Anybody else out there

[Cez]

Hi all,

Just wondered if anyone knows of any good magazine download sites for other hobbies. Or is it just computer game geeks such as us lot that want to preserve our magazine history. Where are the film geeks storing all their old Empire and Total Film mags or the muzos with their Mojo or Q magazine collections. Or do they not really bother? Anyone know of any sites?

[slider1983]

I sent a scanned copy of Christmas Radio Times 2022 to Kiwi but not sure if he's uploaded it yet? No reason not to upload it. Took ages to do, I think it's about 200+ pages, maybe 300?

[Kiwi]

As the site is called OldGameMags I guess people don't think we'd take other categories of mags although if you look we have all sorts of mags, and books, for that matter, for subjects such as astronomy, cars, music, film. Heck we even have some glazing mags.

Best guess is the demographic that uses our site simply don't have much interest in other topics or, if they do, they possibly throw those other mags out after reading them, much like biffing the daily newspaper in the recycling.

[Kiwi]

I sent a scanned copy of Christmas Radio Times 2022 to Kiwi but not sure if he's uploaded it yet? No reason not to upload it. Took ages to do, I think it's about 200+ pages, maybe 300?

I will get to adding this at some point but I have around 300 gaming/computing oriented magazines from AralDite, Hubz, Gregorick, Jason etc that need to be added to the site and given it's predominantly a gaming mag site they take precedence for my time. That and the fact that I am the only person updating the site on top of trying to scan my collection at the same time.

I like to think that our scanning members are scanning the files for themselves first and foremost. Why scan something if you have no desire to have a digital copy after all? So they have a copy able to be read on their iPad or PC. Making it available to others is simply the cherry on top of the cake.

On the other shoe, members who don't scan magazines have no control over what is made available irrespective of what may or may not have been scanned. Everything made available is cake. If something they really, really want becomes available well, that's their cherry.

[Cez]

or, if they do, they possibly throw those other mags out after reading them

that's kind of my point. People seem to just read Empire or Q magazine and perhaps keep the physical copies until they throw them. Noone seems to think "I know. I'll dedicate huge amounts of time to getting a complete collection scanned for all eternity". What makes computer magazines so special that they'll be around forever. Why can't I get a scan of Empire #014 or whatever somewhere? I can get a full set of Amiga Action or some minor BBC Micro mag but not the main music or film mags. Its bizarrre s'all.

[Kiwi]

It's not bizarre at all.

If you think about it, for people like ourselves when we started using computers, we went from getting our thrills either from outdoors pursuits or from sitting on couches watching non-interactive entertainment, to actively using computers to enhance our lives through whatever programmes filled our "love bucket" whether that be gaming or word processing, or anything else ta computer could do for us. To further our knowledge and get the best out of our interactive entertainment we bought mags, books etc. As a result of this our mags represent happy times spent learning how to write a program, kill the galaxians or mothership etc.

I know that's why when it came time to throw out "stuff" due to getting married, by and large I kept my gaming/computing mags first and foremost. Not that I regret getting rid of shitloads of Penthouse magazines, okay, I do let out a sad sigh when thinking about them and my Famous Monsters of Filmland collection I tossed out but those were read it once and forget type content as far as I was concerned.

I am sure there are lots and lots of people out there with complete collections of every mag in existence they have the same feelings for. The problem is they may simply prefer a tonne of paper stored on shelves rather than reading them on a iPad.

[IloveCats100]

I have an interest in old trading card magazines, like Scrye and Inquest and so on, there's a smattering of them on internet archive and a few videogame-adjacent ones like beckett pokemon collector and so forth on Retromags. However I'm always looking for more, so if you know of any places I'd love to know about them!

[slider1983]

I will get to adding this at some point but I have around 300 gaming/computing oriented magazines from AralDite, Hubz, Gregorick, Jason etc that need to be added to the site and given it's predominantly a gaming mag site they take precedence for my time. That and the fact that I am the only person updating the site on top of trying to scan my collection at the same time.

