Commodore 128 Programmer's Reference Guide

[swordfish1030]

Anyone have a PDF of "Commodore 128 Programmer's Reference Guide "...

[nikoniko]

Yep. Check out the Commodore PDF Library for that and other handy books.

[airship]

If you find any problems with the PDF, let me know. I just got my paper copy in the mail today, and at the very least I'll be adding the missing final couple of pages, plus covers as soon as possible.

I also got my copy of Mapping the C128 a few days ago. As the OCR'd version is an error-ridden piece of crap, I'll spend many winter nights pouring over that and trying to correct it.

nikoniko, you DID notice that I uploaded a 'Penultimate' version of the PRG, didn' t you? It's got a couple more fixes. There always seem to be a few more bugs.

[nikoniko]

Sorry, I missed it. Did you put it in your main folder or in /books? If you stick your uploads in your /books subfolder, it should transfer to the library automatically within a few hours. If it's in your main, I'll go ahead and copy it, and next time you can upload to /books.

By the way, is it easy to annotate PDF files? I have a list of official errata (mistakes in the text, not in the scan) for the PRG, and it would be nice to put a little note on each affected page so that people could click to read the correction.

[swordfish1030]

what are you using to scan them into pdf's? I have a bunch of books and a good scanner, I would love to try a few out and maybe add to the list

[hydrophilic]

I hate PDF files cuz there bloated and difficult to edit and they often don't work without the latest viewer.  I hate uprading software for features I never use.  As far as I'm concerned Acrobat 3,4,5, (and what now 6?) are the same to me in viewer features.  Yet files continue to pop up none of them (and no have 6) will read, like airship's fixed OCR version

I used to hate HTML files cuz they were bloated compared to ASCII text but now I love them (almost nothing compared to a PDF).  And easy to view or edit on any platform, even a Commodore!  Anybody know of a PDF viewer for our Commies?  Or what about DOS?  The latest DOS version I can find is 3.0.  Oooops, wrong forum :/

[Blacklord]

Or what about DOS?  The latest DOS version I can find is 3.0.  Oooops, wrong forum :/

I thought Acrobat Reader 3.0 was for Windows 3.x ? I've got version 1.0 for DOS though

Lance

[nikoniko]

Hydro, those are valid points. I don't much care for PDFs either, but for delivering scanned images in a single file together with searchable text, they get the job done, at least when they work. Especially if the OCRed text isn't 100% correct, they're very handy, because you can view the correct text (the scanned image) while still having (albeit imperfect) search using the OCR. I could do DJVU format which is capable of the same, produces smaller files and tends to be faster, but almost nobody uses it, unfortunately. The only real alternative is cleaning up up the OCR so that you can deliver pure text of good quality, which will get done eventually.

In the meantime, use Google! If no one's noticed, Google lets you view HTML converted versions of some PDFs on my site, and hopefully GoogleBot will keep adding more. But I think I need to yank out the directory browser I put up, as it hides PDF files behind a download script and Google can't see them. There are a few books I've added OCR too which Google isn't listing.

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:furthervoyages.com/books

By the way, under Windows I'd suggest FoxIt Reader over Adobe's official bloat monster. It's around 2MB, faster than Reader, and handles most PDFs just fine.

[airship]

The problem with text is that (a) no pictures, and (b) you usually need to do a TON of hand-editing to fix tables, multiple columns, etc. While I like small file sizes, I love accuracy even more. Plus I like the fact that the PDF can match the look of the original, if not the feel.

The only alternative that everyone knows is Word. You can keep pagination (important for tables of contents, indices, and references from other works), tables, and figures in place. But you have the same version problems there, too.

We could go with OpenOffice.org. It is (or can be) Word compatible, and you can print a PDF if you need to, but it's still editable. It is available for Linux, Mac OS/X, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Windows, and its native XML format is open. That would be my choice if it was accepted by all as the universal standard.

[nikoniko]

Does the Open Office format allow text to be associated with an image but not shown? The main thing I like about both PDF and DJVU is being able to combine the scan and an OCR layer together so that you can view the original page but search with the attached text. Also, are there viewer available for the Open Office format that don't require Open Office to be installed?

By the way, I don't mind providing files in multiple formats as long as the conversion process isn't a nightmare.

[hydrophilic]

Lance you may be right about DOS Acrobat -- I can't remember the last time I used it.

Airship, I agree simple text is insufficient for complicated documents (tables, graphs, images etc.) but HTML does all that.  I can view HTML in DOS or even my Commie if I need to.  PDFs are good as a container for a bunch of scanned images, compatibility/version problems aside.

Nikoniko, thanks for the advice on FoxIt.  I love Google's View as HTML -- I'm glad your page is getting indexed!

[airship]

My biggest problem with HTML (and remember, I wrote 22 books on the subject) is that you have files scattered all over the place. File maintenance is a huge problem. You can keep them one folder per book, and zip them up for downloading, of course. But if even one file gets misplaced, your document is broken.

