First time I've taken a photo of all of them together. Note that there is no Gold Collection Sonic 1 - I don't think this exists, but am happy to be proven wrong.
Golden_Axe#WonderSwan_Color_Version Manual up soon, but I can't seem to align the top and bottom with the back part of the scan, since this is where it would be attached if the box was folded out and I was also trying to align the inside flap with the spine, as this featured a logo worth preserving. Maybe I should just upload a .png of the entire thing under a 'cover' label.
You can't align things manually any more, the new scanbox template does all that itself by wikimagic. Just leave it as it is for now, and I'll add an option to have the top & bottom fill the space above/below the spines.
As I said on your talk page* Don't bother with PNGs for scans - it just hikes up the file size and I'm not keen on the idea of trying to crop out white (or black in your case) space because the results don't always look nice. Also it wastes your time. Also it means I have to rename the file from .jpg to .png. e.g. http://segaretro.org/File:ThunderHawk_MCD_JP_Disc.jpg - like Akane's done it in the older revision. *nobody reads these these things - I get a message when someone edits mine, does this not happen for normal users? That recent changes page is nice too.
I did read it, am I supposed to reply on my talk page or yours? I couldn't make heads or tails of yours. I prefer the look of the cropped image and I don't mind wasting my time, especially with the discs as it's just an e cut instead of an r cut. I might just do a white background next time I do some scanning, but I've got a backlog of already done scans to sort through first. Unless there is an issue with space and my 600dpi png images are clogging things up?
Resolution isn't the issue, it's more of the flip-flopping between PNG and JPEG, because MediaWiki can get confused and it's an extra job and it doesn't seem worth it to me. PNGs aren't good for scans - super duper lossless compression is pointless given that the scanner won't be entirely accurate in the first place, and it just inflates the file size for no good reason. I like the idea of Sega Retro just housing the "raw" scans, I.e. documenting the real thing that's actually there. If people want to take it further by cropping things out or (significantly) cleaning things up for replacement covers or whatever, that's probably outside of our scope. But that's just me, other sysops may think differently.
I'm happy to go with the concensus, and it's not hard to convert the pngs to jpgs and reupload them. Incidentally, my epson scanner defaults to png, so many of my raw scans exist as pngs (before I crop and rotate etc). ~~~ Got the golden axe wonderswan manual up, which has some nice artwork if you're a fan of the game. Also got up Puyo Puyo Tsuu for the WS (also with the top and bottom scans misplaced above the front). And I made a start on my sms au manuals Astro_Warrior_/_Pit_Pot I was tempted to upload the unedited original, to forever immortalise my good friend Mew Sum (I wonder whether he's still alive)
Started working through my master system games, but it's not always easy to tell if my copy is a genuine australian original, or an imported EU game. In many cases the AU copies are near identical to the EU copies. Sometimes it's obvious from the simpler manuals and country of origin stamped into the cart, but other times it's not. For instance, my copy of Sonic 2 that I bought first hand from an Australian mail order games store is almost certainly an EU copy, with it's multi language manual, but I know for certain that it was bought here. When in doubt, I'm uploading them as AU releases, but you'll probably find no differences in the covers between the AU and EU releases, so not sure if this is right. Also, a lot of them a poor quality ex-rentals, so not too sure of their value as examples for historical preservation. Also, checkout the AU manual variants for Alex Kidd in Shinobi World and Alex_Kidd:_High-Tech_World - Both booklets and fold-out leaflets exist, although the way I scanned them makes it hard to tell.
I can ruin your day and say some of these might be UK manuals, not EU or AU. The ones originally published by companies like U.S. Gold or Domark that are just in English. But I don't know for sure. They may have been re-printed slightly differently. It doesn't matter much right now. And a poor quality scan is better than no scan at all.
Yeah, that explains the doubts I had about a few of them. If they all just said 'Printed in Australia' on the back page I'd be a lot happier.
Graah! File:Shinobi_SMS_AU_Cover.jpg This is definitely the AU Shinobi cover, it's slightly different to the EU (R) variant (barcode placement) and it came in the notorious AU vacuum formed clamshell case, as opposed to the usual rigid plastic case. But: File:Shinobi_SMS_EU_Cart_Front.jpg File:Shinobi_SMS_EU_Cart_Back.jpg File:Shinobi_SMS_EU_Cart_Top.jpg This was the cartridge inside, which is very clearly a Euro cart (black stripes, sticker on back, no "Made in Australia" or "Ozisoft" references). This is an ex-rental AU cart (hence the void sticker). So I can only deduce that ozisoft imported whole Shinobi carts destined for EU for sale in Australia. Except: File:Shinobi_SMS_AU_Cart.jpg There is evidence of a white stripe example, loaded by Black Squirrel, which is typical of AU production runs. So I dunno. I put my scans under the EU cover, but I dunno whether that's disingenuous or not.
File:Ultimate_Dreamcast_Collection_dreamcast_com_au.pdf File:Australian_Dreamcast_Release_Schedule.pdf File:Australian_%26_New_Zealand_Dreamcast_Releases_2000-10-12.pdf I found some old printouts from dreamcast.com.au. These don't seem to be on the wayback machine either
I decided to give the new Sega Retro server a bit of a test run by loading up 4 new Sega BASIC manual scans. These were painfully time consuming, but I did my duty anyway. Apart from the covers and correcting a couple of mistakes, I didn't bother to crop and rotate the individual pages because it was just too much hassle. I think they are good enough though, and serve as an adequate historical archive, at least for the time being. File:Basic Level IIIB SC3000 AU Manual.pdf File:Basic Level SKIII SG-1000 JP Manual.pdf File:Basic Level II SC3000 JP Manual.pdf File:Basic Level III SC3000 JP Manual.pdf
I've started tweeting my updates to Sega Retro, seemed like the "in" thing to do. twitter.com/doc_eggfan
So what's the best practice here: I have a higher resolution scan of the Bike Handle Controller box, but it's got an unsightly stain across it. I uploaded it and replaced the prior version that was cleaner, but smaller. Should I have done that, or left it as is? File:BH400_SG1000_JP_Box_Front.jpg
But it doesn't have the same narcissistic ego-tripping thrill of actively promoting "Hey I did this, validate me" (which is basically what this thread was for). Don't worry, I'll probably get bored of it soon.
21 Fabulous Programs for your Sega SC-3000 Computer Exploring Graphics with your John Sands Sega Computer HuCAL SF-7000 AU Manual Programming your John Sands Sega Computer Sega SC3000 BASIC Book Japanese Sega Super Control Station SF-7000 AU Manual Book scans too large for Sega Retro's loader. Can I get a hand shifting these to the server?