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McTrinsic

Posted Sun Sep 15, 2024 9:12 pm

Wow!!

Seems you really earned yourself the Bruce icon 😊

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA
YouTube

Posted Sat Oct 05, 2024 10:27 am

I've added the following:

AmigaWorld Tool Chest
I think I own every single issue ever sold (15), as well as two extra "Sampler disks" 1 & 2. Starting in 1989, I think AW shuttered their Disk Mag operations in 1992 but I could be wrong. In any case, AmigaWorld created six issues per year, two disks per issue. The production level of these disks - even just the drawer icon art - is sometimes stunning. The premiere issue actually came with 3 disks, and then there are also the two samplers. And the final year, 1992, seems to not have made it to a full volume of 6 issues. Not sure if they sent refunds to subscribers or what for not getting to the end of their promised run. IDG's AmigaWorld print publication lasted until April of 1995.

I've created ADFs of every disk and only seem to have found errors on one out of the entire stack. I'm still creating the pages for half of the issues and hope to get that done this weekend.

AMNews
I only have 1 issue from this disk magazine: Volume 1 Issue 3, which included 3 disks. I think this was very likely the most popular issue they ever produced and it was entirely due to the magazine's slip cover art. The issue I added to the archive is from March, 1988. I didn't have the artwork, but it is easily found online. These 3 disks are a total treasure trove to explore. I really want to find more of these, which I think were only published for about 2 years. But they are extremely high-quality curated disks. I just wish they were easier to find.

Best of Amiga
Three-disk disk magazine published bi-monthly that featured “editor picks” from the AmigaAnimation crew. I added 4 issues from March 1994 - May 1995. There are several volumes and issues of this disk magazine missing.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

After I finish the Tool Chest disks this weekend, I have a box of about 30 more loose disks to go. They include disks from Zipperware, Jumpdisk, Antic (might wait on those) and several random User Group disks from all across the country - from California to Florida - I want to preserve before flipping the switch this fall.

Once things go-live, I have an enormous collection of DevWare that I've been building for years. DevWare is not a Disk Magazine, but is more a hand-picked Public Domain collection similar to Fred Fish. What makes DevWare interesting (to me) is the disks are often "themed" and grouped and numbered accordingly. That will be a long project of archiving, but a very important one that will likely take me deep into 2025 to complete. Maybe I should do a small handful in the initial launch...

Speaking of Fred Fish...
I have (as do many others) every single Fred Fish file out there. I've always hated how they are preserved online and have told myself that I'd attempt to rectify that some day. Today, what most folks do is go to this site which lists every file's description in one massive text file and "Command/Control + F" your way through it to find things. It's not great. And you kind of need to know what you're looking for.

And while I have many of the disks in original physical form, I'd like to add them to the archive one at a time and expose and "unpack" all of their internals the same way I'm doing these other more rare publications. But that, frankly, might take years. Not sure I want to use up the latter half of my life doing that. But maybe the first 1-2 years of FF disks when the Amiga was still a magical marvel and new to the world.
:disk: :disk: :disk:
Attachments
Screenshot 2024-10-05 at 10.34.57 AM.jpg
The disk icon refers to the number of issues added, but each issue generally = 2-3 disks.


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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA
YouTube

Posted Sat Oct 05, 2024 5:40 pm

Update: I think I am missing the AmigaWorld Tool Chest Disk Sampler #1.

I have #2, and a second disk which isn't numbered at all. But the second disk was produced in the summer of 1992 - at a time I think the disk magazine staff had already been let go or were on the way out soon. Hm...

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA
YouTube

Posted Sat Oct 26, 2024 10:35 am

I have finished archiving and uploading all of the User Group disks I have in my collection. They include disks from:
  • National Capital Amiga User Group (NCAUG)
  • Amiga Arizona (AMAZ!)
  • Daytona Beach Amiga Computer Enthusiasts (dbace)
  • Amiga Users of Calgary (AMUC)
I also had disks from Sacramento Amiga Computer Club (SACC) but I sent those disk images to Jerry Gray and he provides the files himself. You can't browse them or see what's inside them unless you download them all, but at least they are captured somewhere.

I've been told by a few folks that they also have various user group disks but I've not seen anything ever come my way, so perhaps we can add more later.

Next up: a few shareware titles and possibly a smattering of DevWare (doing the whole collection would take a very long time) and then I think this'll be ready to go.

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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Mon Oct 28, 2024 12:30 pm

Awesome progress. Let me know if you need another imager as I can for sure help if you get a huge backlog.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA
YouTube

Posted Mon Oct 28, 2024 12:37 pm

Thanks.

This is where I'm at now. This is probably one of that last big things I'll do before flipping the switch in November.

I've already created ADFs of all of these disks. The really long part is adding each one to the site, one at a time, and adding all of the supporting details.
74 disks (not including dupes)
# = added to the website

