40 replies to this topic

[Mister VCS]

I am searching for this scans - not only the covers, of course.
Thanks,

Mister VCS

BTW: is there a relationship between eg and the later magazine "electronic
gaming monthly"?

[MrRetroGamer]

Mister VCS said:

I am searching for this scans - not only the covers, of course.
Thanks,

Mister VCS

BTW: is there a relationship between eg and the later magazine "electronic
gaming monthly"?

I am not aware of any site that has complete content scans of these magazines. As you've mentioned, I do have the cover scans on my site (every EG magazine from 1981 to 1985 ). Was there a particular article you were looking for?

[NE146]

I occasionally scan cool articles (and post em here.. amongst other places ) However, it'd be nuts to scan every single page.. Although I'd imagine someday it will happen. It would very much be a long term project.. and you'd need a large amount of space somewhere to store them! o_O

[rolenta]

Mister VCS said:

is there a relationship between eg and the later magazine "electronic gaming monthly"?

The second version of Electronic Games (which came out in the early '90s), was published by the same company that published EGM.

[Bruce Tomlin]

The only one I've found so far is a PDF of EGM from May 1982 that I think someone uploaded to alt.binaries.emulators.misc or some such usenet newsgroup a few months ago. It's a bit under 20 megs.

I'm almost finished putting together a PDF of Video Games Magazine from September 1983, the only classic games magazine I bought back in the day. I just need to rescan a few pages that have minor problems. It'll be almost 60 megs partly because I don't want to skimp on resolution (300dpi all the way) or pages with spot color, but mostly because the pages are yellowed and the few without spot color don't look good in gray scale. They're also thin and have some bleed-through and water stains, but I used a piece of cardboard to help reduce the bleed-through problem.

So anyhow, I'm threadjacking this for an "entire magazine issue scans" thread.

I probably can't do this more than once every month or two, and I only have half a dozen or so assorted issues to scan. When it's ready, I'm going to set up both issues for bittorrent download for at least a couple of weeks.

FYI, about half the issues of 80 Micro magazine have been PDF-ified, for a total of around 4 gigs. I'd like to see some classic games magazines get the same full scan treatment.

Meanwhile, have this nice scan of the centerfold advertisement:

[Bruce Tomlin]

Well, that EGM was apparently at 100dpi, so I downrezzed everything to 150dpi and got a 19.1 meg file. So that's what I'm going with. I still need to make a torrent from it.

[Bruce Tomlin]

http://fanboy.net/bt/

[RockLobster]

I know this is an old thread but it would mean a tremendous amount to me if someone's since found scans or even copies of as many of ghe EG issues as possible. I'll even settle for scans of each cover at least... anything would be so much appreciated! I read this magazine like many of you cover to cover and then back again as a teen. I wish i kept them!

[S1500]

Perhaps a web page linking all the different found & scanned video game issues are needed. I put my share up(videogaming & computergaming illustrated) on picasa.

[Random Terrain]

I have a year or two or three of electronic games, but I do not have the patience to scan them all in. They need to make a scanner that can flip between the pages of a magazine and insert a black piece black construction paper behind the page to be scanned.

[Jake67]

Hi,

This is a topic of interest to me because I loved the original Electronic Games Magazine. A couple of years ago, I was inspired by a project someone did to scan the first 100 issues of an equally stellar magazine from that time, Computer Gaming World. Reading those old issues brought back great memories. And I appreciated the effort that a single person went through to scan them and make them available.

To that end, I started searching eBay for all the back issues of EGM from the early 80s. It took some time (and money) but I finally got all the issues including the very first one.

The goal was to scan them and make them available to all. As some have indicated in this thread, the scanning is a chore. I did one as a test. It was the April 1985 issue with Douglas Adams on the cover. (After that issue, they renamed the magazine to Computer Entertainment and shortly after that ceased publication.)

I tried a ton of scanning qualities and the range of file sizes went from 17 megs to 54 megs. Obviously, the smaller sizes have a lower quality and the graphics look a bit "pixel-y".

I'm using a sheet-fed scanner, but it is a chore because you almost have to feed the sheets through one at a time. (And tearing up magazines that you paid a decent chunk of change for is a bit painful.)

I haven't really decided how to proceed. I want to do this and freely make them available to others like me who have that magazine embedded in our DNA at this point. It's amazing to read some of these issues over 20 years later and still remember certain unique phrases that were used in various articles. But it is time consuming and you want to scan these right the first time so you don't have to redo it.

And I also want to be respectful of whatever copyright may exist on these magazines.

