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

[John R. Hogerhuis]

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.