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PLATOTerm Cartridge needs Label and Box art


tschak909

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I have three cartridges right here with original, unfaded labels and they are all one color. Eastern Front 1941, Atariwriter and Pacman. My others are all faded to some extent, enough to have a darker strip at the bottom.

Edited by Gunstar
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Meanwhile, I am working on the printed manual:

post-9462-0-92743400-1546631786_thumb.png

 

The manual source is in DocBook 5.1 , and will be available shortly on github.

 

Right now, it's all about content. I will make a custom stylesheet to match the Atari manual styles, once I've done all the content work.

 

-Thom

Edited by tschak909
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OK, So I have the first pass of the manual content done.

 

It's written in DocBook 5.1 format, which is an industry standard XML mark-up that is well geared precisely for things like software manuals.

 

The source XML material is here:

https://github.com/tschak909/platoterm64/blob/atari_cart/doc/PLATOTerm%20Cartridge%20Manual.xml

 

I have not started extending the stylesheet, but you can see a rough draft render of the output, here:

https://github.com/tschak909/platoterm64/blob/atari_cart/doc/PLATOTerm%20Cartridge%20Manual%20-%20content%20test.pdf

 

As you can see, very well structured, with lots of semantic content that can be hooked onto by XSLT stylesheets, to produce whatever layout is wanted.

 

I take this output and run it through xsltproc, like so:

$ xsltproc -o temp.fo /usr/share/xml/docbook/stylesheet/docbook-xsl/fo/docbook.xsl PLATOTerm\ Cartridge\ Manual.xml

This produces a FO (Formatting-Objects) file, which is an intermediate XML format that has lots of stylistic information in it derived from the XSLT stylesheet. This file can be turned into a PDF, like so:

$ fop temp.fo output.pdf

You then have the finished PDF file.

 

Why do this?

 

Because this way, I was able to concentrate on just getting the content done. I typed it all in, and only worried about the content and giving the content some meaning, chapters, sections, key presses, keyboard input, screen output, etc. and from this point, I do not have to touch the content much, if any, I can not only extend the stylesheet to mould the typeset output in any way I want, but it can be output to a wide variety of formats, such as PDF, EPUB, DOCX, HTML, etc, only needing to change the stylesheet as needed.

 

So what's next?

 

Lots of careful formatting, typesetting, and kerning to produce exactly the output I want.

 

What's still needed?

 

Probably better diagrams.. :) The goal is to make something very much circa 1982 ATARI manual :)

 

What are everybody's thoughts?

-Thom

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Ok, so, here's the next pass of the manual, Some XSLT styling applied, fonts matched and typeset, some pagination done, still a LOT of work to be done, but you can start to see how this will look at actual manual size (5in x 7in with 1/8" margin all sides),

 

You can view it online here:

https://github.com/tschak909/platoterm64/blob/atari_cart/doc/PLATOTerm%20Cartridge%20Manual%20-%20content%20test.pdf

 

And attached here: PLATOTerm Cartridge Manual - content test.pdf

 

What do you guys think?

-Thom

 

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Ok, so, here's the next pass of the manual, Some XSLT styling applied, fonts matched and typeset, some pagination done, still a LOT of work to be done, but you can start to see how this will look at actual manual size (5in x 7in with 1/8" margin all sides),

 

You can view it online here:

https://github.com/tschak909/platoterm64/blob/atari_cart/doc/PLATOTerm%20Cartridge%20Manual%20-%20content%20test.pdf

 

And attached here: attachicon.gifPLATOTerm Cartridge Manual - content test.pdf

 

What do you guys think?

-Thom

 

That looks amazing!

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Have improved it a bit, see attached.

 

PLATOTerm Cartridge Manual - content test.pdf

 

* Added ACCESS keys table

* Further typographical fixes

* first attempt to fix cover, still need to reformat and change some bits

 

I also need some replacements for the placeholder images

* ATARI 810/1050/whatever

* ATARI 850

* Diagram of Atari keyboard

* Diagram of atari, 850, wifi modem

 

Thoughts?

-Thom

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Looks good! I don't know when I'll have time to get pictures, but I'l try this week unless someone beats me to it.

 

There is a layout issue for numbered lists once the number hits two digits, there isn't any space after the period before the text starts.

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Ok, revised body, no cover matter. I need to figure out how to add that DIRECTLY to the document without needing to assemble it later by hand.

 

Can somebody do a test print on their printers to see the legibility and if the blue prints too dark? (my CLP-510 butchers the output)

 

-Thom

PLATOTerm Cartridge Manual - Body Test - 2019-01-07.pdf

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