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Ymgve
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 84 |
Diskmag conversion project reborn
I've started up my diskmag conversion project again, hopefully I'll manage to keep active this time.
Head over to http://c64mags.untergrund.net and tell me what you think. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11360 |
that rox! i love it :)
reminds me of that "mist" guy who converted all the magic disk issues to html.... wonder what happened to that stuff |
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Mace
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 1799 |
Woah, time consuming project you have there! :)
But interesting idea, to say the least. |
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Stan
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 187 |
Too ambitious to my mind. Rather try to complete the lists of magazines for instance on Jazzcats site. really, while it is of course interesting and cool to have it as HTML on the web, I presume this is an impossible mission to accomplish.
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hollowman
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 474 |
Great idea! I love having disk magz readable and more importantly: searchable online |
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Higgie
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 116 |
great! thumbs up! |
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Ben
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 163 |
Great idea! Keep it up! |
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Jazzcat
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1044 |
I will support the site with Vandalism, Domination and Recollection online issues.
Greets,
Dave
Jazzcat |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Oh, I forgot, great project, I appreciate this! |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5086 |
mission possible, just needs some good crackers, easyer than cracking actually. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11360 |
Quote: <Post censored by CSDb staff>
well said :=)
@oswald: indeed, for most mags it would be quite easy - just work :) however it would not really require a cracker in most cases - load the mag into vice, go to chapter, break into the vice monitor, cut'n'paste the text, repeat :=)
mission impossible indeed =P |
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Burglar
Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 1089 |
well, you should try to automate as much as possible, first focus on multifile mags, you emulate the depacker and just depack all text directly from the d64. so you only need to do a tool once for all chapters of all issues of a certain mag (using the same depacker).
not going to be easy, but not mission impossible.
(or indeed, you find a monkey that will do it manually ;) |
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CreaMD
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 3051 |
Quote: <Post censored by CSDb staff>
I once wanted to have a c64 news server. I never thought it will be still running after 6 yrs.. I mean.. I didn't care about whether it fails or not, I just did what had to be done. Perff and Kilroy started CSDB.. did they know that it will still be there after almost 6 yrs and that it will grow so huge? ...and attract so many dudes with incredibly swollen self-esteem? ;-) |
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yago
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 333 |
yeah, you can whine that its impossible, or just start to do it.
in your special case, no reason to answer, BAR.
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Mason
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 461 |
Quote: yeah, you can whine that its impossible, or just start to do it.
in your special case, no reason to answer, BAR.
Ohhhh think of poor babbling BAR. He didnt do any remarkable in the scene ever. Now he thinks if he comment every release, make lame events, posting stupid oneliners, breaking the CSDB rules and posting junk in the threads then hes going to be a cool elite top scener. Sadly for him all this elite scene stuff are over, now we are a community of C64 people.
Anyway the project is nice and its a good idea to keep them digitally in any form. Sadly I cant remember how the Popcorn mags were done, so not much help from here. |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
Quote: <Post censored by CSDb staff>
I can see the word 'ambition' holds no meaning to you. Figures .. |
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Mace
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 1799 |
Please focus on the project and Ymgve... let the fish not spoil the meal, please.
[edit]
P.S. I'll add the three Opinion issues Secure released in 1991. |
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maestro
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 727 |
if you need any help give me a shout!!!
and BAR dont say it is mission impossible just give your support or dont say anything |
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maestro
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 727 |
and i forgot to say
very good idea
a hard and time consuming job but everything is possible
keep up the good work and like i say if you want me to do anything just hollar!!! |
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Nightlord
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 131 |
I need to very carefully express my thoughts:
1- It is a great project. Especially from the searchability point of view. Might require lots of effort, but still very beneficial to the scene
2- The following is not meant to criticise this project. We still need the disk mags in the d64 format. New and old. The web interface does take away some of the magic. I mean getting an issue of a diskmag, transfering to c64 grabbing a hot cup of tea, and then allocating an hour to enjoy the mag is a different experience than browsing the web. We still need sceners' ideas concentrated into coherent articles, bundled in coherent packages which we call diskmags. And we still need to be readers that look forward to the next issue of a diskmag and take the time to sit and read it when it comes out.
This pattern is/has been the main ingredient in the social fabric of the scene and it is what makes the C64 scene distinct from less mature scenes (It can even be argued that there is a correlation between the decreasing maturity in our scene and decreasing number of diskmags).
I just want to voice a concern of mine that new issues of diskmags should continue to come out as diskmags first, only then their contents should be handed over to this new project to be put online.
I hope I have made myself clear. Again, this project itself is a great project |
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BAR.
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 324 |
Quote: I need to very carefully express my thoughts:
1- It is a great project. Especially from the searchability point of view. Might require lots of effort, but still very beneficial to the scene
2- The following is not meant to criticise this project. We still need the disk mags in the d64 format. New and old. The web interface does take away some of the magic. I mean getting an issue of a diskmag, transfering to c64 grabbing a hot cup of tea, and then allocating an hour to enjoy the mag is a different experience than browsing the web. We still need sceners' ideas concentrated into coherent articles, bundled in coherent packages which we call diskmags. And we still need to be readers that look forward to the next issue of a diskmag and take the time to sit and read it when it comes out.
