Commodore Book PDF Library now Online

[airship]

Of course, I'm usually the last to have an opinion or say anything around here (...) but here's how I'd like to see it:

Chip Reference
     MOS Chips
          CPUs
          Others
     3rd Party Chips
C64
     Programming
          BASIC 2.0
                Reference
                     CBM
                     3rd Party
                Tutorials
                Sample Code
                Subroutine Library
          Other Languages
               COMAL
               Simons' Basic
               etc.
          Assembler
               CBM
               Buddy
               Merlin
               etc.
C128
     (same as C64, but BASIC 7.0, -Simons' Basic, +BASIC8, etc.)
Peripherals
     Disk Drives
          1541
          1571
          1581
     Monitors
          Commodore
               1702
               1902A
               etc.
          3rd Party
     REUs
          CBM
          3rd Party
     Modems
          ditto
     Interfaces
          etc.
     Printers
          etc.

and so on...

But then, that's just me.

[Guest]

I would say that instead of organizing the files into a tree that we do like a social bookmarking site and allow users to tag the documents and then show a cloud as the top level navigation.

[airship]

I like that even better. I LOVE the tag cloud that LibraryThing creaes for my books:

http://www.librarything.com/tagcloud.php?view=airship

[nikoniko]

Fantastic idea, Payton. I'm testing something along those lines now.

[hydrophilic]

If its not a static page, allow the user to sort/search by category.  That way the user constructs their own 'tree' (mine often looks like a table but anyway...).  Categories I'd recommend would be software, hardware, computer, peripheral, BASIC, Assembly, applications, games, and utitlities.

This works fantastic whenever you have a large collection but do some thought ahead of time!  The worst thing is to have 1000+ items and then decide you want another category (you'd have to assign EACH item to the new category or not as appropriate).

[nikoniko]

I've been trying to think of a way around the category approach, exactly because it would get to be a pain if a new one ever needed to be added to a large collection.

Here's what I'm thinking: when you click on a tag, you'll get back a results page which shows items which match. Off to the right of (or alternately, above) the results would be another tag cloud showing all tags that appear together with the previous selection. So if you chose C64 from the main cloud, you might see Programming, Games, BASIC 2.0, Gazette, and so on. Click on Programming, and your results will be refined to all items which match C64 + Programming. And so on. As long as people are tagging items in the library meaningfully, someone can probably find what they're looking for at least as quickly, and sometimes more quickly, than they would have navigating a normal file tree. Plus they might also discover things they would have missed in a traditional hierarchical organization. The search results themselves could be sorted (by user choice) according to name or date added, thus you'd pretty much end up with a customized file tree. I think that would be sufficiently functional as to avoid hard-coding for categories.

On every page, there will also be a search box so that those who prefer to type something like 'c64 cia programming' can do so without navigating the cloud.

I'm thinking it might be helpful to split some of our references like the PRGs and Mapping books into sections so that people can find more specific results. Perhaps someone would only want the memory map from the 128 PRG and doesn't want to download the whole thing. Of course, the full books would also be offered, too.

Regarding the tag clouds, how do you think they should be presented? Weighted according to number of items using that tag? Weighted according to popularity of files using that tag? Weighted according to the popularity of the tags themselves? (tags which are clicked or searched more often are displayed more prominently)

[Guest]

I would literally copy the way CodePlex works.  It's a thing of beauty.

http://www.codeplex.com

[airship]

No need to split the PDF files to go to specific places within them. The following link, for example, goes directly to page 3 of the 1541 Service manual:

Code Select Expand

1541 Service Manual pg. 3

There are more options you can use for links to PDF. You can find the most useful ones documented here:

http://www.rdpslides.com/psfaq/FAQ00050.htm

Of course, with this approach they'd still have to download the whole document. They'd just end up at their page(s) of interest.

[hydrophilic]

As long as people are tagging items in the library meaningfully, someone can probably find what they're looking for ...

I presume you mean the author/uploader ?  Users won't be able to tag documents will they?  If so, could they create new tags?  That seems so powerful and potentialy useful yet prone to trouble...

I'm thinking it might be helpful to split some of our references ...

Yes, thank you

Regarding the tag clouds, how do you think they should be presented?

I suggest by number of items (by default), so it would be easy to see if the type of information is readily available and relatively how much of it.  The ability to switch priorities (to most popular for example) would be very useful.

[nikoniko]

I presume you mean the author/uploader ?  Users won't be able to tag documents will they?  If so, could they create new tags?  That seems so powerful and potentialy useful yet prone to trouble...

