60 replies to this topic

[David McKinney]

Apologies for starting a new thread, but comments on the digital archive seem a different subject to those on the magazine itself

I have just discovered that my November 1936 files are not that at all, but wrongly labelled duplicates of the November 1937 files. I've checked with one other TNFer, and his is the same

Does anyone else have the same problem?

[PeterElleray]

mine is the same david - nov 1937 is duplicated..

oh dear.

peter

[fines]

Means I'll be waiting for this to be rectified before ordering mine...

[David McKinney]

I'll contact them and report back

[PeterElleray]

thanks david - whilst we're discussing the 'complete' archive, what is the correct story about the missing issues in 1928-1929 - and indeed, are there any missing? Its clear from the covers of some that the magazine was bi-monthly for a period, but i'm not clear if we still have gaps in these years?

peter

[David McKinney]

I don't think we have gaps, Peter
If you look at the Vol/No. numbers they seem consecutive

From the publishing dept:
We apologize for this error, we will let the production team know and in the
near future we will send a new copy to everyone who has purchased a 1924-49
disc.

I apologize once again for the inconvenience

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by David McKinney
I don't think we have gaps, Peter
If you look at the Vol/No. numbers they seem consecutive

From the publishing dept:
We apologize for this error, we will let the production team know and in the
near future we will send a new copy to everyone who has purchased a 1924-49
disc.

I apologize once again for the inconvenience

thats good - fingers crossed eh...

regarding the non missing missing issues, like you i checked the vol numbers, the only area that im not sure about is that June 1929 is vol 5 no.3, and november 1929 is vol 6 no.1 - do we know if vol.5 does infact end at no.3, or is there a gap between june '29 and dec '29? any idea why there were gaps anyway?

peter

[Vitesse2]

Mine only arrived today, so I haven't even taken it out of the pack yet!

Given that there's only an hour or so between David's posts, it looks like they extracted their collective digit with some alacrity!

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by PeterElleray


thats good - fingers crossed eh...

regarding the non missing missing issues, like you i checked the vol numbers, the only area that im not sure about is that June 1929 is vol 5 no.3, and november 1929 is vol 6 no.1 - do we know if vol.5 does infact end at no.3, or is there a gap between june '29 and dec '29? any idea why there were gaps anyway?

peter

I think WB covered the reasons for that in one of the 'landmark' issues: maybe the 75th anniversary one back in 1999?

[PeterElleray]

rings a very vague bell - but cant find it in the 75th aniversary one so far - go on, live dangereously... give us a clue....

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by PeterElleray
rings a very vague bell - but cant find it in the 75th aniversary one so far - go on, live dangereously... give us a clue....

Editorial, January 1940

[Roger Clark]

Adam Ferrington pointed out to me that the Search Archive function stops when it reaches the end of the 1920s. Are they all the same?

[Mark Ballard]

The search function seems to be limited to the decade you are looking at - i.e. if you click on a magazine in the 30s & do a search it only searches the 30s - The default seems to be the 20s, which is why your friend is of the opinion that you can only search the 20s. However, this may be true only for my disc

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by Vitesse2

Editorial, January 1940

Ah yes! Thanks, but i have a feeling that your original point is valid, WB did refer back to the 'missing' issues in a more recent piece - i'll have a dig around.

Would that piece from januray 1940 have been authored by WB ? sort of WB on WB....?

Peter

[PeterElleray]

Originally posted by Mark Ballard
The search function seems to be limited to the decade you are looking at - i.e. if you click on a magazine in the 30s & do a search it only searches the 30s - The default seems to be the 20s, which is why your friend is of the opinion that you can only search the 20s. However, this may be true only for my disc

mine behaves in the same way as yours Mark. not too big an inconvenience. so far my main gripe is that when you go from Browse to Read you loose part of the page width on screen and have to use the spacebars to navigate across - a pdf reader is more convenient, unless its my screen setting to blame.. not that i wouldnt have bought it had i been aware of that - how much the content would have cost me from a freindly dealer i dread to think -, anyway i'm grateful for now having an unbroken run from iss 1 till 1993 - except ofcourse, for Nov 1936....

Peter

[Adam F]

Originally posted by Mark Ballard
The search function seems to be limited to the decade you are looking at - i.e. if you click on a magazine in the 30s & do a search it only searches the 30s - The default seems to be the 20s

Mark, many thanks for solving this conundrum.
As you say, if one first chooses an issue in a particular decade, the search function then searches all issues in that decade.
Perhaps MS should have pointed that out.......

[Steffe Ornerdal]

It's great.

Do anyone know if Autosport is planning to do something similiar?

