New TI-99 Manual Library Site

[pixelpedant]

An intention on my back burner for a while has been a plan to take my TI-99 software manual archive online at some point in an appealingly organised and accessible way. 

 

It feels silly for everyone to have to just maintain their own collection in this regard.  And it's worse yet for every new or returning community member to have to hunt this content down individually, when it's honestly spread all over the place so chaotically.  WHTech is great and all, but it's not exactly user-friendly and discoverable.  So I figured organising my own manual library and making that library searchable and accessible to others could go hand in hand.  Anyway, I've made a manual library at my hitherto never-used eponymous domain:

 

https://pixelpedant.com

 

Currently, there are 242 titles with at least one scanned manual version.  Though many have multiple manuals or scans thereof and the total number of manual scans was actually 304 at last count.  That's all thanks, ultimately, to the members of the community who've gone to the trouble, over the past years. 

 

Virtually all manuals are in PDF format, though some ephemera I've included along with them are not (image of the game disk, advertisement in MP/99er, or that kind of thing).

 

It's pretty intuitive.  Lots of manuals, searchable, browsable, and classified by software vendor, software media, and the nature of the software.  It's a work in progress and will always be, but it's already very, very large. 

 

Partly, I needed to get my manual archive in order, but partly, when it comes to manuals, I just want there to be something more inviting than WHTECH for folks exploring the world of the TI-99 for the first time in a while, or for the first time altogether, looking for relevant documentation.  After all, in a world dominated by flashcarts and emulation, most people, most of the time, don't have the manuals for the vintage games they play. 

 

 

[Nick99]

Really nice, beautiful layout and as you mention, easy to use! ??

Thanks!

[ColecoFan1981]

42 minutes ago, pixelpedant said:

An intention on my back burner for a while has been a plan to take my TI-99 software manual archive online at some point in an appealingly organised and accessible way. 

 

It feels silly for everyone to have to just maintain their own collection in this regard.  And it's worse yet for every new or returning community member to have to hunt this content down individually, when it's honestly spread all over the place so chaotically.  WHTech is great and all, but it's not exactly user-friendly and discoverable.  So I figured organising my own manual library and making that library searchable and accessible to others could go hand in hand.  Anyway, I've made a manual library at my hitherto never-used eponymous domain:

 

https://pixelpedant.com

 

Currently, there are 242 titles with at least one scanned manual version.  Though many have multiple manuals or scans thereof and the total number of manual scans was actually 304 at last count.  That's all thanks, ultimately, to the members of the community who've gone to the trouble, over the past years. 

 

Virtually all manuals are in PDF format, though some ephemera I've included along with them are not (image of the game disk, advertisement in MP/99er, or that kind of thing).

 

It's pretty intuitive.  Lots of manuals, searchable, browsable, and classified by software vendor, software media, and the nature of the software.  It's a work in progress and will always be, but it's already very, very large. 

 

Partly, I needed to get my manual archive in order, but partly, when it comes to manuals, I just want there to be something more inviting than WHTECH for folks exploring the world of the TI-99 for the first time in a while, or for the first time altogether, looking for relevant documentation.  After all, in a world dominated by flashcarts and emulation, most people, most of the time, don't have the manuals for the vintage games they play. 

 

 

Right, since many browsers are now blocking FTP sites once and for all, so this is cool how you intend to move all these files from WHTECH.

 

~Ben

[pixelpedant]

Well, WHTECH is served via HTTP as well, and that's how most people use it most of the time.  The main limitation of a file archive like that is just discoverability. 

 

Does the trick once you've figured out where everything is.  But we can do better than distribution via directory tree and file pile, at this point in history. 

[blackbox]

Very nice website, everything just works.  Accessible too, usable with a screen reader.  Nice to see a website that does not insist on scripts. Good colour contrast.

Several ways to browse the content.
The website has a lovely search box as well  but as an alternative I keep my own "universal TI" search web page and have added pixelpedant to the list of sites- 
http://shawweb.myzen.co.uk/stephen/tisearch.htm



Thanks for the work.  I think there remain a few more to go yet.... see attached lists!



best wishes  s



omegalist.txt softwaremanualsamalgOct20.pdf

Edited May 8, 2021 by blackbox
reword

[ti99iuc]

I really like how you thought of the simple search engine, I would have thought of it the same way for my DB 10 years ago ?
very nice

[pixelpedant]

13 hours ago, blackbox said:

Thanks for the work.  I think there remain a few more to go yet.... see attached lists!

omegalist.txt softwaremanualsamalgOct20.pdf

 

Thanks.  That's great.  Indeed, there's still a lot to do.  Especially when it comes to filling in metadata for titles (year of release, programmer(s), etc.).  But I'm working on it. 

