new magazine archive (PC / MS-Dos / 80s)

[kelp7]

Hi,

For ages i've been thinking of archiving all my old issues from the 80s (and very early 90s) of PC Plus (for the Amstrad PC), here's an example issue:

http://www.mediafire.com/folder/d6gy4qyyxkq8j/Issue06

Does anyone know the legality of putting this stuff online? Would Future Publishing be knocking on my door and suing if I did it? The material is 20+ years old...

Cheers

[ivarf]

I ahve seen a lot of other old magazines online before, but not PC Plus. It was an interesting read. I have never heard about Word Junior before. from a retrogaming point of view, it was nice to see reviews of Alex Higgins World snooker and Cyrus Chess II. These games used the special Amstrad PC 16 colour mode which was a hell of lot better than CGA which most PC games used at the time. It would be great to see more of these magazines!

[kelp7]

Thanks. Don't worry, there's loads more. That's the first issue I ever purchased (so I don't have any before that issue number) but I have probably 30 or 40+ issues of this which I can scan in and put up. When they started putting the 5.25" disc on the cover I have also managed to transfer (where possible, data and disc degradation allowing) the files into a format that I can upload as well. Just wondering if I'm actually allowed to do this but, as you say, there are other magazine archives out there so maybe it's not so bad to do this....

[Mort]

Well done Kelp7,
Like most things it depends on the publisher, some are more than helpful ie Newsfield who supplied missing items and other material to help get a complete archive of their material (some which had gone missing or was rare behind the scenes material) and you also have Future who rightly are protective over their Ip, from experience I have only ever had problems with Future and that was just a request to remove the offending magazines which we did from our website.

Main thing is to preserve as much of this stuff as we can whilst it is in good condition. All the best

Mort

[kelp7]

Thanks Mort!!

I think I'll just go ahead and create the complete archive, then we'll see what happens. I'll put a new post up here when it's complete (no doubt will take some months considering the number of issues to scan in and the fact that the magazine expanded from about 60 pages an issue to about 140+ or something in the early 90s!). Cheers for the advice!!

[quantum]

Sounds great! Always need more dos coverage.

Don't suppose you have any copies of PC Leisure?

[kelp7]

Unfortunately not sorry! I have some PCA (Personal Computing with the Amstrad) to put up, but basically otherwise just the PC Plus from about '87 up to about '91 or so.... getting there too, probably scanned a good ten more issues in since doing this post on here.