[stuartu]

I am very appreciative of the efforts involved in producing this disc and it seems ungrateful to criticise, but I shall!
Am I alone in finding the search function less than sophisticated? I have as yet been unable to persuade it to differentiate between the same surname with different initials; all very well if you're interested in Klemantaski but more annoying with (say) Williams. Also, is there a way to persuade the search function to highlight the word it has found? That would help.
The resolution of the 24-49 disc is pretty good. I can't read the text in the adverts in some of the 80s stuff.
I tried accessing the files direct from the disc, but not the easiest way to read it!
On the whole, though, what an asset. Mind you, it did force me to make some revisions (considerably post deadline!) to an imminent publication.....

Regards, Stuart

[terry mcgrath]

I have had a chance to get a copy of the 1950's one and whilst beautifully presented etc the search function is very limited to the point it is almost useless.
I was hoping and led to believe every word in the magazine was searcheable but in real terms very very few are.
Given speed of going page to page on a computer probably still quicker to go searching in original copies.
What are other listers comments on this
regards terry

[David McKinney]

From the publishing dept:
We apologize for this error, we will let the production team know and in the
near future we will send a new copy to everyone who has purchased a 1924-49
disc

Has any 1924-49 buyer seen a replacement yet?

[wdm]

Has any 1924-49 buyer seen a replacement yet?

Not me

[Rob]

Has any 1924-49 buyer seen a replacement yet?

I haven't.

[Vitesse2]

I haven't.

Nope. Nor me.

One other niggle: you can't minimize it if you want to work with another program at the same time as it covers your toolbar, so you have to shut it down and then restart it ... or is that just in XP?

[Gary Davies]

"or is that just in XP?"

Just more Windoze woze all round one imagines.

[Rob Ryder]

One other niggle: you can't minimize it if you want to work with another program at the same time as it covers your toolbar, so you have to shut it down and then restart it ... or is that just in XP?

Hold down the 'Alt' key and press the 'Tab' key to cycle through all running programs..
... release the 'Alt'/'Tab' keys when the program you want to maximise is selected.



Rob

[Barry Boor]

BRILLIANT! Thanks Rob. Apparently, you are never too oild to learn new things.

[Vitesse2]

BRILLIANT! Thanks Rob. Apparently, you are never too oild to learn new things.

Too oild? I thought you were TT Barry!

Seriously - thanks Rob. I should have known that really

[PeterElleray]

I haven't.

me neither

[Barry Boor]

Edited by Barry Boor, 18 June 2009 - 22:12.

[Vitesse2]

Sorry, Barry - it was too good to miss!

[Roger Clark]

Hold down the 'Alt' key and press the 'Tab' key to cycle through all running programs..
... release the 'Alt'/'Tab' keys when the program you want to maximise is selected.



Rob

You can also press CTRL-F and Motor sport appears in a conventional window.

[MattKellett]

And if you press CTRL-R you get a nice oily smell while reading your favorite article

[Allen Brown]

And if you press CTRL-R you get a nice oily smell while reading your favorite article

[Kvadrat]

There probably wasn't November 1936 issue at all because previus one was for October-November.

[David McKinney]

Thanks Vladimir
I wonder if the archive has worked that out yet

[maplestone71]

For those who haven't seen, there's an ad in the latest magazine issue for a 1990s archive available from next month.

Despite the above search issues, suspect I'll be purchasing one.

[rallen]

For those who haven't seen, there's an ad in the latest magazine issue for a 1990s archive available from next month.

Despite the above search issues, suspect I'll be purchasing one.

Thanks for that, I have been waiting for ages for it, I asked the editor on these boards about any future releases, he actually got back to me and said they would be doing the 1990's one early this year and that they also intend to release the 2000's one later in the year as well which is fab! and nice he got back to me.

Just a small aside though, I have the 1970's one and although I love it, I think the quality is quite poor, it looks like someone has just photocopied the magazine, you can see the edge of all the other pages prior to the one you are on when you are reading it rather than a full page and some of the last letters on each sentence are very nearly cut off, still I will be buying them all!

[Barry Boor]

All the archives are copied in the way you suggest.

Many pages are considerably off-square but it's still nice to have them.

[Vitesse2]

And the rusty staples and the occasional coffee-cup ring all add character!

[rallen]

All the archives are copied in the way you suggest.

Many pages are considerably off-square but it's still nice to have them.

I agree, still fantastic to have them but they could have done it a lot better, I was disappointed when I saw the quality, they could at least have removed the staples carefully from each issue and done it page by page carefully, instead of having an inch board round each page of the edges of other pages making the writing even harder to ee Hopefully in ten years time they will 'remaster' them as they do in music

[retriever]

Thanks for that, I have been waiting for ages for it, I asked the editor on these boards about any future releases, he actually got back to me and said they would be doing the 1990's one early this year and that they also intend to release the 2000's one later in the year as well which is fab! and nice he got back to me.