This pattern is/has been the main ingredient in the social fabric of the scene and it is what makes the C64 scene distinct from less mature scenes (It can even be argued that there is a correlation between the decreasing maturity in our scene and decreasing number of diskmags).
I just want to voice a concern of mine that new issues of diskmags should continue to come out as diskmags first, only then their contents should be handed over to this new project to be put online.
I hope I have made myself clear. Again, this project itself is a great project
This was a good point of view and yes the idea itself is great. No asslicking.. ;) But i have to agree with stan at last. I like this style, too. Different but cool.
http://www.sceneworld64.de/ |
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CreaMD
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 3051 |
Quote: I need to very carefully express my thoughts:
1- It is a great project. Especially from the searchability point of view. Might require lots of effort, but still very beneficial to the scene
2- The following is not meant to criticise this project. We still need the disk mags in the d64 format. New and old. The web interface does take away some of the magic. I mean getting an issue of a diskmag, transfering to c64 grabbing a hot cup of tea, and then allocating an hour to enjoy the mag is a different experience than browsing the web. We still need sceners' ideas concentrated into coherent articles, bundled in coherent packages which we call diskmags. And we still need to be readers that look forward to the next issue of a diskmag and take the time to sit and read it when it comes out.
This pattern is/has been the main ingredient in the social fabric of the scene and it is what makes the C64 scene distinct from less mature scenes (It can even be argued that there is a correlation between the decreasing maturity in our scene and decreasing number of diskmags).
I just want to voice a concern of mine that new issues of diskmags should continue to come out as diskmags first, only then their contents should be handed over to this new project to be put online.
I hope I have made myself clear. Again, this project itself is a great project
Text conversion has huge benefits. It's printable, you can print it out on paper and take it away with yourself and read the mag texts anywhere. Fulltext search can help to get reference about various facts (mentions of names, places, groups etc.) and dig out useful data. It's sure thing that project will never be complete, but it's sure thing that even when it will cover only 50% of mags that have been done for c64, it will have a great value for all of us and our children. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11360 |
such a project would have many great uses for research ...
- compiling decent alltime charts
- compiling firstrelease lists
- finding lost/unknown releases (much easier if you have names you can search for)
- gathering info about groups and their members
[etc pp]
ofcourse, even collecting "all" magazines is "mission impossible". then again, making a database with all scene releases is even more impossible. or making a collection with all sid tunes. or.... |
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Jazzcat
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1044 |
Groepaz mentioned release-list online documentation. As a side-note to this thread, you can grab the complete first release list from 1991 to 2006 at:
http://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/onslaught/thelist.html
Any mistakes or missed entries, let me know.
By having all magazines online, it would help me gradually document the official yearly *first* release charts for 1990 and further back.
Regarding current magazines releasing on disk first - I agree, the element of focus for existing magazines is to stay on C64 and then at a later day migrate to the web (which I do currently with Recollection and soon will do with Vandalism News).
Ymgve: fantastic project! Great efforts! Keep it up! It will be of great use to the scene and wider computer-community. |
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Mace
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 1799 |
I added Sex 'n Crime to the list, since this was always one of my favourites. It's not my immediate intention to also add the content, though ;-)
[edit]
Oh well, I just added a shitload of titles to inpsire you ;)
And there are quite a few more! |
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Ymgve
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 84 |
Thanks for all the support :) I've put online the scripts I've used for conversion at http://c64mags.untergrund.net/files/conversion_scripts.zip - quite messy, but someone might find some use in them.
Right now the "worst" part of the conversion process is the manual removal of all addresses and phone numbers. Without that part, the conversion from .txt to wiki could be automated too. (I really wanna kick the editors of Brutal Recall in the ass for including their address in every other chapter...) |
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Mace
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 1799 |
What about adding external links to downloads?
Is that ok?
Or perhaps to the CSDb page. |
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wreg
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 679 |
better one link to the corresponding csdb-page and then link from this csdb-page to various download-places |
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Mace
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 1799 |
I added links to CSDb pages with every issue of the mag I'm doing. |
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Ymgve
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 84 |
Yeah, links to the mag downloads would be nice to have, though my main priority right now is to get content up at the site first. Will probably get around to add links at a later time. |
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Tim
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 467 |
@Ymgve, Just a quick thumbs up from me! keep up the good work! impossible as it may seem the idea is brilliant!
I'd put my name down to doing Mega Madness and Epistula if/when I get some spare time or ill. (drop me a reminder as you get along in your project)
@mason, popcorn was single file ;)
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Mason
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 461 |
Quote: @Ymgve, Just a quick thumbs up from me! keep up the good work! impossible as it may seem the idea is brilliant!
I'd put my name down to doing Mega Madness and Epistula if/when I get some spare time or ill. (drop me a reminder as you get along in your project)
@mason, popcorn was single file ;)
I think the first half of popcorn was, but not the later ones. |
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Tim
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 467 |
Quote: I think the first half of popcorn was, but not the later ones.
