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Retromags Presents! CD-ROM Today Issue 3 Winter 1993 Retromags Database Entry Download from Retromags Download from The Internet Archive

There were 29 issues. The final issue was dated July 1996, around the time the multimedia super-consoles like the 3DO and CD-i gave up their ghosts. I do not have all 29 issues, but I do have most of them.

Mine became a flamethrower—when it broke! It might have been because I carelessly left it on the floor and some debris fell into one of the air vents when I wasn't looking. I turned it on and pop! A small fireball went out and the temperature gauge shot up past the stated maximum on the box. It was pretty cool while it lasted, though. Here it is: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0106JNHMW/ Independently adjustable air temperature and air flow, along with that super useful digital temperature gauge (without it I would not have known it was getting dangerously hot, there might have been an even bigger explosion). These days an ordinary hair dryer works fine for me but I'll need a heat gun again to debind the stronger higher quality mags like Next Generation and the old Macworlds. Anyway, do not leave your heat gun on the floor. As for my method, I try to take the whole cover piece off first. That leaves the inner pages bound by a solid strip of glue. I let the glue side hang off the side of a box or whatever and then start removing the pages. If successful, then the last page will have a big honking strip of glue on it that I can just pull cleanly off as one solid piece. Worst case scenario the glue melts too much and gets goo over every page. That's why I figure it helps to err on a lower temperature, if you're not sure what temperature is appropriate. 500°C seems very high. Doesn't the glue get all gooey for you?

Retromags Presents! CD-ROM Today Issue 2 Fall 1993 Retromags Database Entry Download from Retromags Download from The Internet Archive

Issue 2 will be up tomorrow. Let's see how long I can do one-a-day.

Retromags Presents! CD-ROM Today Issue 1 July 1993 Retromags Database Entry Download from Retromags Download from The Internet Archive

Interesting! Another resource might be the e-zines bundled with issues of Inside Mac Games, which were mostly Mac gaming oriented but not completely.

A category has been made for CD-ROM Today in the download manager, so I will no longer post updates in this thread and instead post in the new releases section. One thing, though. I'm not sure what's happening but the download buttons aren't appearing in the database entries for CD-ROM Today after I add links. I thought it might have been because we're in the process of adding custom buttons for different download sites and automatically applying them, but now that I'm uploading official links, I notice those aren't showing up either.

Great stuff!

It's such a cumbersome mag to track on ebay as well, since any search for it results in a ton of other magazines offering tips and tricks for everything from hot rods to country living.

Early Tips & Tricks are hard to come by. I regret not buying billmarioman's auction of them last year, though who knows how high that price would have gone.

Issue 02 is up! https://archive.org/details/CDROMToday02Fall1993

The hype for the Mastushita M2 was really strong back then, wasn't it? I bought into it myself. So disappointing that it never materialized.

Issue number one of CD-ROM Today has been scanned, edited, and uploaded to my ADO page. https://archive.org/details/CDROMToday01Jul1993 I had some time recently and may do some of the others. Not sure if this will be a habit. Hopefully.

I'd think it'd be just the opposite. Large releases get noticed, word would spread, and it would lead to a lot of attention. Perhaps too much in that it would stress the site, but who knows?

Yeah, I was thinking specifically of the Game Player's PC Entertainment line and its heritage, which uses Vol/Issue numbering and was bimonthly. But wouldn't a hyphen make it look like the second month was a date, as in a weekly?

I see. That does make more sense. What if it's bimonthly? Do you include both months or just the first?

Interesting discussion. I agree it is sensible for when we don't know the number of issues published to name them as Kiwiarcader and kitsunebi77 suggested, with title then yyyy-mm. However I do see the merit in the Retromags applied numbering method in that it encourages us to really examine and sort through exactly how many issues there are, what order they come in, and that we are aware of all of them. Furthermore this is important for the organizing tool so it can check what issues you have and which ones are missing. So, maybe there ought to be two conventions, one for magazines where our knowledge of the issue ordering is complete with every issue having a denomination, and another for where our knowledge of the issue ordering is still a work in progress.

Those all sound like very good ideas! Except I'm not personally a fan of the "_-_" underscore-hyphen-underscore. I understand the need for underscores because there are many different kinds of file systems out there and they don't all interpret spaces the same way, but the hyphen and extra underscore seem to unnecessarily lengthen the filename. Also I wonder if we might take this opportunity to establish guidelines for naming files when we don't know the issue number. We're facing a possibility with some magazines that we may never know the order in which a particular issue was published because we don't know how many issues there were before it. Is there a placeholder we can use in the issue number spot to signify the numbering is not known? And then proceed naming it with relevant information? Other small matters of taste: I like to use capital letters in the magazine title where appropriate and prefer the month to come before the year, but I sense you have reasons for using lower case and putting the year first.