Amusing find on the Cinemaware site!

[Harrison]

I was just looking up classicamiga.com links on Google to see where the search results for some random Amiga related keywords would place us, and found something funny.

On the official Cinemaware website I found someone asking where they could find a scan of the original Wings manual and the reply directs them to us. :thumbs:


Hey guys anyone know where I can find a scan of the original wings manual, I bought a a1200 the other day with original wings, but no manual, now it wants words on certain pages. I was hoping it might be on here but i cant find it, thx for any help on this. Im not sure if it is legally available I done a search and found nothing any info would be great thx.


The scan of the "wings" manual is available on the website classicamiga.com
It's a great game.

http://www.cinemaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1086

[Submeg]

No sh1t! That is both 1) weird 2) awesome! as if its not on their site? I swear it is, I go there all the time! Cool that they mentioned the site!!

[Demon Cleaner]

The scan of the "wings" manual is available on the website classicamiga.com
It's a great game.He should also have said: It's a great site.

[Submeg]

Second that. hehe

[Harrison]

Definitely :thumbs:

[AlexJ]

That must have been posted some time ago, as manual scans haven't been available since the move to the CMS.

Did you ever get round to scanning the Wings manual (http://forum.classicamiga.com/showthread.php?t=308) in a higher res Submeg?

[Submeg]

Not yet...but I can...could do so tomorrow.

[Harrison]

Would be great if you could. We definitely need to start getting scanned manuals on the site this week if we can.

[Submeg]

Cool, cool. Where were the rules for image size and resolution again??

[AlexJ]

If you scan them at a fairly high res (greater than 1000 pixels in both directions) and save them as high quality JPEG's, then send them to me, I can compress them down and pdf them up if you want (I've got quite good at it!).

[Submeg]

Cool cool, sounds like a good idea! cheers.

[AlexJ]

alex-at-classicamiga.com

[Submeg]

will do :thumbs:

[Submeg]

Ok, couldnt find the other topic this was being posted in but...Alex, I am in the process of uploading the Wings manual to the site...I tried to upload a single zip but my net was being stupid....so I have had to do it page by page, my apologies. I scanned most of the pages two at a time so its not too bad.

EDIT: Its up in Submeg folder...I also have these manuals:

* F/A-18
* Battlehawks 1942
* Don Bluth's Dragons Lair (also have box, but its slightly damaged)

[AlexJ]

Thanks :thumbs: I didn't realise it was as long as it was! The one we had on the old site was only 20 pages so thanks for taking the time to scan all 80! I'll try to get the scans cleaned up and package them into a .pdf over the weekend.

As for the other manuals - I'm sure they'd be just as appreciated. If the box of Dragon's lair isn't totally wrecked, it's quite possible it can be cleaned up using Photoshop, although if anyone else has a cleaner version then that'd obviously be easier.

[Harrison]

I may have a better set of Dragon's Lair box scans. I will have a look.

BTW, I have a new easier idea for adding box scans and other media into the site compared to the current method of having to manually add the html each time. I'm going to test the idea on my local server to see if it works, and if so it will generate the required html for you so you will just need to enter the actual file location and nothing else. If this works I will then add it to the site next week.

[Submeg]

Wait til I do the Battlehawks 1942...that is 130 pages...

[AlexJ]

I may have a better set of Dragon's Lair box scans. I will have a look.

BTW, I have a new easier idea for adding box scans and other media into the site compared to the current method of having to manually add the html each time. I'm going to test the idea on my local server to see if it works, and if so it will generate the required html for you so you will just need to enter the actual file location and nothing else. If this works I will then add it to the site next week.

I did notice that the majority of boxes are roughly the same shape (unnoticable difference at thumbnail size) so often reuse previous code with just the location changed (with the pixels etc. the same).

[Harrison]

The idea I have to to instead write a php script that takes the image name, generates a thumbnail, and then inserts it into the page with the lightbox code. The only thing required on the edit screen would be an input box for the original image filename and another for the image title (shown under the image and below the lightbox view.

The code would obtain the image dimensions and work out the thumbnail size, therefore inserting the correct sizes, and the code would automatically create the correct link code with alt and title properties.

But I do need to test if this will work as I haven't tried combining php inside the template structure of the games section yet so am not sure if it might break.

[AlexJ]

Just to check what the layout is.

I've guessed it to be:

Front Cover, Blank Page, Inside Cover, Blank Page, Credits, Contents, pge2-3... pg 76, Index of photos.

Am I right?

[J T]

Shiz, I really should dig out those scans that I did ages ago, like maybe 2 years or more..... think I'd done F/A 18 Interceptor too Submeg. Ooops

[Submeg]

Front cover,inside cover, credits, index of photos, contents, preface, pge 2 - 3,.....pge 76

[AlexJ]

Front cover,inside cover, credits, index of photos, contents, preface, pge 2 - 3,.....pge 76

Any blank pages between them? ('Dummy' blank pages need to be included so when the PDF is viewed as two-page layout, the two pages appear next to each other as they do in the actual manual.)

[Submeg]

Well then:

blank
Front cover
blank
Inside cover
blank
credits
blank
photos

Then the rest

[AlexJ]

Thanks. Two more things - the scan of page 13 has lost some of the text. Any chance this page could be redone? Also I can't see page 1 (Preface) anywhere. Have I just missed it or if it's not there can you reupload it.

Oh and is the back cover just a blank page or is there something on it (e.g. Company logo,copyright notice)?

[AlexJ]

Okay, the rest of the pages are done and ready to go, just need the two/three missing ones now.

[Submeg]

Just put those two pages up

[AlexJ]

Thanks - the final PDF (unless you can find any mistakes in it) is now available on both the Documents Server and Uploads FTP Server (temporarily until it goes live on the main site).

The size looks a bit excessive to begin with (16.5MB) but across 88 pages, it's 192KB/page. The original scans were 44MB and the cropped & cleaned JPEGs were 25.5MB so it's about as much as it'll compress without starting to make it unreadable.

[Submeg]

Yea I know its huge, but there are many pages and alot of stuff on them

[AlexJ]

Very true, the Amiga manuals were almost book-like in terms of the coverage. I think it's great to have the complete manual available, and with the new server hopefully the size won't matter.

One thing I noticed, there doesn't appear to be any controls guide or anything in the manual. Was a seperate command summary/reference card manual included?

[Submeg]

No there isn't, for Wings, the copy control was to enter a word on page 4, sentence 4, word 9...etc, there wasnt a wheel.