Posted By
paranorm
on 2004-10-17
08:28:46
|  Old Programming Books
Just looking over the site, and realised I have my copy of the 'C16 and Plus/4 Programmers Guide' published by CBM in 1985, and 'C16 Machine Language for the absolute beginner' from Melbourne House (I found this book really usful for figuring out things like high speed scrolling back in the late 80's - it includes a list of virtually all address space that does anything useful , and a complete detailed register description). I've also got 'C16 Games book' by Melbourne house (was ok when I was learning basic), 'Programming the 6502' by Sybex, and 'The Commodore Plus/4 Book' by Meyer (dont think I ever used it). Would be happy to get them into the modern day pdf world... although whats the copyright situation like on this stuff? The C16 and Plus/4 Programmers guide is a black and white photocopy I bought direct from CBM as it was out of print when I bought it.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2004-10-17
11:43:05
| Re: Old Programming Books
The legal situation is gray area. In reality, it seems that you can get away with publising old mags/books online, especially if the companies who owned the copyright have folded.
But why would you use PDF? It's a proprietary, dead-end, closed format. There are many systems that can't read it. Sure it's good for printing, but can't search or query it online. The information in the books is much more important than the presentation. Read some articles like this one. Anyways, I say good old HTML is good enough.
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Posted By
Crown
on 2004-10-17
16:01:58
| Re: Old Programming Books
The 'C16 and Plus/4 Programmers Guide' by CBM would be actually great to have available.
As for format, I personally like PDF. It is actually easier to read than lots of HTML pages, and you can easily save it as well..
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2004-10-17
17:21:50
| Re: Old Programming Books
If a book would be stored as lots of HTML pages, they can still be easily outputted as one long page. HTML + HTML = big HTML. The same cannot be said of PDF.
The worst thing against PDF is the access problem. If we have a couple of them on the server, they are practically useless for searching. Let's say you are looking for one thing, one term. With HTML data, you can query/search the database across hundreds of books and thousands of pages, and easily find what you're looking for.
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Posted By
SVS
on 2004-10-18
02:30:18
 | Re: Old Programming Books
People I need these books-files soon for my SVS-Ultimate-ROM-Map! Please "paranorm" start today the scanning operations.
BTW the new version (1.2) of Ultimate ROM Map is coming... be ready 
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Posted By
paranorm
on 2004-10-18
06:15:44
| Re: Old Programming Books
If Csabo wants to type in the entire content to HTML your welcome to. But as the page you referenced indicates, pdf is not great for web browsing - in fact basically a pain unless you save as and read the document as just that a document. However, since I have hard copies of the manual and the 'C16 Machine Language for the absolute beginner' book has tables and diagrams and font changes... a scan is just that - a scan of the original book - it takes a lot more work to get it all formated and nice as a html manual. Hence if I provide the book as a scaned pdf... then anyone can run them through the most advanced OCR technology and turn them into lovely manuals in whatever format they see fit. More to the issue - how do I get these book to someone who get can them on this site... when I get them scanned... Does anyone have a ranking of importance - personally I feel the Melbourne house C16 machine language book is by far the most valuable.
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Posted By
Litwr
on 2004-10-18
07:51:41
| Re: Old Programming Books
PDF and HTML are completely different formats beyond any comparison. It's impossible to compare weight and colour!  The best variant is presence of the books in the both forms.
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Posted By
paranorm
on 2004-10-18
08:56:52
| Re: Old Programming Books
Meanwhile back on to the real topic - this is after about the plus/4 not manual formats... I have just spent the last 2 hours scanning in the appendix from C16 Machine Language... lots of lovely big pngs or tifs or jpgs... now do you think I can get them into even pdf less than 40Mb... no... Well I just figured out a rather round about way using Corel - will try to get this done in two days time (busy tomorrow). imgtopdf looks great... but doesn't support b&w images. And yes I tried OCR, but the old 8 pin dot matrix listing on a number of the pages just doesn't stack up (especially since most of the words aren't in any dictionary).
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Posted By
SVS
on 2004-10-18
10:19:36
| @paranorm
Hy, could you kindly supply me with the ROM maps you find in the books, so that I'll can merge them in next issue of Ultimate-ROM-map?
Many thanx
S\_/S
svs_fire@inwind.it
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Posted By
DeadTED
on 2004-11-06
07:53:23
| Re: Old Programming Books
Hey guys, I have these books and more alread scanned to PDF. I have been busy with university which I finish this tuesday. If someone can tell me how to share these files (where to upload to) I will be happy to do so.
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Posted By
SVS
on 2004-11-15
08:06:55
| @+4Man: Re: Old Programming Books
What are the sizes of these files?
Tnx
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Posted By
Austin
on 2004-11-16
17:02:04
| Re: Old Programming Books
I've got a ANCO c16/plus4 book and I have promised to send a scan in (ages ago) - I'll get 'round it it soon, I promise! However, since I don't use it I'd probably be willing to sell it if anyone is interested?
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