Just a small aside though, I have the 1970's one and although I love it, I think the quality is quite poor, it looks like someone has just photocopied the magazine, you can see the edge of all the other pages prior to the one you are on when you are reading it rather than a full page and some of the last letters on each sentence are very nearly cut off, still I will be buying them all!

Scanned not photocopied. I would not like to have been the individual handed the task, a long and rather boring process. The 1990s may well be better presented, for if they have retained their computer's dtp files then they can output image data files direct to disc of each individual page.

[David McKinney]

I was disappointed when I saw the quality, they could at least have removed the staples carefully from each issue and done it page by page carefully, instead of having an inch board round each page of the edges of other pages making the writing even harder to ee

I'm happy to have them now, rather than wait another ten years for someone to remove and replace staples and spend more time getting nearer perfection

[Barry Boor]

Hear, hear! D.M.

[rallen]

Hear, hear! D.M.

Oh don't get me wrong! I am going to get them now too, I just have a rubbish and tiny laptop so it's difficult to read them but they are a fantastic idea, I just wish more publications would do digital archives such as Autosport or Private Eye!

I am getting the 1980's one next, can anyone tell me how it compares to the 1970's one in terms of quality?

[bradbury west]

I just have a rubbish and tiny laptop so it's difficult to read them

Even with that equipment it might be wise to check that your screen is, or can be, set to the optimum resolution, as that will make things clearer, as it does with google earth searches. It may not be the screen setting which you choose for everyday use.
I endorse retriever's comments about the work involved in preparing the archive. I gather it took a huge amount of time, and presupposes that a complete set of MS was available in the first place.
Nuff said

Roger Lund

[Otto Grabe]

I was disappointed when I saw the quality,

That is very good of you to put it this way. If they had used half the effort, they invested in the wrapping, for the meat - it would be really GREAT.

[Vitesse2]

Sheesh! The words "mouth", "gift" and "horse" come to mind.

I only have the pre-1950 CD, as I'm fortunate enough to own a complete set of the printed mags from then on.

When you consider how rare some of even the later issues are (have you noticed that late 80s onwards ones only rarely turn up second-hand? Smaller circulation, printed on recycled bog paper ...), anything which makes this stuff available for researchers is welcome. I've used Beaulieu's set - and you get a frisson of pleasure upon opening those slim wartime volumes and finding the name "Pomeroy" inscribed on the endpapers - but the earliest issues are now rarer than rocking horse droppings and command astronomical prices, even in poor condition. Forty quid per decade is absolute peanuts! You could pay more than that for one 1920s issue!

And have you ever tried restapling magazines? I have - it's bloody difficult, even with a long-arm stapler!

[retriever]

Sheesh! The words "mouth", "gift" and "horse" come to mind.

I only have the pre-1950 CD, as I'm fortunate enough to own a complete set of the printed mags from then on.

When you consider how rare some of even the later issues are (have you noticed that late 80s onwards ones only rarely turn up second-hand? Smaller circulation, printed on recycled bog paper ...), anything which makes this stuff available for researchers is welcome. I've used Beaulieu's set - and you get a frisson of pleasure upon opening those slim wartime volumes and finding the name "Pomeroy" inscribed on the endpapers - but the earliest issues are now rarer than rocking horse droppings and command astronomical prices, even in poor condition. Forty quid per decade is absolute peanuts! You could pay more than that for one 1920s issue!

And have you ever tried restapling magazines? I have - it's bloody difficult, even with a long-arm stapler!

Rusting staples are nothing less than the 'patina' of an old or historic publication.

[bradbury west]

I could not agree more, Richard. There is also the problem of fragility of the old pages on originals. The sets which MS used were not pristine, unused copies, rest assured, hence the odd coffee cup ring. I know from my own work how difficult it is using old magazines, and how quickly they become brittle. Someone was kind enough to loan me 20 years of Motoring News for my own research, and it took probably 3 times as long to handle because of the brittleness of the sheets, and they had been kept safely stored between panels. The frustrating thing was that there was so much I wanted to copy, especially the A3 size cutaways, but I dared not risk folding the sheets.

We should be very grateful that the MS publisher has had the generosity and vison to cause the copies to me produced. For sure he will not make much money out of it unless they sell in their thousands, and if he does, so much the better as he took over the magazine as a commercial proposition and he deserves success.

The archive also serves as a very useful tool just for searching for items. It is often easier then, and pleasurable, to go to the originals and look through the physical pages.

If they had been sent in a brown envelope as packaging that would have been wrong too.
Usual disclaimer
Roger Lund

[ensign14]

They also take up a lot less room...