Grin, actually I only checked issue 3,6 and 8 (which was the last I could find on csdb for a quick checkup) ;)
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bepp
Registered: Jun 2010
Posts: 265 |
Necrobumping this great project! =) Big thumbs up! I use it regularly to look for sources to better date stuff. Keep up the good work! |
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hedning
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 4723 |
Great indeed. |
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bepp
Registered: Jun 2010
Posts: 265 |
It seems like spammers got to the Wiki and destroyed a couple of pages... Can some wiki wizards do some fix? :) |
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Moloch
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 2925 |
Damn, flooded with fucking spam ... |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Tried reverting the change by just creating an account and giving it a try.
02:34, 7 May 2009 Ymgve (Talk | contribs) protected "Main Page" (spammed [edit=autoconfirmed:move=autoconfirmed]) (hist)
Only Ymgve can help out here.
(Edit: I at least removed the spam content and replaced it with an explanation.) |
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bepp
Registered: Jun 2010
Posts: 265 |
Thanks for fixing. But that's just the tip of the ice berg...
Look at the recent changes....
http://c64mags.untergrund.net/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Rece..
Isn't there some kind of automatic spam protection mod to be installed? Think I have seen this on the bigger wikis. If that can't be applied, I will vote for having some kind of moderation on registered users. This site (and project) is too valuable to see it destroyed by spammers =( |
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Ymgve
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 84 |
Sorry, I haven't been paying attention to it lately. There IS a filter installed - a ReCaptcha anyone registering or posting URLs have to perform. But apparently the spammers are good enough to pass it.
I'll do a cleanup and try to figure out some better filtering. |
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Ymgve
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 84 |
Time to bring down the iron fist! Everyone's blocked from editing!
I'm lazy, so I have just restored a backup from last year. Sorry to those who've possibly lost any edits you've done, but it didn't look like there were more than one or two. Those of you that already contributed should still be able to edit and create articles, but if anyone else wants to contribute, just contact me and I'll add you to the whitelist. |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
Thanks for taking care of it Ymgve! |
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Freddie
Registered: Jan 2004
Posts: 71 |
What a great project :) really nice to have all the mags searchable, good job man! |
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bepp
Registered: Jun 2010
Posts: 265 |
More contributors are needed! Still loads of diskmags not indexed. Anyone up for some Python hacking? |
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bepp
Registered: Jun 2010
Posts: 265 |
Good to see that there are finally some updates! Thanks Ymgve! |
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xIII
Registered: Nov 2008
Posts: 210 |
I contacted Ymgve and I now am able to edit pages. I already uploaded addybook #9-15 and am currently working on addybook #8. Next is Ahead and after that I want to start on our own magazine 'Internal'.
I think this project is worth the efforts and maybe other people are willing to help out.
Contact Ymgve for edit rights if you want to contribute.
If there's interest by fellow c64'ers, maybe we can put together a workgroup and keep each other up to date on what magazines we're working on. |
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xIII
Registered: Nov 2008
Posts: 210 |
So... nobody seems to be interested :(
Maybe someone can help me with this: The chapters of the mags are often saved as seperate prg but the txts are packed. If i knew how this packing worked, mayb I could write a program to unpack those files. What were the programs used or how does it packing work ? How can I recognize code that is used to pack/unpack the text chapters. |
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hollowman
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 474 |
If the chapters are packed I just run the magazine and load them one by one in vice and dump them from memory. Perhaps it would save some time with an unpacking tool, but making such a tool (unless there is something around already like unp64) would take time and magazines often change after a few issues, if the files are packed, how they are packed, the format of the text, what characters are in the charsets etc.
So I have just stuck to dumping text manually unless the files are unpacked, and using custom programs for converting text to unicode, which needs to be tweaked between magazines and issues. |
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xIII
Registered: Nov 2008
Posts: 210 |
Yep, that's how I'm doing it atm :) |
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xIII
Registered: Nov 2008
Posts: 210 |
Uploaded some issues of Internal, Expansion, A-Head, Addybook.
Anyone interested in uploading other mags ? |
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Celtic
Administrator
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: |
Personally i use alot of magazines for the dating of groupchanges and demo releases.
It would be nice if you could focus a bit more on 1989-1990 magazines if you have the inclination.
Also please leave a link to the wiki in the profile of the release on csdb either in comment or i guess preferably in trivia or something.
Nice to see in a glace the magazine is available online.
either way, nice going, nice job! |
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bepp
Registered: Jun 2010
Posts: 265 |
I agree, I use the diskmag wiki a lot for dating releases and member changes... It's a really good source from a history perspective - although information sometimes should be taken with a pinch of salt. If I could I would help out but I guess my skills are a bit limited :-| |
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xIII
Registered: Nov 2008
Posts: 210 |
Glad the work is appreciated.
I also see the wiki as a source for information on groups and individuals to complete and/or adjust the info on csdb.
If you have a certain magazine in mind, just let me know.
At the moment I'm focusing on our magazine Internal but after I converted those 29 issues I can start on any other magazine. |
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Celtic
Administrator
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: |
well for me, like is said, the early/old magazines, since a lot of the information of the old scene is harder to find. |
