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marktrade

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Everything posted by marktrade

  1. I've noticed a few more Gamepro auctions for the same price. Maybe that's not as good as it gets. I'll wait a while on these. I've already gone a little overboard on some other auctions!
  2. Inside Mac Games (IMG) was the premiere Macintosh gaming magazine in the 1990s and published exclusively on electronic media. It started out on 3.5" floppy disk and online in February 1993, quickly growing to include an expanded CD-ROM edition so that by January 1995 it was a CD-ROM only publication. Each CD included video interviews with industry leaders and was packed with demos, shareware, add-ons, updaters, screenshots, and even other smaller electronic publications or "e-zines" from the era that were distributed online, including MacDoom Review and MacSense. The first four CDs in my collection are now being hosted on the Internet Archive with more to follow. https://archive.org/details/IMG24JanFeb1995 https://archive.org/details/IMG25March1995 https://archive.org/details/IMG26April1995 https://archive.org/details/IMG27May1995 You will need a Macintosh emulator to read the magazine, preferably one that can run Mac OS 7.5 or whatever version of Mac OS was available on the issue's publication date.
  3. That sounds good. I think we can benefit from multiple scans, especially from different sources and hardware. I will of course make sure each page is cropped and aligned properly, and I also plan to upload to archive.org. Here is a sample image scanned from an issue of NextGen with my fi-6670. It is unedited except that its size was reduced and saved as a jpeg. The original TIFF is 100 MB and 600 DPI. http://postimg.org/image/j07gocwt7/ I'm fairly certain I can adjust the parameters so I wouldn't even have to crop in post and have the scanner align the pages for me, and I'd be experimenting with that right now if I didn't have to send my scanner back to be cleaned (apparently some dirt settled behind the glass of the backside scanner during shipment). Anyway, you can at least see from this sample, scanned from the front side during duplex, that there is no bleeding from other side of the page (NextGen paper stock is excellent) and that the colors are solid and there is no banding. I've wanted a Next Generation scan collection for so long, well over a decade. I'm glad it's finally getting some attention! Looking forward to your scans. Also you might be happy to know that I still have many of the CDs that came with it and will be uploading those to archive.org very soon.
  4. I noticed a few new GamePro auctions on ebay lately that seem competitively priced at about $2/issue and free shipping. 12 issues from 2002 11 issues from 2004 11 issues from 2005 I was thinking about getting them but I thought I'd check here to see if anyone else was already working on these issues, already had them, or wanted to buy them. The same seller is also letting go of a lot of other console-specific mags, mostly PSM and Xbox.
  5. Looks great! I've never seen that Star Tropics art before. I actually had to call a tipline for help with Star Tropics when I was a kid. Should be fun to see what tips they have in that issue.
  6. Wow. That May 96 issue is about VR "finally" hitting the market. There's even an ad for a consumer-level VR headset for gaming on the first page. History might have taken a different turn if those headsets actually took off. Amazing to read and think about. Thanks for the scan! So you don't have the Dec 97 issue? I have it right beside me and it's 457 pages. My stack paper cutter can only handle 400 sheets! I guess I'll have to just take a knife down the center and then debind the two halves? I also have the Jan 98 issue, which is 385 pages.
  7. Did yours arrive like that or dd it happen over time?
  8. Sigh, it looks like I will have to return the scanner. I have cleaned everything, the glass and the rollers, very thoroughly and have examined everything very carefully so that by now I can see the exact offending particles on the other side of the glass that are causing the lines. Fortunately the seller is being very helpful. They're promising a speedy turnaround. Ah well, still plenty of work I can do to keep me busy in the meantime.
  9. I keep having some success with cleaning the glass but instead of removing the dirt I seem to be moving it around. The lines are appearing in other spots. Do you have any tips for how I can clean it better? Would it be acceptable to use a cotton swab? I think I remember someone using isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab to clean another Fujitsu scanner. Also, I'm learning that QuickScan Pro actually costs upwards of $1,000 for my scanner. There is a trial version which I suppose I can try later. I'm not sure I need it. Video game magazines have a ton of dark pages. I just scanned an issue of NextGen and I'm not getting *any* text bleed thru at all on opposite pages, although I think the page material might be slightly stronger/thicker than the issue of SHAPE I was testing before. I'm going to head to the store and pick up some cotton swabs. I have some magazines with the mail sticker on them. I wonder if a hair drier might help me peel them off? I'll pick up one of those as well.
  10. I did send them the scanner's serial number, yes.
  11. Also, in the software I've been using, I have not been able to find any option that allows me to turn off the backlight or set the background as black. Perhaps I will need to use QuickScan Pro for that? I have been testing with pages from an issue of SHAPE magazine that was sent to me by accident (I figure if the machine eats it then nothing of value will be lost). Here is a sample scanned in duplex mode from a page with a hand lotion advertisement that shows an example of text bleeding through from the other end. You were saying you could reduce this kind of bleed-thru while scanning in duplex? It's barely noticeable until you zoom all the way in, but still it would be helpful to reduce this effect.
