That is some great work.

Regarding "Amiga Game Maker's Manual, 1992, Stephen Hill", I haven't sort permission for hosting that one so if you could that would be brilliant. I still own that book and it is very nicely written.
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I'm now extending the search to add a couple of extra AMOS books so any help locating the authors would be appreciated.

Name AMOS in Action: A Practical Guide to Mastering AMOS on the Amiga
Author Anne Tucker and Len Tucker
ISBN-10 ISBN 074570221X
ISBN-13 ISBN 978-0745702216
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=074570221X

Name Writing role playing games for Amos
Author Dicon Peeke
ISBN-10 ISBN 0745702473
ISBN-13 ISBN 978978-0745702476
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Role-P.../dp/0745702473

Oh and add Peter J Hickman to the list. Author of the "All About AMOS" Newsletters. I've got Volume 1 issues 1&2 and Volume 2 issues 1&2 to convert to PDF.

- - - Updated - - -

Update on the author search, I've located Stephen Hill via the publishers and they are forwarding the request for redistribution of the 'Amiga Games Maker's Manual'. So fingers crossed he is still at the address they have on record and the outcome is positive.
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Unfortunately at the moment I can't find any good leads to track down Anne Tucker and Len Tucker, Dicon Peeke and Peter J Hickman.

Two members of of UltimateAmiga (shock and amigaoneproductions) have stated in previous posts that they knew them and I have contacted them but they have not been active here for quite some time.

I've contacted Aaron Fothergill and Phil South in the hope that they might have some information.

So if anybody else can provide a lead it would be appreciated

Unfortunately Kuma Publishing was dissolved around 1997 so that option is no longer available.


Anyway On a side note a little summary - AMOS reunited, sort of

François Lionet as you know gave his permission for the AMOS software and Manuals and runs a software development company Clickteam with Yves Lamoureux.

Aaron and Adam Fothergill have given permission to use and redistribute the TOME software and manual. Their running Strange Flavour Ltd. a small UK based independent games developer.

Phil South Author of Mastering Amiga AMOS has given his permission for his book. Now a full time writer, writing coach, building his own training business, Going Down Writing.

I've located Stephen Hill via the publishers and they are forwarding the request for redistribution of the 'Amiga Games Maker's Manual', he's somewhere in Canada.

Contacted Jason Holborn via YouTube Author of 'Ultimate AMOS', although I think he may be on a shipwreck dive somewhere in the Mid-Atlantic.
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Very nice work. I will have to start linking downloads for these publications into the wiki list.

My eventual goal is to have a proper bookshelf/library section where users can see the book covers, read and leave reviews, rate the books and download them. And to eventually expand it outside of just the Amiga and cover all retro system publications. There is a wealth of books out there lost to current users. There are also a lot of cross platform books that Amiga owners can benefit from as much as users of other systems too.
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Hungry Horace set up a little bookshelf on the AMOS Factory front page, although it doesn't go quite as far as you have specified. For that there is a required sub project to the AMOS docs project called dbODF which is still in the planning stages.

The biggest problems facing this project is time and contributors.

From my initial experience of tracking down the authors I have found it to be a very time consuming process and I have only scratched the surface of the techniques involved in this. To do a small batch of books as I am, I would say that you would have to put aside and dedicate at least a week to the search to completely exhaust all avenues and leads. When I can I will do this but how regularly I cannot say, as I'm way behind schedule on the AMOS docs project as it is.

Getting contributors to scan the rarer books is frustrating to say the least, I've seen a few people request others to scan their book, but will they scan their rare books, unfortunately not.

I would suggest you acquire the books you have on the Amiga Book Reference list (from any source) and mark the entry with an offline tag to indicate that the book has been scanned but does not have permission to redistribute. At least for the short term until you decide whether or not your going down the road of releasing them and only removing them at the authors request. There is one problem with that though, too many unauthorised books readable online and you will draw the attention of the authors Guild, Google got hit by them although theirs was on a massive scale.

Weeeer Doooooooooomed!

Well not really, it's just going to take time.
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I have been considering the route of "release them all and remove at the authors request" as the better route to take at the moment due to most documents and published works being 20+ years old, making tracking down the authors very hard. We could still try to track them down even with the work already live and add author endorsed to titles that we have managed to gain permissions for.

The bookshelf site won't be happening straight away as I've got loads of other things going on, but hopefully before the end of the year something will happen.
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<Scrub> All things considered, I would agree as this is more about preservation than unauthorised usage. The endorsed idea is a good one . <Scrub this, I have reconsidered my stance on this>

It happens when it happens it is a hobby after all.

- - - Updated - - -

Update on the author search.

Found a good lead on Dicon Peeke and traced Dicon Peeke the graphic artist that worked for Level 9 Adventure games and I believe this is the same person that wrote the 'Writing role playing games for Amos'. I have no solid link but it seems to me that this has a high probability of being the correct person. I have contacted him to ask for confirmation of identity and permission.

If anybody has the book could you let me know if there is a mention of Level 9 Adventure games in the book or a photo of Dicon in the book. Just for the sake of confirmation.

That just leaves Anne and Len Tucker and Peter J Hickman to find.
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Update on book permissions:

Bruce Smith confirmed that the copyright for the Phil South book 'Mastering Amiga AMOS' has indeed reverted back to Phil. Infact for all Bruce Smith Books published all copyright's have reverted back to the authors.

And

Got permission to reproduce and distribute all Bruce Smith authored Amiga titles. I have asked Bruce to confirm the exact titles this permission covers.

But here is the possible's list to get your mouth watering:

Mastering AmigaDOS 2 V1 by BS & MS
Mastering AmigaDOS 2 V2 by BS & MS
Mastering Amiga Workbench 2 by B.Smith
Mastering Amiga by BS & MW (Mastering Amiga: Beginners)
Mastering AmigaDOS 3 Tutorial by BS & MS
A600 Insider Guide by B. Smith
A1200 Insider Guide by B. Smith
Workbench 3 A-Z by B. Smith (? Unlikely as it is still available from Amazon.co.uk)

Once confirmation is received and were relevant for the AMOS Pro resource kit project I'll add those books to the todo list. The rest will be done as part of the classicamiga.com bookshelf project and will also be available at UltimateAmiga.co.uk depending on server space.

I will searching out any books that have already been scanned, but if you already know of any of these books that have been scanned please point me in their direction. Also if you are willing to do scans of any of these books please inform me.
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If UltimateAmiga doesn't have much sever space free then I would be happy for book files to be hosted on the classicamiga servers and cross linked to their site. All I would want is a little mention on any linked files to show where the file is being downloaded from.
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I don't know the details of the package FOL's got but if it comes to it I'm sure there wouldn't be a problem giving appropriate credit. It will all depend on whether or not FOL wants to host a duplicate bookshelf of that magnitude. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it .

As for author searching that's it for now. I need to get a good chunk of work done on the AMOS project. I'll chase down another dozen or so books in about a month. The biggest problem's going to be getting book scans as there is no way I can afford to purchase all the books on the list, let alone do all the scanning and conversion work.

Anyway, that's another bridge.
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