[Coco] Rainbow in PDF! And Hot COCO! And Color Computer Magazine!

[Michael Wayne Harwood]

I emailed Lonnie Falk in regards to the project I proposed to him way back
when.  I don't know what success you guys have seen in contacting him but
I figure it's worth a shot.  I used the email address from the Prospect
web page (mayor at prospectky.com) and received an anti-span reply that let
me verify that I was a real sender, so I assume the message got to his
inbox.  If there is a better address could someone please let me know???

If we are considering doing a "share" project perhaps we should start
accruing a list of who has what magazines so that we can determine what we
are missing as a community.

I am going to start scanning in my own collection and will provide a list
of what magazines I have over the next few weeks.  I figure that if the
best I am able do is to preserve what I currently have I am ahead of the
game.  I do not want to do anything illegal or unethical, and I assume
that we are all of one mind about this.  I am not sure what this means
practically....

Thoughts?

Regards,
Michael Harwood
(Any spelling errors are intenshunal)


> On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 20:34 -0600, Michael Wayne Harwood wrote:
>> I'm new to the list so I may have missed some of this conversation.  I
>> purchased a flatbed scanner with a document feeder last year just for
>> this
>> purpose, but after contacting Lonnie I was fairly discouraged and
>> haven't
>> started the project.  He said he would be willing to work out some sort
>> of
>> payment plan so that scanned versions could be sold, but the cost was
>> still very high and I didn't think the COCO community would go for a
>> huge
>> cost item.  His site is selling some of the older editions for as much
>> as
>> $9!
>
> I actually find that *very* encouraging. I'm sure he'd allow a discount
> for a "complete" set purchase rather than one-off copies.
>
> The good thing is that he's not just hoarding the intellectual
> property... he's willing to entertain the idea.
>
> Does anyone have any evidence of average price for rainbow magazine
> issues on Ebay? We should probably go to him with that kind of
> information in hand, as well as the average lot sizes so you could
> figure in what someone would really pay given shipping, etc. to get a
> complete collection and then work down from there.
>
> Plus he ought to see reason and allow some profit to the those doing the
> work of getting it into digital form. That amount could be distributed
> to the folks scanning the documents, or placed in a fund for programming
> or hardware-design bounties, or something like that.
>
> The DVD would have to be less... PDF copies are not nearly as valuable
> as printed copies to a collector.
>
> Just business. Once it's in distribution, he might allow playing with
> the price to find the sweet spot for sales.
>
>>
>> I do not have a complete collection, and many of the issues are in
>> somewhat sad shape.  I managed to get my hands on a few Hot COCO's and
>> Color Computer Magazine's as well.  I would love to recreate my entire
>> COCO magazine collection and archive it before time and environement
>> destroys the printed versions completely.
>>
>> What would you guys consider "high quality"??  After doing some initial
>> scans I found that the quality I was willing to live with ended up being
>> so large in size that I was going to be lucky if I got one of the
>> smaller
>> magazines on a single CD.  DVD is workable, but still somewhat cost
>> prohibitive for a large collection.  There is also the issues related to
>> DVD and CD degredation over time - even if stored properly and used
>> seldom
>> they won't last forever.  Any thoughts?
>
> I dunno. DVD seems workable.
>
> As to bit-rot: we could use a utility to add an error correcting code to
> each file. And reserve space for, say, a 50meg "Damn Small Linux" mini
> linux distribution so that the DVD can boot itself and make as many
> backup copies as you need... just have to remember to make a new image
> every few years. I think that would solve the bit-rot problem once and
> for all, and would probably interest other vintage documentation
> collectors.
>
> You can get about 13gig onto a Mini-DV tape w/ error correcting code
> which can withstand a pin-sized hole in the tape.
>
> But not everyone has mini-dv.
>
>>
>> I would certainly be willing to participate and contribute to the effort
>> -
>> I feel like I should start with my own copies before making overtures
>> about my level of committment, but I am motivated to save my poor
>> magazines!!
>>
>>
>
> I'd be willing to sacrifice some of mine. That's what makes it good to
> have a collective effort... everybody only has to donate a few of their
> copies.
>
> -- John.
>
>


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 the best time to be is now."
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