MSX Computer Magazine online

Dutch MSX fans were blessed with some excellent MSX magazines in the 80's and 90's. Who can forget about MSX Computer Magazine's chief editor Wammes Witkop raving about his game reviewer whenever the titles Starship Rendez Vous and Penguin Adventure appeared in game articles. Or what about the game reviewer's never ending remarks about haircuts and the authority of editorial boss monsters? Also, let's not forget about Frank H. Druijff who extended the life of the combined MCCM magazines for years to come - far more than they ever expected. It was also this MCCM where (young) people from the MSX scene have written articles.

People may still read these magazines every now and then, because these are genuine MSX cult, or maybe because that assembly course you never understood makes more sense now that you're older and wiser. Or maybe you read these magazines because you want to read that raving review of your disk magazine again. However, as can be expected from magazines over 25 years old, they may be falling apart. Maybe pages are missing, contain ugly hand written details, or have coffee stains. In short, these magazines show how old they are and how often we've read them. It would be a pity if sooner or later all these magazines would be lost..

..which is why there's a daring new initiative! A new website was launched to present MCM/MCCM 1-90 digitally. Part of this initiative are former chief editors Wammes Witkop and Frank H. Druijff. Also cooperating in this archive are Hayo Rubingh, Robbert Wethmar and Bas Kornalijnslijper.

This team wishes to get in contact with former authors, to clarify the initiative a bit more, and to ask for permission to put their articles online. They can be contacted at this address. Any news about this project will be published at MRC, so stay tuned!

Relevant link: MSX Computer Magazine online

Comments (27)

By Huey

Prophet (2694)

02-05-2010, 13:01

\o/

By jltursan

Prophet (2619)

02-05-2010, 13:13

Nice initiative!. Is it also planned to translate selected articles to english? (I don't mention the full magazines cause I know that it would be a mammoth task...)

By Grauw

Ascended (10772)

02-05-2010, 13:15

That’s very nice! Archiving these things is important. All those magazines in the cupboard are really asking for some scanning .

Also good to hear that Frank and Wammes are involved. I wonder if they still have the original files.

By Hydlide

Master (171)

02-05-2010, 14:46

excellent idea. I was considering scanning all my MCM and other MSX magazines.. but a coordinated effort to bring at least the MCM online is very welcome!
farm1.static.flickr.com/91/221880193_04c0032c18.jpg

By ray2day

Paladin (743)

02-05-2010, 15:33

Certainly a good initiative! Good to hear Wammes is involved. Also my compliments to the other of the people who are trying to make this possible.

Keep up the good work!

According to my experience as graphic designer working in the printing industry and from what I've heard from Wammes, I assume the are no (digital) files available from these issues anymore. In those days it was cutting and glueing and making a montage of it. But who knows there is some old archive of these montages (paper or film) which can be scanned...

Well I think I've got a great new MSX link to add at my webpage!!

Regards,
ray2day

www.raymondmsx.nl

By ro

Scribe (4964)

02-05-2010, 19:51

now that´s what I call great new. funny thing; I was just thinking about why those where no where to be found on the net, just the other day.

WOW!

By edoz

Prophet (2482)

02-05-2010, 21:11

Thanks ... this is what i looking for... if you needed some help ... i vote jeeeeee

By Whizzy

Master (213)

02-05-2010, 22:20

Awesome ! if you guys need a scan from a magazine or something, i still have a lot left

By Ivan

Ascended (9358)

02-05-2010, 23:09

This is something that has been done with all Spanish MSX magazines (take a look at this section of Generation-MSX) but "unofficially" (without permission of the chief editors or legal owners of the magazines)...

By Manuel

Ascended (19470)

02-05-2010, 23:09

Great, great, great initiative!!! I've been dreaming about this for years!

By Ivan

Ascended (9358)

02-05-2010, 23:21

This is something that has been done with all Spanish MSX magazines.Well, there is one exception: Hnostar (that first started as a fanzine).

By SLotman

Paragon (1242)

03-05-2010, 09:34

This is something that has been done with all Spanish MSX magazines.
With all brazilian MSX Magazines and (almost all) books too

Would be very nice if it's also done with the old japanese MSX Magazines as well. Even with all those years passed by, I was just amazed last month to see the 192kb VRAM expansion on MSX Magazine, even with a small program to test it!

By Poltergeist

Champion (280)

03-05-2010, 09:35

What I don't understand: Why is the permission of the authors necessary? I always believed that the articles written are copyrighted to MCCM. Ofcourse I don't mind my articles being published online, but this might be a showstopper. I know for sure that some authors (or at least one) cannot give their permission anymore...

By ant0niutti

Master (159)

03-05-2010, 23:11

Good news!