 

And I'll also definitely see (based on that list) what's been posted here that I've missed. 

[GDMike]

I did a search, "Editor" no e/a manual.

[pixelpedant]

Yeah, there's plenty still missing that's been scanned at some point (as the list blackbox shared illustrates).  261 titles now with at least one scan so far posted (19 more today).  But more will come.  I've mainly been working on fleshing out metadata for existing titles today, though.  Since I originally uploaded many of them with only a title and vendor as metadata.  This will always be a work in progress.  Since new scans turn up all the time.  I've got a few more scans I'll do myself when I have the chance, for titles with bad or non-existent scans.  But I've had my hands full with the existing scans, so far. 

[mdilling]

This is a great site. Please keep up the great work you are doing. 

[GDMike]

13 hours ago, pixelpedant said:

Yeah, there's plenty still missing that's been scanned at some point (as the list blackbox shared illustrates).  261 titles now with at least one scan so far posted (19 more today).  But more will come.  I've mainly been working on fleshing out metadata for existing titles today, though.  Since I originally uploaded many of them with only a title and vendor as metadata.  This will always be a work in progress.  Since new scans turn up all the time.  I've got a few more scans I'll do myself when I have the chance, for titles with bad or non-existent scans.  But I've had my hands full with the existing scans, so far. 

Thank you! It's definitely a nice tool to have. 

[pixelpedant]

Well, up to 301 title entries now.  Added Notung Software and Scott Foresman and Company to vendors, and various relevant scans. 

 

Added some unimportant stuff like Mini Memory, Editor/Assembler and Extended BASIC. 

 

But also, some earth-shattering classics of the platform like...

 

[blackbox]

That brings back memories.  In the ST TNG manual above, Ray mentions that he sent the magazine on to me....so he did and I still have it.  Here is a modern 2021 scan of the front cover cartoon, scanned from the exact image that Ray used to produce this cover and his calendar disk.
The cartoon is from Page 14 of Starlog #155 (June 1990)

 

makeitsew.tif

[pixelpedant]

Nice!  Thanks for all the work you've done scanning manuals, blackbox.  It's all been invaluable to the preservation of TI-99 history. 

[oddemann]

TI 99-4A BASIC Reference Card.pdf

[pixelpedant]

I've substantially modified the site topology to include more category facets and make them top-level navigation categories.  Hopefully makes it a bit more useful.  Should make it easier to classify non-game materials in a sane way, too, as I more so move on to those.

[cobracon]

This is amazing. Thank you. Being a ti99 noob this makes it so easy to find manuals. Well done and love your videos.

[pixelpedant]

New Databiotics manuals from scans by @arcadeshopper! 

 

Space Patrol

 

 

and

 

Escape!

 

 

and

 

Breakthrough!

 

[Airshack]

Nice! Great job!

[pixelpedant]

New Addition to this site: 

 

I've added a new Vendor Catalogues section containing (so far) what we've got on WHTECH and what we've accumulated here on AtariAge including some scans of my own. 

 

 

I'm currently going through the Tenex catalogues and digitizing (PDF/OCR) ones I don't have a scan for, or otherwise don't have a satisfactory scan for (e.g., scan exists, but is monochrome).

 

As a sidenote, feel free to link or deep link anything at all on this site however you feel inclined.  I don't "own" any of this content.  I just want it to be readily available. 

 

My only suggestion is that linking item pages (like this) rather than PDF links (like this) will results in more stable links, since with direct file links, there's the danger I replace old scans with newer and better versions, or modify scans to fix issues, or what have you, and the old file ceases to exist as a result.  Where the item page itself will never change.  Over the short term direct PDF file links will almost always be fine though. 

 

[GDMike]

One day, on my to-do list, I wanna make a site for TIpi mhtl access for DV 80 TI files. 

Edited January 3, 2022 by GDMike