? I'm mostly thinking about if you later want to print it out. If you have a manual in A5 format scanned, then you would want 2 pages on each A4, right?

[IanS]

I have the 'Next Steps' Amiga manual by the same publisher as well as the original Insiders Guide. If people want it scanning for posterity, then I may be able to do it, although it will probably be a pain

Now for some bad news!

I also have a load of Amiga mags, mainly AF and CU Amiga, a couple of Amiga User Int and one or two others whose name I forget. Some of these are from the '80s, and a lot from the '90s. From memory there are maybe 50-60 mags in total, maybe more. I'll count them in the next day or two. Cover disks (floppies) are missing on most, but I have quite a few of the cover CDs. Most are well thumbed, but no pages missing and in generally good condition.

I want to get rid of them... as my Amiga usage is dwindling, and they take up loads of room. Obviously, I don't want to throw them away, and scanning them would be a very long and tortuous task. But, if anybody wants them they are free to a good home. If you have a request for perhaps one or two mags that you have been after for a while, send me an email with the issue number, and I'll see if I've got it. Of course, postage overseas would have to be reimbursed, but other than that, they are free gratis to all you Amiga fans.

Contact me with any requests

ian.shelton@nottingham.ac.uk