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Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

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Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#131

Post by singleshot_ »

mindcrime wrote: post #14

This... is fugging amazing. No, seriously. It really is. Those of you who are too young to remember the heyday of Computer Shopper won't get it (probably) but that magazine was ... well, as the article says, practically a "bible" to some of us. There was NOTHING like finding the new issue on the news-stand, buying it, and rushing home to pore over the ads, looking for a sweet new motherboard, some RAM, maybe a Sound…

It’s kind of amazing to think of how profoundly boring my life might have been if there was no such thing as long distance charges.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#132

Post by singleshot_ »

jhbadger wrote: post #67
CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this book captures a good bit of the spirit https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/984598.Masters_of_Decept...

Eh, while the media seemed to be into "hackers" in the sense of people breaking into systems (and either messing them up or just to do it for bragging rights), that wasn't what most of us were into -- instead we were interested in writing software to get the most of the hardware we had (and used "hacker" in the old-school sense of expert coders).

Steven levy, “hackers: heroes of the computer revolution” probably a bit more your tune, maybe.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#133

Post by jrochkind1 »

PAPPPmAc wrote: post #129
jrochkind1 wrote: post #112

This is an awesome project! Library/archive/historical-preservation people these days, for a while now, generally don't use "scanners" to digitize historical printed/2D material images, but ordinary high-quality digital cameras, set on tripods, often downward-facing, and manual page-turning. There is various plans for DIY rigs for such on the internet, for instance here: https://www.diybookscanner.org/ . (although th…

There are a number of commercial substantially sub-$1k prosumer overhead book scanner options now that have nicer work-flows and more automated post processing than the DIY book scanners folks used to hack up (or hand feeding a flatbed) - I think they came out of and subsequently took took a lot of the air out of the DIY efforts. CZUR has been pretty generous with giving book scanning rigs ( https://www.czur.com/prod…

Nice, thanks for the info.

I feel like 600dpi ought to be possible with a DIY setup and a good quality but not break-the-bank camera, but maybe I'm wrong?

Where I work, I am not the one who works with the photographic digitization. I know we can do 600 dpi digitization of things of this size (whether we choose to depends on the material). But I suppose our setup may cost substantially more than OP, I'm not sure, I could ask the relevant staff.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#134

Post by gumby »

dublin wrote: post #126
gumby wrote: post #114

The author is both barking mad and performing a very important service. Ephemera like the Comouter Shopper will be valuable to some historians in the future, and by its very nature this is something that needs to be preserved while it’s just an amusement. the author is also self aware (cf the Byte episode) which is unusual. I am fascinated that the computer shopper never made the transition to the web. They could hav…

There was a 2 decade gap between Computer Shopper's desire to go digital (they did create a fairly useless CD version later) and the ability of networks and browsers to even poorly render digital content. Even flipping pages today at the archive.org link isn't nearly as speedy as flipping real pages...

eBay pulled it off. Just a search engine that pulled up a bunch of ads would have been great.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#135

Post by Aeolun »

rbanffy wrote: post #107
h2odragon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to use old ones as rifle target backstops. .22LR would not penetrate a single issue.

It's very brave to mention such heinous crimes in this discussion.

I imagine that at the time they were just as ubiquitous as the phone books.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#136

Post by m463 »

ibiza wrote: post #102
rtkwe wrote: post #98

Every time I see an archival process like this I'm amazed at all the effort and wonder if we'll ever get something like the process described in "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge where a library is archived by essentially shredding the books and blowing that shredded material through a tube stuffed with high speed high quality cameras and just gluing them all back together in software. It's a very fun book that cranks u…

That's essentially how DNA sequencing works. The longest human chromosome (chr1) has about 250M bases. The DNA samples are sonicated to split them into small sequences, and then sequenced en mass 100-300bps at a time. The results are then reassembled into contigs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing#High-throughput...

I thought craig ventner had a boat that did something similar to the ocean. It would scoop up genetic material on its travels, sequence what it found and store the data.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Ocean_Sampling_Expediti...

(the page doesn't seem to explain it)

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#137

Post by textfiles »

snthd wrote: post #63

I thought the point in debinding was to use an autofeeder - to make the actual scanning less labor intensive. Wouldn't a camera based scanner be better? It still requires manual page turning, but will save on the prep work and destroying the magazines, even if just to sell on. The paper and ink quality will present they're own issues, but maybe those will be quicker to solve than the debinding and page feeding proces…

Well, there is no situation where this isn't in some way labor-intensive.

But one of the reasons that I chose to use the feed scanner that I do is that I get 600 dots per inch on these scans of these massive tabloids.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#138

Post by textfiles »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #133
PAPPPmAc wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a number of commercial substantially sub-$1k prosumer overhead book scanner options now that have nicer work-flows and more automated post processing than the DIY book scanners folks used to hack up (or hand feeding a flatbed) - I think they came out of and subsequently took took a lot of the air out of the DIY efforts. CZUR has been pretty generous with giving book scanning rigs ( https://www.czur.com/prod…

Nice, thanks for the info. I feel like 600dpi ought to be possible with a DIY setup and a good quality but not break-the-bank camera, but maybe I'm wrong? Where I work, I am not the one who works with the photographic digitization. I know we can do 600 dpi digitization of things of this size (whether we choose to depends on the material). But I suppose our setup may cost substantially more than OP, I'm not sure, I co…

I gave everything a nice long think and I don't need another consultant, thanks.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#139

Post by rtkwe »

ibiza wrote: post #102
rtkwe wrote: post #98

Every time I see an archival process like this I'm amazed at all the effort and wonder if we'll ever get something like the process described in "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge where a library is archived by essentially shredding the books and blowing that shredded material through a tube stuffed with high speed high quality cameras and just gluing them all back together in software. It's a very fun book that cranks u…

That's essentially how DNA sequencing works. The longest human chromosome (chr1) has about 250M bases. The DNA samples are sonicated to split them into small sequences, and then sequenced en mass 100-300bps at a time. The results are then reassembled into contigs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_sequencing#High-throughput...

I think that's where the author pulled the idea from in the novel it's called the Librareome Project and a character brings up the similarity of the processes.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#140

Post by jrochkind1 »

textfiles wrote: post #138
jrochkind1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice, thanks for the info. I feel like 600dpi ought to be possible with a DIY setup and a good quality but not break-the-bank camera, but maybe I'm wrong? Where I work, I am not the one who works with the photographic digitization. I know we can do 600 dpi digitization of things of this size (whether we choose to depends on the material). But I suppose our setup may cost substantially more than OP, I'm not sure, I co…

I gave everything a nice long think and I don't need another consultant, thanks.

Sorry, I did not mean to be trying to get in OP's business, who I assume you are. I was just curious to learn more about comparison between your choice and non-"scanner" suspended camera type rigs which I don't believe your interesting piece covered, so was interested in working that through with other commenters.

It's a great project, thanks!

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