# Piano Tutor A
# Piano Tutor B
# Mozarts Music
# Anti-Virus

# WBDisk 004 Telecommunications #1
# WBDisk 005 Fonts #1
# WBDisk 008 General Interest
# WBDisk 010 Virus Killers
# WBDisk 011 Business Accounting
# WBDisk 012 Disk Utilities
# WBDisk 013 Printer Drivers and Generator
# WBDisk 014 Video and Anim
# WBDisk 015 Business
# WBDisk 016 Business
# WBDisk 018 Word/Text Processors
# WBDisk 020 General Interest
# WBDisk 022 Fonts #3
# WBDisk 023 Graphics and Plotting
# WBDisk 025 Educational
# WBDisk 026 Disk Utilities #2
# WBDisk 029 Graphics and Sound
# WBDisk 033 Electronics and CAD
# WBDisk 035 Graphics
# WBDisk 036 SimGen
# WBDisk 038 Plotting and Graphics
# WBDisk 039 Music Player
# WBDisk 041 Music (2)
# WBDisk 043 Business
# WBDisk 049a Animation
# WBDisk 049b Animation
# WBDisk 043c Animation
# WBDisk 053 Graphics
# WBDisk 054 Printing Utilities
# WBDisk 055 Applications
# WBDisk 059 Business
# WBDisk 060 Intermediate Utilities
# WBDisk 068 Music Utilities
# WBDisk 070 Directory Utilities
# WBDisk 079 Home and Business Applications
# WBDisk 080 RayTracer
# WBDisk 083 Computer Art
# WBDisk 089 Education
# WBDisk 091 AmigaVision
# WBDisk 092 Animation Utilities
# WBDisk 093 Workbench Extras #2
# WBDisk 095 Checkbook Accountant
# WBDisk 096 Dupers
# WBDisk 098 Business
# WBDisk 101 Chemesthetics
# WBDisk 102 Telecommunications
# WBDisk 103a Music
# WBDisk 103b Music
# WBDisk 105a 2.0 Utilities
# WBDisk 105b 2.0 Utilities
# WBDisk 106 Home Mgr
# WBDisk 107a DrawMap
# WBDisk 107b DrawMap
# WBDisk 108 Octa-Med
# WBDisk 113 Sid II
# WBDisk 115 Term (2)
# WBDisk 120 Grinder
# WBDisk 122 System Optimization
# WBDisk 126 EdPlayer 2.1

# DevDisk 054 Compression

# FD Disk 005 Tactical Games
# FD Disk 010 Adventure Games, HackLite
# FD Disk 12a StarTrek, The Game
# FD Disk 12b StarTrek, The Game
# FD Disk 024 Strategy Games
# FD Disk 035 Adventure
# FD Disk 044 MechFits
# FD Disk 073 Intruder
# FD Disk 078 Potpurri
# FD Disk 080 3D Master
# FD Disk 081 SuperGames
# FD Disk 082 Intrepid
FD Disk 85c AW Games (not going to add at this time as disks A and B are missing)

Identified but not in the collection (If anyone has any of these or others not listed above shoot me a PM and let's add them!)

*WBDisk 076 Applications
*WBDisk 063 Disk Utilities #3
*WBDisk 119c Font Set #1
*WBDisk 119d Font Set #1
*WBDisk 119e Font Set #1
*FunDisk 007 Pacman Games
*FunDisk 017 Educational Games
*FunDisk 022 Disk Utilities #3

User avatar
fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Tue Oct 29, 2024 2:51 pm

Great work Eric. We appreciate your efforts.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA
YouTube

Posted Thu Nov 07, 2024 9:57 pm

I've gone beyond what I thought I would do. Thus far I have ADF'd/archived and expanded 219 total disks (you'll know what I mean by "expanded" soon!), with many of these being fully browsable and readable from within a browser without downloading anything. And yet all ADFs will be downloadable, too, of course. I have one more small Disk Magazine shipment coming this weekend which I'll add next week and then call it "good" at that point. My hope is to publicly release what I have done thus far well before Thanksgiving (Nov 28) if all goes well. I'm taking this weekend off from the project but I'll wrap it up soon.

I know when some folks here see the results they will have relevant missing artifacts stuffed away in boxes somewhere and will want to add them to the archive. Please contact me if you do! But if I actually receive anything soon it'll very likely be added in 2025. For that matter, I still have a lot of disks I've not imaged and expanded, and they'll be added next year, too. That's not hot air. I just know how packed my schedule is these last two months of the year as well as early January.

In any case, I'm very happy how this all finally came to a glorious momentary conclusion. I'm very much looking forward to showing you guys how I did it all and what all there is for you to explore here as well as with your Amiga computers. There are a lot of real gems and useful tools (many of which are not in Fred Fish or other archives). I've a few key people and technologies to thank as well, which I will do soon enough.

:bruce: :disk: :bruce: :disk: :bruce: :disk:

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA
YouTube

Posted Sat Nov 23, 2024 10:03 am

I was donated 2 new small user group collections. One is from Modesto , California (MAUG), and the other is from Tracy, California (TAG). Both are interesting and worth adding; the TAG collection has some great text files, too.

My hope is to get these in the archive before it goes live, but I'm working hard to get a video made for the whole project at the same time. It'll be a less-produced "fireside chat" type of video where I describe the process and ultimately do a walkthrough of site showing the types of content people might find as they browse things. The goal is to release everything this week ideally on Wednesday or Thursday.

Getting close! :boing: :check:

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA
YouTube

Posted Sat Nov 23, 2024 10:14 am

I wanted to mention a little tidbit about the MAUG disks I thought was cool.

The earliest disk I was given is from 1990. When I loaded it up the icon was really weird. Each of the 1st letters in the icon's text were the exact same color blue as OS 1.3's blue background - in other words, they looked to be missing entirely. Then I looked inside the disk's contents and there was this neat IconX program labelled "change_color" or something or other. Double clicking that applies the group's custom colors. Fixed the problem!

maug-palette.jpg

It applies a WB palette of (I think) 6 colors. I didn't go look - I just counted the colors on my screen. I think it uses white, black, red, blue, yellow, purple.

Anyway, I thought it was cool. You want to see the MAUG disk the way they intended? Use that little program!

By 1992 they got rid of it, though. Got all businessy. Still has a cool 2-state icon, but it just doesn't have that same pizazz.

maug-v2.jpg
Looks like the name plate on the front of a bank carved in stone.






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