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Monday, November 18, 2024

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (1325-1328)

See the previous post in this series here.

I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are many thousands of these slides. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.

Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be pretty common but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides from the late 1950s that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.

This set continues a large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a friend or family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/

Many of these slides had the date they were processed stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.

Click the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration.

All of the photos in this set are unlabeled and undated but are likely from the late 1950s or early 1960s. All of these are versions of the images processed with color correction and Digital ICE. Without that they consisted of barely discernible shades of red. I'm not sure what is going on in the first photo but I know it looks too cold to be in a tent. I believe the second photo is from Alaska as the building to the left looks like part of University of Alaska at Fairbanks. The third and fourth feature bees and are definitely in a geographically different location, either in Florida or somewhere else in the Southeast.










The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here.

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Byte (August 1985)

Byte (August 1985)

Friday, November 8, 2024

Compute!’s Gazette (December 1984)

Compute!’s Gazette (December 1984)

Compute!'s Gazette was the most successful spinoff of the more general Compute! magazine. It covered 8-bit Commodore computers. For most of its life that really meant the Commodore 64 and 128 but in 1984 it was mostly the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. The December 1984 issue includes:

Features

  • What if...? - A feature on simulation games. Games covered here include Ringside Seat (a boxing sim), various Avalon Hill battle simulations, SSI's Rails West! (puts you in the role of a railroad baron), various chess games, and more.

  • Electronic Trivia - Trivial Pursuit had been released a few years earlier and had become very popular leading greater popularity of computer based trivia games. This article covers some of them including Trivia Arcade, Trivia Fever, Computrivia, Facttactics, Fax, Master Trivia, Trivia Trek, and Trivial Compute.

  • Inside View - An interview with Byron Preiss and Ronald Martinez, software designers for Trillium who create games such as Fahrenheit 451, Rendezvous with Rome, and Dragonworld.

Reviews

  • Microfiler - A cartridge based database system for the Commodore 64.

  • NATO Commander - A strategy game from MicroProse for the Commodore 64 that pits NATO forces against Warsaw Pact forces.

  • Road to Moscow - A strategy game for the Commodore 64 that recreates the Russian/German part of World War II.

Games

  • Cosmic Combat - A type-in Space Invaders style game with versions for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20.

  • 3-D Labrynth - A 3D maze game for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20 in which you must escape the maze (with an optional time limit).


Table of Contents from the December 1984 issue of Compute!'s Gazette

Education/Home Applications

  • Computing For Families: An Adventure in Telecommunications - A look at SkiWriter II, a combination word processor and telecommunications program.

  • Word Guess - A type-in hangman style game for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20.

  • Letter Attack - An educational type-in game for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20 that teaches typing.

Programming

  • BASIC Magic: A Christmas Assortment - A Christmas themed BASIC tutorial for both the Commodore 64 and VIC-20. Basically a sort of electronic Christmas card with sound.

  • Machine Language for Beginners - This tutorial guides you through creating a customized directory command for the Commodore 64.

  • Hints & Tips - A guide to controlling the keyboard buffer on the VIC-20 and Commodore 64.

  • Auto Line - A type-in program that will automatically number the lines in a BASIC program.

Departments

  • The Editor's Notes - A summary of recent happenings at Commodore as well as a look ahead to the year to come.

  • Gazette Feedback - Letters from readers about reducing disk drive chatter when using copy protected disks, typing in programs on the VIC-20, programming the SID, cooling the 1540 and 1541 disk drives, and more.

  • Simple Answers to Common Questions - Questions answered about converting Atari BASIC programs to the Commodore 64 and transferring files between the Commodore 64 and IBM PC via and RS-232C interface,
  • Horizons 64 - A guide to drawing on the Commodore 64 including a look at programs like Tech Sketch and Peripheral Vision as well as options for controllers including a mouse, light pen and KoalaPad among others.


Back cover of the December 1984 issue of Compute!'s Gazette

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2024/11/08/computes-gazette-december-1984/