[Coco] RAINBOW scans

[Andrew]

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:30:13 -0700
> From: "Ron VanScherpe" <rvanscherpe at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Coco] RAINBOW scans
> To: coco at maltedmedia.com
> Message-ID:
> 	<e5d2079a0808131030i7e982e75o27e854422847a523 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> I have personall purchased about 65 Rainbow issues and had them unbound at
> Kinkos and have scanned them all in using a Fijitsu ScanSnap scanner.  It
> took about 20 mins per issue to scan and the files were around 200MB each.
> 
> I had heard about the scanning project a few years ago and when I heard that
> it was recently dropped due to Lonnie's death I quickly scrambled to
> purchase issues.  I have requested on this list before that we somehow
> contact the estate or the family and encourage them to proceed with this
> project because it is important and they don't have to do any of the work
> since the bulk of it is already done.  And the caveat of not having every
> single issue before they can release it is ridiculous.  We need to be in
> communication with the family.  We as a coco community are willing to pay
> for it but if it dies by the waste side then more and more scans are going
> to appear.  Let's encourage the Estate to continue with the project.
> 
> Ron.

Certainly there must be a way to get in contact with Lonnie's estate. 
For a man who gave us so much by way of his magazine, we should at least 
respect his memory this much.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to just "scan and post" the magazines I 
have (several years worth starting at about January 1987 and running to 
the end), but I would rather that I knew I had the permission and 
blessing of the publisher and/or family before I did so.

I agree that at this point, scanning and posting as an activity is a low 
risk. I doubt that even if any of the family noticed, they probably 
wouldn't care.

One could make the argument that by contacting them, they might then 
notice and start to care - but maybe we can get them to care in a 
positive manner, perhaps as a tribute to the man that they loved (at 
least, I am assumming and hope his family loved him).

I want to sign a petition, with a little note to say how much the CoCo 
and the Rainbow changed my life, and how indebted I am to Falsoft and 
Lonnie for that. I want to send this petition to the family (hand 
delivered by a community member would be ideal), and ask them to please 
sit down and discuss this with "us", to come to an agreement, to let 
them know how much this magazine means to us.

Certainly there must be a way to do this. We as a community can 
certainly set up a petition. We should be able to find a lawyer to 
represent us. We should be able to trust each other enough to set up a 
paypal donation spot to help pay for all of this. One of us must live 
"close" to Lonnie's estate and/or family (does anyone have specifics on 
this?)...

I would rather have the Rainbow become a real community magazine with 
the blessing and permission of the "publisher" (which may or may not now 
be Lonnie's estate), rather than stealing it like a thief (albeit one 
with noble and just intentions, of course). It may come to that after 
all, but let's make sure there isn't any other option before we trod 
down this path too far.

Regardless of what happens, didn't the Rainbow-on-Disk project get 
something like 99% of the issues scanned (minus a few of the last issues 
published)? If so, then whatever happens these issues should form the 
"core" of the release, with addendum issues or whatnot added. Ideally, I 
would want to see a professionally done, purchasable DVD (for the cost 
of media, copying, and shipping, of course - no profit motive, unless 
the estate says otherwise) - but I would settle for just an ISO image. 
Ideally, getting the scans in a format to allow community OCR'ing for 
those issues not OCR'd would be ideal. I still would like to see the 
scans in a PDF format as well, but for the Rainbow-on-Disk project, a 
different document format (View-somethingsomething - an open source 
system, IIRC) was chosen.

Let's at least decide as a community what we want, let's try to get in 
contact with the estate, let's do this in an organized manner. We can do 
this!

-- Andrew L. Ayers, Glendale, Arizona