[Allan]

These are the issues I have of Electronic Games and Electronic Fun. I am also considering just cutting them up and using my document feeder to scan them. My only issue is that you can't use black paper for bleed through with a document feeder (at least not this one). Maybe if I do this others will come forward and contribute with issues I don't have.

Electronic Games
---------------------------
.
.
.
October, 1982
November, 1982
.
January, 1983
.
March, 1983
.
May, 1983
June, 1983
July, 1983
.
September, 1983
October, 1983
November, 1983
December, 1983
January, 1984
.
March, 1984
.
May, 1984
.
.
.
September, 1984
.
November, 1984
December, 1984
February, 1985
.
May, 1985
.
.
.


Electronic Fun with Computers and Games
----------------------------------------------
November, 1982, Vol. 1, No. 1
December, 1982, Vol. 1, No. 2
.
.
.
.
May, 1983, Vol. 1, No. 7
.
July, 1983, Vol. 1, No. 9
.
September, 1983, Vol. 1, No. 11
.
.
December, 1983, Vol. 2, No. 2
January, 1984, Vol. 2, No. 3
February, 1984, Vol. 2, No. 4
March, 1984, Vol. 2, No. 5 *2
.
.
.
May, 1985,


Video Games Player
-----------------------
Fall 1982


Allan

[Mirage]

I've said it before in other threads that I would love to have scans of these magazines. I'm in the opposite situation, that I wouldn't mind scanning the magazines, but I don't own any (mine got thrown out years ago by someone who had no idea what they were, along with all my BMX/Freestylin' magazines which was an equally big loss). I wish there was some way I could help make this happen.

[bangles66]

It's not just the time involved with the scanning. A project to say the least. It is also finding someplace to host the pictures. You are talking about a huge amount of information if scanned at a good or high quality resolution. And don't forget the bandwith needed for downloading all those pictures as I'm sure if there were available they would be a lot of people donwloading them and that could easily get you over your hosting bandwith limits.

I have all my old EG's, luckily I have every issue. Although I'm not about to take them apart for scanning. At least not now, nor do I have the time or patience to do a project of that size.

[Mirage]

bangles66, on Fri Mar 20, 2009 8:18 PM, said:

It's not just the time involved with the scanning. A project to say the least. It is also finding someplace to host the pictures. You are talking about a huge amount of information if scanned at a good or high quality resolution. And don't forget the bandwith needed for downloading all those pictures as I'm sure if there were available they would be a lot of people donwloading them and that could easily get you over your hosting bandwith limits.

Torrents.

[NE146]

Maybe someone can petition the guys at www.retromags.com to do it.. those guys seem to have no problem scanning hundreds of pages with no problem Look at all the EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly.. not Electronic Games) they've done.

[S1500]

I scan at no less than 300 dpi. I ganked a nice big scanner from work(Mustek A3) scanner that has horrible drivers. You can unlay both pages & scan away. No need to do 1 page at a time. Sure, it's a lot of hard drive space, but worth it.

[KIWASABI]

It's great to hear that there are people out there who want to bring Electronic Games magazine to the masses. I've been wanting to get my hand on these things really bad, but they seem near impossible to find! A couple of them just sold on ebay for like $25-30 a piece, which is insane for magazines, in my opinion.

I would be willing to pay someone for a disc with all of the vintage game mag scans they made ($20 or so). I think you could get several other people on AA who are willing to do this. You could easily recoup the costs of the mags; and maybe even recoup the cost of your time as well.

-Adam

[Random Terrain]

S1500, on Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:01 PM, said:

I scan at no less than 300 dpi. I ganked a nice big scanner from work(Mustek A3) scanner that has horrible drivers. You can unlay both pages & scan away. No need to do 1 page at a time. Sure, it's a lot of hard drive space, but worth it.

I would love to have a scanner big enough that it could can scan both sides of an open magazine.

[Jake67]

I always assumed a scanner that was big enough to do a 2-page magazine spread would be really expensive.

That would be much easier than scanning single pages.

The gal who scanned the early issues of Computer Gaming World had taken out the staples, scanned the pages individually on a flatbed, then reassembled the magazines. (If I recall correctly.)

I'm not so concerned with having the issues of EG in original shape when I'm done. In a sense, I'd like to see the magazines out of circulation so people don't have to pay such high prices for them. I'd just like them to be available free of charge. (Although the collector part of me does appreciate that many folks would like to have the magazines for themselves with no thought of reselling later.)

[triverse]

NE146, on Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:29 PM, said:

Maybe someone can petition the guys at www.retromags.com to do it.. those guys seem to have no problem scanning hundreds of pages with no problem Look at all the EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly.. not Electronic Games) they've done.