You'll be happy to know the magazine was taken apart to be scanned although I have some slight regret over having to destroy it for digitisation. It didn't lend itself well to scanning my usual way but the upshot is that as the pages were all cut out to be scanned there isn't any blur you usually get from scanned bookazines centre pages.

[Jason]

I had a mountain of T3, Wired, and 1980s NMEs that I either gave away or dumped in the recycling before I started scanning. I do regret doing that now, but the thought never crossed my mind to get rid of any of my computer or gaming mags at the same time. I also used to subscribe to mags like SciFi Now and SFX but they never seemed to be something I wanted to hang on to.

It must have just been nostalgia that I held on to the gaming and computer magazines, luckily for us all now to enjoy via scanning.

[Gregorick]

Just for the record if anyone does have scans or copies of T3 UK to scan let me know because I do really want that!

[slider1983]

I also used to subscribe to mags like SciFi Now and SFX but they never seemed to be something I wanted to hang on to.

I have an SFX Star Trek Special I'm trying to get rid of on Ebay but finding it difficult to shift. Hopefully someone will pick it up eventually.

[kitsunebi]

Entertainment mags about movies and the like aren't much different from other disposable mags like Cosmopolitan or GQ or what have you.  They're disposable entertainment, best for reading during long waits at the dentist, on long flights, or on long sits on the toilet NO DON'T DO THAT THE HEMORRHOIDS! THE HEMORRHOIDS!!!

I don't know exactly what it is about gaming mags that makes them seem like something you should keep, but I've got a few theories.  First, a lot of the mags I had as a kid were full of maps and codes and the like.  Maybe you owned those games, so keeping the mags around as a reference was a good idea.  Or maybe you didn't own those games, but hoped that one day you would, so again, keeping the mags was an investment in your future. 

Another useful aspect, particularly pre-Internet, was as their use as a buyer's guide.  Months or even years after the mag was off the shelves, it could still be used as a reference to help decide what games to buy, since games were typically available in stores for much longer than a single month.  So sure, once a game was old news, the different "preview" features wouldn't have much value, but the reviews still would.

And keeping PC gaming mags would often pay off big years later.  Speaking as someone who grew up during the "rapid leaps and bounds" era of PC gaming, any given PC was likely only going to run the latest games for a year or two before becoming completely obsolete, and an upgrade wasn't as simple as buying a new GPU, since back then the entire format of gaming hardware would often change.  Getting games to run was more often than not a matter of what hardware needed replacing.  WHAT?  I need a processor with how many megahertz?  Hold on, you're telling me my recently-upgraded 640k of RAM isn't good enough anymore??  My EGA monitor is useless now?  I just replaced my dual 5.25" drives for 3.5" drives and now you're telling me I need a CD-ROM drive?  AND A HARD DISK, TOO? AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

So anyway, whenever you DID upgrade/buy a new PC, you could then look at all of your back issues of PC gaming mags, and suddenly all those games you used to drool over but couldn't run were now within grasp, and better yet, already in the discount bin since they were no longer new.  Your old mags would become new again!

[slider1983]

Entertainment mags about movies and the like aren't much different from other disposable mags like Cosmopolitan or GQ or what have you.  They're disposable entertainment, best for reading during long waits at the dentist, on long flights, or on long sits on the toilet NO DON'T DO THAT THE HEMORRHOIDS! THE HEMORRHOIDS!!!

We had on here not long ago ask for specific SFX mags. There's obviously still a desire for them today. It's not just video game mags.

[kitsunebi]

Just not a strong enough desire for the people who owned them in the first place to keep them and scan them.

Another thing that can't be overlooked when it comes to which mags are preserved and which aren't is their size.  Anything printed larger than A4 is going to be significantly harder to preserve, since so few people own A3 scanners.

Rolling Stone is probably the most respected entertainment mag out there, but prior to 2008 it was printed in an oversized format.  One look at the Internet Archive tells the story - almost all issues prior to 2008 are missing, and almost all issues after they switched to A4 size have been preserved.

[slider1983]

Just not a strong enough desire for the people who owned them in the first place to keep them and scan them.

You'd have to ask those people. I'm just telling you on this website we got a request for SFX which as you probably know isn't a video game mag.