This update sees a few ultra-rare Adventure International titles including: Reign of the Red Dragon (DemonVenture #1), Death Planet the Dog Star Adventure (OtherVenture #5), a Kid-Venture, and two entries in the Interactive Fiction series.
As may be expected, our PDF processing techniques have improved over time with experience. As such, it is now clear that many of the earlier scans were handled in an inferior manner. The good news is, these can be rectified completely in software, without rescanning. Thus begins another mini-project, to tidy up some 1000 PDF files (out of a total of 3200). This includes the entire Questbusters series, as well as many Infocom, SSI and Ultima manuals. PDFs will have each page straightened, re-OCRed, and re-cropped if necessary. As a bonus this will result in file sizes reduced by as much as 50%. The job is already about 20% complete, and is expected to be finished by the end of the year.
At last the end is in sight for the backfilling of manual scans. It is expected that by early 2014 the entire collection will have been scanned into PDFs. The majority of sections are already complete. Note that some items, such as the Prima strategy guides, and most books, will not be scanned. Newly acquired items will continue to be scanned as they arrive of course.
A minor overhaul on some of the older items in the site is also taking place. Specifically, photos containing more than one item in a single JPG, such as a manual and a floppy disk, are being split out into separate image files. And with the most recent update, all cassette inlay photos have been standardized. Similarly CD games will be standardized to have a photo with the jewel case front including the inlay, and a second photo of just the inlay, which will be a PDF when it contains multiple pages. Lastly, an attempt to standardize some of the file names especially on older records will take place. These little side projects will continue over the next several months in an attempt to make the whole site more consistent and standardized.
Work is being done to fill in most of the gaps in PDFs for the New World and Origin sections of the museum. As well, be sure to check out the latest addition to the Gallery of Fine Art - the original cover painting from the Tynesoft release of Savage Island Part One in the UK.
Scanning continues full speed ahead. Recent new PDFs include most of the console game manuals and catalogs, and the Coleco Adam game collection. This includes the Japanese titles, which often contain beautiful illustrations, so be sure to check some of them out even if you do not read Japanese! Also a few vintage Atari and Intellivision catalogs are among the new PDFs available for viewing. When in doubt, use the Search box to find what you are looking for.