Hi, I am one of the moderators over at www.retromags.com and I just want to say, if we had access to such wonderful magazines then we would most heartily try and get them uploaded for everyone to enjoy. Certain members have given us flack for focusing on console magazines but, well, honestly, that is what most members have, and with certain ebay sellers charging close to $50 for an older issue of a computer magazine, it is likely to be awhile before they get put up.
If anyone here has any magazines they would like to have uploaded on Retromags, we offer many ways to help with the process (I have personally edited close to 20 magazines for other members besides the Gamefan issues I have been able to personally scan and edit).
I personally would love to see more older computer magazines on RM so if anyone has the ability or desire to help out, come on over and let's talk (same username there, triverse) or you can contact me here.

[coach41]

I would love to be able to read Electronic Games again. I had quite a few issues of the mag but most of them were tossed as I went into college. I'm also looking for old Apple II magazines to read and was talking to folks on Usenet about scanning magazines as well.

[ThumpNugget]

Yeah my soapbox for the day:

I agree that there are still some limitations for distribution of magazine PDF sets. I hope that people don't use it as a reason for not getting old computer and gaming magazines and newsletters scanned. Eventually the bandwidth issue will be solved and we can take that next step of actually creating a search-able archive with all these big PDFs and everyone will have all that great content at their fingertips. Until then we should be doing projects to make complete (or near complete) magazine sets that can be distributed using the methods available now (torrents, and heaven forbid mailing a DVD). Its a good first step that has to be done anyway.

Speaking of which: I am currently working on scanning SoftSide Magazine. I have the first 54 issues scanned and am looking for any issues after the 1983-03 issue (the issue numbers on the cover are wrong they will say #40 and higher). I'm also working on AtariUser magazine (the American one) and have 19 of the 21 issues scanned. I'm looking for issue #14 (1992-06) and issue #20 (1992-12).

[triverse]

ThumpNugget, if you are looking for somewhere to store those issues you are scanning you could come over to Retromags.com and join up and upload them there. We have a very active community of members uploading very rare issues of various computer magazines now (we recently released Ahoy!, Blip! and Computer Fun #1 and Antic Volume #4 issue #5 were all released in April). We have about 40 issues of Atari User (UK version) coming (I have them in possession, scanned and ready, just editing them now) and havee the below list of Electronic Games being worked on now, for release in the near future (I am sure though, as someone that has scanned issues, you understand the amount of work it takes to get one issue done).

Electronic Games
May ‘82
June ‘82
July ‘82
Aug. ‘82
Sep. ‘82
Oct. ‘82
Nov. ‘82
Dec. ‘82
Jan. ‘83
Feb. ‘83
Mar. ‘83
April ‘83
May ‘83
June ‘83
July ‘83
Aug. ‘83
Sep. ‘83
Oct. ‘83
Nov. ‘83
Dec. ‘83
Jan. ‘84
Feb. ‘84
Mar. ‘84
May ‘84
July ‘84
Sep. ‘84
Oct. ‘84
Nov. ‘84
Dec. ‘84
Jan. ‘85
March ‘85
April ‘85

Electronic Games (2nd run)
Feb. ‘94
June ‘94
July ‘94

[ThumpNugget]

triverse, on Sat May 2, 2009 6:44 AM, said:

ThumpNugget, if you are looking for somewhere to store those issues you are scanning you could come over to Retromags.com and join up and upload them there. We have a very active community of members uploading very rare issues of various computer magazines now (we recently released Ahoy!, Blip! and Computer Fun #1 and Antic Volume #4 issue #5 were all released in April). We have about 40 issues of Atari User (UK version) coming (I have them in possession, scanned and ready, just editing them now) and have the below list of Electronic Games being worked on now, for release in the near future (I am sure though, as someone that has scanned issues, you understand the amount of work it takes to get one issue done).

Hey there.. I do understand the work involved.. A little over 6 months ago I gave myself a goal of getting what I had scanned in a year... I had about 350 magazines at the time. I've finished roughly 250 of them but have had some really good collecting months and have bought more than I have scanned so I've made progress but still have more to do than when I started.

I was thinking of doing a similar site to what you are doing, in fact I tried registering retromags.com but some bastards beat me to it! I took a quick peek at it but it seemed to be focused on more recent video game magazines so I didn't look further.. I ended up registering retrocomputermags.com (have not put up a site yet - still trying to decide on how I want to approach the problem).

Anyway! I love that a group is organized and has taken this on and I would love to contribute..

Edited by ThumpNugget, Sat May 2, 2009 10:34 AM.