  12. The scanner arrived and unfortunately my tests did not go smoothly. It did not arrive with any software and finding software has not been straightforward, but I've been making progress. The backside scanner arrived dirty, producing vertical lines on the output. The seller said the dirt might have settled there during shipment and so far they have been very helpful. I wiped it with a lint-free cloth I had at home and that helped diminish the lines but not entirely remove. I ordered new cloths which arrived yesterday and I'm waiting right now for delivery of a bottle of 99.95% isopropyl alcohol (the stores only seem to sell 70%). Once that arrives I can do a more thorough job of cleaning and hopefully get down to business. The scanner originally came with ScandAll Pro and I was able to download a copy from Fujitsu after providing them with my model and license number (evidently it is not free otherwise). Is QuickScan Pro an older program? Is there a way I might be able to download that as well? I have also been looking at Mac software. VueScan claims to support the fi-6670 but it crashed on me. There's a program out there called fScanX that is, from what I can tell from the demo, excellent. It runs very very fast even in high DPI, high quality setting, several times faster than ScandAll Pro. I guess this is because fScanX uses the Mac's processor to speed things up, as it claims the faster the Mac the faster the output. I'd like to buy it but the developer is asking for $599 which is crazy. I wonder if I can negotiate a non-profit license from him for reduced cost.
  13. Yes, by all means, you have permission to share freely any work I provide here. I will definitely be uploading them to the Internet Archive at archive.org, which looks like an ideal place. The direct download from them is adequate but the torrent files they provide are absolutely blazing. They also make automatic derivative files like searchable PDFs. People can entirely offload OCR work to them and of any language. I don't want to put a damper on efforts to provide a dedicated server (I've actually donated), as it always helps to have multiple sources and backups, but the archive.org torrents blow away everything else I've seen. I will OCR searchable PDFs on my own as well, since archive.org goes a little bit too far in shrinking the file size, but then it functions very well if all you do is search and then go to the CBR for reading. Thank you very much for all your help. I look forward to working together soon.
  14. That's great! It's good to know we're covering optimal ground. I just noticed that other scanners have their own "work in progress" threads over in Magazine Talk.
  15. I guess I will find out more when my scanner arrives and I begin testing the settings. So, 1200+ issues? Holy moly. Do you have a list of those somewhere? Are they mostly non-US? Maybe we can coordinate so that we don't end up scanning too much of the same stuff.
  16. I think I'm confused on the workings on the machine. You mentioned turning off the "backlight" helps but if scanning both sides at once would help then don't you need light on both sides, front and back?
  17. Well I suppose that would be disappointing but since you say you wouldn't want to use it anyway, I guess nothing is lost? I live a bit far from civilization as well and wonder how I would get it serviced, but the seller on Amazon assures me it has been fully serviced already, so I hope it's good for a few hundred volumes until something goes wrong that I can't fix on my own, and even then I hope it's within the 60 day warranty they offered me. Really looking forward to it!
  18. So is anything lost when turning off the backlight? Does that mean you don't do any duplex scans, you're just scanning one side at a time?
  19. Is isopropyl alcohol recommended by Fujitsu? I will have to look at their cleaning suggestions thoroughly. If I recall correctly there is daily cleaning regimen that involves cleaning the rollers as well. Do you scan pages in portrait or landscape? I'd expect that in portrait the glue would only accumulate on one side, but faster, and in landscape the glue would spread out across the entire width of the glass, but accumulate slower. I have very few stapled mags, but doesn't the software autosize each page? If not, then creating two templates sounds like a good idea. In fact I have half the mind to scan both in portrait and in landscape, which later archivists might use to blend and remove errors or distortions that I don't notice until it's too late. The scanner's made for heavy duty and can scan a whole issue in minutes, so why not? ISIS still makes me think of an ancient Egyptian goddess. I'm always confused when someone mentions it. I guess I don't follow the news very much.
  20. Okay, I just ordered a used fi-6670 off Amazon with a 60-day warranty. That should be plenty of time to get at least a hundred volumes in and test the integrity of the machine. I ordered a stack paper cutter off eBay as well. In about two or three weeks you guys can expect some issues of Next Generation, NextGen, PLAY, and even some Mac Addict if you're open to that. It's not a game-specific mag but it did do some games.
  21. Yeah! It seems the market for these are businesses that need to scan thousands of pages a day, whereas I would be happy for a machine that scans thousands of pages every couple months. So I am definitely looking at the used/refurbished prices, which vary considerably, probably because the typical market for these machines are willing to pay more for something that will last and not willing to risk paying less for something that works but may only work for another few months and fails at a critical juncture. If a machine only works for a few months, but it gets a few hundred volumes scanned, that'd be a win in my book.
  22. If I get a flatbed it would definitely be an A3, but I very much want to address volume. What is the new equivalent of the fi-5650c? Is it the fi-7160? I'm very dizzy from the options on document scanners. What new scanner would you have your eye on, if you were buying one today?
  23. Wow, I just looked up the fi-5650c and there's one going for $395 refurbished on Amazon, cheaper than a new iX500. Another one used "like new" for $899 that its seller says has scanned less than 200 pages and is in perfect condition. That doesn't sound too bad!
  24. Oh, and regarding the Japanese Dreamcast collection, I'd mail the pages back to him! I know that sounds cheeky but the pages would still be valuable to the extent that they could be scanned again later with better tech, or hung on walls or framed. The fastest workflow that preserves the binding is overhead scanning, right? What do you think about those? Magazines don't exactly lay flat, though, and despite software corrections I haven't seen any examples that look very straight. Still researching.
  25. It says in the spec that A3 is possible with a bundled carrier sheet, but I have not seen it in action. You run OldGameMags? Nice to meet you.
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