Yep, I want users to be able to add tags to any item. Registered users would have tags approved right away, unregistered users should probably have their tagging reviewed before letting it go live. If someone registered and went on a graffiti run or something, then I could list the offending user's tags and delete the crap. Then again, IP address might be sufficient to allow the same without requiring anyone to register, unless I get some jerk who vandalizes from a multitude of IPs...

I also kind of like what I saw done on a wiki somewhere, where users could vote up or down tags as they applied to specific entries. So if someone mistagged the 128 PRG with 'VIC-20', downvoting acitivty would alert me to take a look at that and see if the tag doesn't fit.

I'm thinking it might be helpful to split some of our references ...

Yes, thank you

Yeah, a 10+MB download can be a bit much when you only want a few pages.

I suggest by number of items (by default), so it would be easy to see if the type of information is readily available and relatively how much of it.  The ability to switch priorities (to most popular for example) would be very useful.

I've never seen a tag cloud that allows you to change how it's prioritized. Nice idea!

[nikoniko]

I would literally copy the way CodePlex works.  It's a thing of beauty.

http://www.codeplex.com

Thanks for the recommendation. I was impressed by your CBM Commander page there, so I'll take a closer look. From my first gander at their front page, looks very nice what they've done.

[airship]

I've added a few more files. Remember that the latest uploads can always be found in this directory:

http://furthervoyages.com/books/index.php?path=Uncategorized/

I've put up a short PDF that's a side-by-side comparison of the 6522and 6526 chips, which I needed for a project I have in mind.

There's a FIXED version of the 1541 User's Guide. The version roaming around on the net had several pages that were wide scans with huge borders and - what? - was that a SOCK in the background??? Anyway, it's fixed now!

Finally, there's a copy of Abacus's 1541 Internals, which I found on the Interwebs and didn't even need any fixing up!

They'll all be up as soon as nikoniko tags them available.

Hope you like 'em!

[nikoniko]

Sorry, but the Library seems to be down today. I had just activated a new tagging-based interface, so it's possible (much as I hate to entertain the idea) that I broke something in the process. Might be unrelated, though. I'd revert to the previous setup, but can't even log in to FTP account at the moment. Anyway, I fired off an email to support, so hopefully they'll have me back up soon or at least be able to identify what brought me down.

Apologies to Pinacolada, whose adventure game project is also hosted on my site.

[nikoniko]

Well, I'm back up... sorta. Had to rollback to the old interface until I straighten out some things with my tagging system.

[nikoniko]

Will be down for a couple days while moving to a beefier web host and changing DNS. My current host didn't like my choice of web framework for the tagged version of the site. Everything's doubly backed up (actually, more than doubly as Amazon S3 replicates my files to several servers), so there shouldn't be any danger to the 737MB of files we've accumulated.

[pearsoe]

Has the Commodore PDF Library been moved?  I can't seem to get to it at http://furthervoyages.com/books.

[airship]

nikoniko's probably screwing around with it again. It's worse than the Chicago freeways - always 'Under Construction'.

[nikoniko]

Well, if Lance doesn't mind me saying so before he makes the announcement, it's being moved to YourCommodore.com. The furthervoyages.com name was hijacked by my previous host and is now being held ransom, and I'm not going to pay what they're asking to get it transferred back to my name.

If there's a specific file anyone wants, just let me know and I'll put up a temporary link.

[airship]

Cool. :farvergneugen:

Edit: I never can remember those silly Swedish smiley names. I meant :cool:

[Golan Klinger]

Cool. :farvergneugen:

Farvergneugen? Isn't that the feeling you get from owning a Volkswagen? No, wait, that's farfegnugen. I guess we need a little VW emoticon.

[airship]

'Farvergneugen' is the feeling you get when someone ELSE owns a Volkswagen that you are really envious of, and you see them wrap it around a tree.

The Germanians have a word for just about everything.

[Mangelore]

I now have a PDF version of the CMD SuperCPU128 manual. However, it's 32MB in size.
Please drop me a PM you can host it.

[nikoniko]

Perfect timing. I need to test a web uploader for the library, so I'll send you a link to the upload form and we'll see what happens.

[Andrew Wiskow]

I now have a PDF version of the CMD SuperCPU128 manual. However, it's 32MB in size.
Please drop me a PM you can host it.

Just a quick note...  Thanks to Mangelore, I've added the SuperCPU128 manual to my website.  In addition, I also still have the CMD HD and JiffyDOS manuals, as well as the collection of JiffyDOS ROM's.  Enjoy! 

BTW - Feel free to host any of the items on my website on your own servers if you have the ability to do so...  The more this stuff is spread around, the more "preserved" it'll be. 

-Andrew

[lobogris_1976]

Where I can find those C128's pdf manual's you are talking from the very begining?
Sorry I am lost, I'm new here and relatively new at forums.
Thanks