Another big problem is that HTML isn't very printer-friendly, unless you take the time to create the CSS for print output. And who does that? Besides you still run into version and platform problems. The IE guys write code that doesn't work in Firefox, and vice-versa. Browsers get updated, the HTML 'standard' jumps a version, and code written for them is broken in older browsers.

There is no perfect solution.

[hydrophilic]

Right, forgot about printing.  That is another thing PDFs are good for.  HTML documents usually print fine for me except for tables.  Why why why why does IE like to split a table across pages, often splitting in the middle of a row!  Stupid.  Stupid.  Stupid.  I remember creating a CSS to fix IE's table problem.  But either I did it wrong (strange since other elements like P and BR work fine) or IE is stupid (again) and ignores the media / page options for the TABLE tag.  I need try Netscape next time that happens.

Version problems are almost never a problem with HTML if you use standard mark-up.  Its when you try to get fancy (javascript, table-fied images, transluency, etc.) that problems occur.  I've never needed anything fancy like that for a technical document.

I've never misplaced a page of any HTML book.  Their all in the same folder (or subfolders).  I guess I could see it happening if you accidently did a file drag-drop.  I usually don't open the folder itself -- just use a short cut to the table of contents.  

I'll agree there is no perfect solution.  But I'll prefer HTML over PDF anyday except those rare days I want to print and IE is acting in typical retard mode.

[airship]

H, H, H, H, H... Why in the world is a guy as technically savvy as you still using IE???

Come on over to Firefox. Leave the Dark Side. Come into the Light.

That's where all the rest of us are. Right, Lance? What do the board stats say?

[nikoniko]

I like Firefox well enough, but I find it a bit pokey when I have a bunch of tabs open. I alternate between Firefox and Opera depending on what I'm doing. I kind of like the Safari for Windows beta, but it's way too crash prone for real use right now.

[Golan Klinger]

I kind of like the Safari for Windows beta, but it's way too crash prone for real use right now.

It's really nice on OS X.

[Andrew Wiskow]

I hate PDF files cuz there bloated and difficult to edit and they often don't work without the latest viewer.  I hate uprading software for features I never use.  As far as I'm concerned Acrobat 3,4,5, (and what now 6?) are the same to me in viewer features.  Yet files continue to pop up none of them (and no have 6) will read, like airship's fixed OCR version

Acrobat 7 has been out for a while now...  And according to the Acrobat Website, Acrobat 8 is out now.

-Andrew

[Blacklord]

H, H, H, H, H... Why in the world is a guy as technically savvy as you still using IE???

Come on over to Firefox. Leave the Dark Side. Come into the Light.

That's where all the rest of us are. Right, Lance? What do the board stats say?

Last month :

 #   #reqs   #pages   browser
1   67357   14405   MSIE
2   52101   12346   Firefox
3   11468   7646   Netscape (compatible)
4   3740   3538   Mediapartners-Google
5   2954   1733   msnbot
6   10963   1586   Opera
7   4737   966   Safari
8   3793   904   Mozilla
9   1170   373   Netscape
10   566   322   msnbot-media
11   610   201   Konqueror
12   267   169   Wget
13   183   133   psbot
14   129   103   Speedy Spider (Entireweb; Beta
15   139   101   LinkWalker
16   93   87   woriobot (+http:
17   272   72   Camino
18   64   62   Nokia6682
19   153   62   Gigabot
20   105   59   Speedy Spider (http:
    1559   856   [not listed: 109 browsers]

[airship]

Shucks. I wanted to win.

But if you add up Firefox, Netscape, and Mozilla, we DO beat IE! Yea!

[nikoniko]

It's really nice on OS X.

Indeed it is. I wish my iBook were still in good order, as I'd rather use Safari on its proper operating system.

[bacon]

My visits here mostly show up as MSIE because that's what I have to use at work. At home I use Firefox and have been for the last several years, first in alternately in Windows and Linux and the last few years almost exclusively in Linux (for me, Linux finally became better than Windows as a desktop OS three or four years ago. Wish I could get rid of Windows completely but I need it for Cubase and for the games that won't work with WINE).

[hydrophilic]

I have so many operating systems on my PC that I just use whatever software comes with it and never upgrade ... then in a few years I just add a new OS  Acrobat 8?  I guess I'll have to get that whenever I add Win Vista...

I have a few different browsers for testing purposes, but they vary from OS to OS.  IE is available on most of them so its the default.  IE3 in Win3.11 is so much fun! :/  For some reason, I really like the look of IE4 in NT4.  Go figure.

I guess I'm just trying to say that I spend my time using my computer and don't bother with software updates unless there is a serious problem or missing features.  Maybe I just have bad luck with software updates (database and web servers in particular).

I prefer HW upgrades.  More memory.  More HD space.  Faster internet.  Faster processor.  Higher resolution.  Bigger screen.  All good and 99.99% compatible

[nikoniko]

For some reason, I really like the look of IE4 in NT4.  Go figure.

Hehe... and I thought I was the only one! Blazing fast, too, since it ignores half the stuff in modern webpages.