The Personal Computer World Preservation Project

Every once in a while I get a bug. An intense need to thumb through my old "Personal Computer World" collection. Lost to the ravages of time, immigration and mildew, I no longer possess this collection. So, to recapture a bit of my childhood, a modicum of the romance of those golden years when computers really were about computing, or maybe just a tasty slice of nostalgia, I go searching on the web. And everytime I walk away with the same frustration and annoyance. I run into the usual keyword hogs, like the wikipedia page, the awesome covers collection and the 1978-June 1979 index, and maybe an odd scanned article or two. But I never ever find digital copies of the magazine, paid or otherwise.

(Actually, a correction is in order. It seems issues from 2000 onwards -- see hxxp://www.computeractive-direct.co.uk/products.asp?id=1240&type=24&channel=1 -- are available in DVD / CD format. But those are of no use to me. By then I was already long over PCW. And besides, the magazine had changed its character considerably, lost bulk of its charm, and had become much less interesting than it used to be.)

All kinds of other dated material of this kind (for example see this) is available on the net, why not this? It meant so much to so many back then, those people are still around (I am guessing bulk of the crowd is in their 30s and 40s), how come nobody has addressed this incongruous digital dearth?

My last search turned up a new sad development. It seems late 2009, the ailing magazine finally closed its doors. Now I am certain any hope of officially diseminated compendium of old issues in digital form is lost for good. They didn't do it when they were functioning, why would they do it now?

So here I am setting up this blog. It is an open call to anyone and everyone to help build a library archive of this chunk of our age-group's (generation ZX?) historical heritage (I know that sounds cheesy, but hey, I am right there with Wallace on that one). I am not proposing or intending to do anything illegal. Though I am sure there will a bridge that will have to be crossed when the time comes. I am hopeful that we'll find a clean way to cross it, but we are long way from it. Ideas and suggestions are welcome.

For now I'd like to call on individuals to send me *physical* copies of the magazine, all the way from first issue to the December 1999 issue, for the purpose of preservation (Mailing address availble on request). If a copy is particularly rare or valuable, I'll endeavor to pay for it -- my own financial constraints permitting. And of course donations will be gladly accepted. I am sure there will be some cost to tracking down copyright holders, and server / hosting costs. I'll do what I can, but these are tough economic times.

Periodically I'll be putting out a list of issues in the archive, to help people decide if they should send in their copies (currently, zero issues in archive). Everyone who sends a copy in will have the option to be placed on a private mailing list. Should a scanning/digization/indexing effort reach its completion, they'll be the first to get access.

Ok folks, lets get started ...