By Wammes

Rookie (30)

04-05-2010, 00:41

Whatever you do, do not hold your breath. We have no deadlines and the job to scan the pages is mine. Now, I am a lazy bastard, so...
Secondly, we need to ask permission by the original authors. as this not secured. We will proceed on a basis of take-down at first notice.
Lastly, great to hear the enthoudiasm here!

Wammes

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

04-05-2010, 01:24

Weren't the exploitation rights of the texts transferred to the publisher, at least during the MCM years? As in: these texts would (still) be yours in the first place (for which in return you payed a salary)?

Though I'm not sure how this was being dealt with in the MCCM years, I never heard any legal mumbo jumbo from Frank about my texts..

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5672)

04-05-2010, 13:16

_O_ Totally A*W*E*S*O*M*E initiative!!!

I'm willing to help translate some articles to English if needed.

Again, I think this is sooooo great!!!!! I hope it all works out with the copyright issues.

By hru

Resident (33)

04-05-2010, 19:18

updates of this project will be posted on Twitter.
http://www.twitter.com/mcm_online

By robertwilting

Champion (467)

05-05-2010, 12:32

What incase of things like my Special in the MEGA GUIDE. Is that the Author which did the small extra TEST or the real author of the actual text ?
People are free to use anything I typed over the years when it comes to MSX.

Which reminds me,
Hey Rikusu. Do we really need a site to declare Guide through Gameworld 2 to publish a free version of the old thing ? I don't think so.
How dificult is it to put it just in the www.msx.org in the downloads database ? :-?

By Grauw

Ascended (10772)

05-05-2010, 18:41

@Poltergeist: As far as I know under Dutch law copyright can not be transferred, only licensed. Well, unless you are employed in which case your employer owns the copyright, but this was not the case for most writers for for MCM/MCCM. And I’m guessing MCM only got licenses for publication on paper, if a license was explicitly given at all. If not, the implicit license would only be for the original publication.

A round of getting permission is necessary because then you can claim to have done reasonable effort to contact the original authors. Then you can publish without needing to have permission from 100% of the authors.

Still, it is a good example of how our copyright legislation creates an excessively large obstruction for archival and preservation of old works that clearly still have value to many people, but are not commercially available anymore and abandoned by the original authors. Especially considering that this copyright stays in place for 70 years after the owner’s death. (E.g. it would unfortunately be no longer possible to contact Jan v/d Meer.)

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5672)

05-05-2010, 19:50

Do we really need a site to declare Guide through Gameworld 2 to publish a free version of the old thing ?
I would veto that since the music I made for it is so incredibly crappy.

By FiXato

Scribe (1743)

05-05-2010, 20:13

(E.g. it would unfortunately be no longer possible to contact Jan v/d Meer.)
wouldn't contacting the next-of-kin be enough?

By robertwilting

Champion (467)

05-05-2010, 21:09

I would veto that since the music I made for it is so incredibly crappy.
Ahh this explains a lot. You are the evil mastermind trying to rule out the existance of GTG 2 in any form. You probably told Rikusu, that it only should be launched on a special Sargon site, which Rikusu probably tought to be a great idea. Why you knew that this would result in no release at all.

By Wammes

Rookie (30)

05-05-2010, 22:22

@Grauw,

You know me, I like copyrights. They made me money and my old-age pension plan as well. What I do not like is paying extro for cd-r's 'cause I *might* use them for copyrighted stuff. I fight those bastards, the modern free-lance tax collectors - but that is another discussion.

But indeed, the plan is to try and contact all - and then go ahead stating we did try and will take down upon notice if anyone disagrees. Cover our asses, so to speak. But even more important, I strongly believe this the polite way to handle this. The author *owns* the stuff, even if he or she might not be interested in what we might do with it. Respect copyright, it's there for a reason. Without earning money we would never have put the effort into MCM/MCCM we did...

Wammes

By Hydlide

Master (171)

07-05-2010, 09:58

Wammes, a tip:
forget scanning. Use a good DSLR with a good lens (pref. macrolens) and photograph the pages. a LOT quicker, and even better provided you do not need any text recognition from the "scanned" documents.
it's an easy setup, camera on tripod, magazines on floor or table, shoot.

By Manuel

Ascended (19470)

07-05-2010, 11:35

Hydlide: usually that gives deformation (at the edges) due to the nature of lenses.

If you have a good scanner with an auto-feeder, it's a matter of chopping up the magazines and putting them in it and they will almost automatically scan!

By Hydlide

Master (171)

08-05-2010, 14:32

I guess a decent auto feeder will do its job (provided no paper jams - I hate these things)

But not true about deformation, if you use a proper lens. a good macro lens will have a flat field. Otherwise no-one would be able to do reproduction work ;-)

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