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Old 19th Aug 2019, 11:09 pm   #9
andrewferguson
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Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 260
Default Re: Old computer mags - scanning?

I'd be interested to hear how you get on with this. A few years ago I bought around 300 computer magazines from the late 70s for the grand price of 1p ... and about £20 in postage. I knew that copies were stored in several museums, but not viewable to the public. So I took a week and just "scanned" every page (I actually photographed, these were large - larger than A3 - and I didn't have a suitable scanner).

Satisfied I had a digital copy, I ended up donating them to the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge. I now have the interesting problem of how to "clean up" these digital files into a presentable form: cropping and de-skewing, extracting images, OCR-ing the text, etc... Being a perfectionist is not always helpful.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that unless you're interested to do the scanning / digitization yourself for the reason that you enjoy doing so, it is probably best seeking out someone who does. I don't want to discourage you from doing so, and the process of identifying the issues that aren't already available is tremendously helpful, but there is quite a lot of work ahead! (Or 'fun' if you're me...)
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