Re: Place to find old code????

[Paul Schlyter <pausch.NO@SPAM.saaf.se>]

In article <d5avui$6i1$1@theodyn.ncf.ca>, et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA 
says...
>
>Paul Schlyter (pausch.NO@SPAM.saaf.se) writes:
>> In article <WO5ee.429$T3.2718@typhoon.sonic.net>, fadden@fadden.com 
>> says...
>>>Dan Hetzel <dahetzel@wi.rr.com> wrote:
>>>> Back in the early and late 80s I use to receive Home Office Computing and a 
>>>> few other magazines. In these magazines they usually had code that you had to 
>>>> enter yourself and compile yourself. Is there a source on the net that has 
>>>> some of these programs or any Apple basic program code. 
>>>
>>>Applesoft and Integer BASIC aren't compiled, so you can view the BASIC
>>>programs themselves.  I would recommend grabbing some public domain disk
>>>images from Asimov.  Google for the comp.sys.apple2 FAQ for that and some
>>>other ideas.
>> 
>> Well, I don't think he by "source" referred to source code, but rather 
>> to some site on the web where they can be downloaded.  I.e. he wanted 
>> some sorce for the source code... :-)
>> 
>Of course, to be historically accurate, that source of those old
>magazines should be in the form of scans of the magazine articles,
>so the person at home can type them in, just like in the old days.
>
>   Michael

There's no need to type in those scans.  Instead, run them through some
suitable OCR software!

Nowadays, printed paper, and scans of printed paper, is a machine 
readable medium.  Of course this includes the original magazines -- they
can be scanned and OCR'ed.

True, OCR'ing magazine prints won't produce a 100% accurate result, so 
some manual proofreading is necessary.  But from my own experience, 
scanning, OCR'ing and proofreading is some 5 to 10 times faster than 
typing in it all manually + proofreading what you typed.  And errors in 
OCR'ing tend to be quite predictable; after a while you get to know your 
OCR software and where it is most likely to fail.  Common errors are 
confusing 0 and O, 1 and l, 3 and 8, etc.


-- 
Paul Schlyter,  Grev Turegatan 40,  SE-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at saaf dot se
WWW:     http://stjarnhimlen.se/
         http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/