The Softalk Apple Project - Advisory Board

Peter Caylor Joins Advisory Board and Scanning & Preservation SIG

Jim Salmons — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 21:16:44 +0000

We are extremely pleased, almost beyond measure, to welcome Peter Caylor as our newest member of The Softalk Apple Project Advisory Board. In addition to serving as an Adviser, Peter is the "Heavylifting Champion" of the newly formed Scanning & Preservation SIG (Special Interest Group).

"While the STAP project was in its early days," said Jim Salmons, project Research Director, "Peter stepped up and volunteered to contribute his incredible personal collection of high-resolution, OCRed PDF scans of nearly all the Softalk magazines! Not only that, he described this mega-to-die-for ultra-awesome large-format flatbed scanner with large-capacity sheet feeder. It was truly amazing what he was offering to the project."

"I am happy to assist anywhere I can add value to the project." Peter said in a recent email exchange, adding, "I'm happy to serve..." before going on to tick off the various awesome tasks he was working on to coordinate our bulk scanning activity. In short, what was expected to be a large, time-consuming critical first step is now immensely doable. With Peter stepping up such an incredible offer, we immediately agree to launch the Scanning & Preservation SIG and to undertake our activities under its auspices. Here's what we're up to...

A significant proportion of the reference scanning is already in the can. Our next steps include Peter extracting lossless 600dpi TIFF files from existing lossless 600dpi PDFs to create our per-page reference image files. Jim is coming up with a way to extract the text layer from Peter's PDFs (harder than it ought to be, thank you Adobe) and get it into a data store that will be efficient for FactMiners gameplay.

The Scanning & Preservation SIG is targeting specific issues for rescanning, particularly where the current facing-page scans of the late-run, thick, perfect-bound issues are affected. In the case where the STAP archive has multiple copies of an issue, we will sacrifice one to 'deconstruction' for scanning purposes on Peter's awesome scanner. And finally, there are a few issues that Peter is missing which we are attempting to correct by giving him copies from the extras of the STAP collection, or providing missing issues for him to scan to add to his own and the STAP collections.

So, yes, this announcement is particularly exciting. Not only are we pleased and proud to add Peter to the Advisory Board, but his "Let's do it!" attitude is highly energizing and is a real indication that we're turning the corner on the STAP project becoming a sustainable community-based grassroots project.

Thank you Peter for the immense contribution that you are making to The Softalk Apple Project.

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Henry Lowood Joins STAP Advisory Board

Jim Salmons — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 17:25:36 +0000

We are extremely pleased to announce that Henry Lowood, Curator of the History of Technology and Film & Media Collections of Stanford Libraries, has joined the Softalk Apple Project (STAP) Advisory Board.

"As a grassroots community project, Henry's deep and broad knowledge of museum informatics and the requirements for digital collections preservation and management will be invaluable," said Jim Salmons, a founding organizer of the project and tech lead on the FactMiners companion project, "In addition, his personal deep interest and activity in preserving and exploring the evolution of computer games is a big plus as we evolve the FactMiners social-game ecosystem as an innovative way to document and explore cultural heritiage digital collections."

At Stanford, Henry Lowood has been Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections since 1983. He is a lecturer in the Science, Technology and Society Program and the Thinking Matters program at Stanford, and adjunct faculty at San Jose State University, in the School for Library and Information Science.

Since 2000, he has been director of the How They Got Game Project in the Stanford Humanities Laboratory (SHL), a research project focused on the history of computer games and simulations; between 2004 and 2008 he was co-director of the SHL, as well. Among the many initiatives undertaken by the How They Got Game Project, he is curator of The Machinima Archive and the Archiving Virtual Worlds collection hosted by the Internet Archive and led Stanford’s work on the Preserving Virtual Worlds project, funded by the U.S. Library of Congress and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, as well as other funded research. He has published widely in history of science and technology, library and archival studies, and digital game studies. A complete c.v. is available on-line here.

The Softalk Apple Project is a community project dedicated to the preservation, exploration, and extension of the legacy of Softalk magazine. The 48 monthly issues of Softalk are a unique firsthand historical record of the Microcomputer Revolution, in general, focusing specifically on the impact of Apple Computer. For more information, please visit www.SoftalkApple.com.

Welcome Our First Advisory Board Members

Jim Salmons — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 19:25:16 +0000

The Softalk Apple Project is extraordinarily pleased and proud to announce our first members of the project's Advisory Board. They are Steven Weyhrich, John Gruver, and Mike Moshell. Their individual and collective insights and interest in this project will be invaluable to our mission to preserve, explore, and extend the legacy of Softalk magazine.

Steven Weyhrich and John Gruver are our History/Collectors experts who will be most helpful as we not only explore the source content of the Softalk collection, but have an opportunity to chase down "then and now" dimensions related to our "extend" aspect of the "preserve, explore, and extend" mission of the project.

Steven Weyhrich by calling is a family physician at the Methodist Physicians Clinic in Omaha. But Steven has a long-standing love and interest in all things Apple II history-wise. He has just published the "dead trees" version of his Apple II history on Amazon, Sophistication and Simplicity: The Life & Times of the Apple II Computer". Congrats, Steven! We are looking forward to its early December release. In the meantime, you can find an extraordinary amount of historical information at his Apple II History website including this page on the history of Softalk magazine.

And then we have John Gruver... By day, John is the Network and Lab Manager of the School of Media Arts and Design at James Madison University. At most other times, you'll find him fulfilling his mission as a "certified unofficial flame-keeper" of early microcomputing history. At last count, John has amassed a collection of over 3-million pages of vintage computer magazines! And his favorite, don't you know, is Softalk! John's knowledge and enthusiasm (and his magazine collection resource) along with Steven's vast knowledge of early Apple history will be invaluable to The Softalk Apple Project.

Rounding out our first cohort on the Board is Dr. Mike Moshell. In addition to having "been there, done that" Apple computing-wise during the Softalk days (and he was an avid reader at the time), Mike has phenomenal knowledge and experience that will help us with the FactMiners social-game ecosystem part of The Softalk Apple Project. Mike is currently Professor of Digital Media at the University of Central Florida where he was instrumental in the creation of the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy which is a multi-disciplinary advanced degree program for professional training in computer game design and development. Before that, he was Founder and Chief Scientist of the Visual Systems Laboratory at the UCF Institute for Simulation & Training.

Congratulations and welcome aboard to each of the new members of our Advisory Board. We know their insights and interest will help The Softalk Apple Project to be a rewarding and successful adventure.