The Astronomical Pocket Diary Do It Yourself instructions
THIS PAGE IS STILL UNFINISHED
You can produce THE ASTRONOMICAL POCKET DIARY yourself.
When you have done it once... it's becomes a piece of cake! At first
it sounds worse than it is.
Preparations:
For your localised version you can (optional) include a line of text, with
local dates. You need to email the list to Norbert. The format is simple:
yyyymmdd_12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012 20010226_Here is room for 62 characters. Local festival days are
ideal. 20010227_This is another example for the 27th of February. 20010228_Non-english characters like in Café and Françoise
are CP437n 20010229_Leap Day is used only every 4 years, but doesn't harm
if there 20011225_Christmas -- a welcome break in the USA-commerialised
world.
8 mm Staples (for RAPID 101 or 106) (staples
are type 80/8 or 26/8 or 66/8)
3. How to make the diaries
Making the originals from floppy disk
printing
stapling
cutting and finishing
Equipment needed for copying & binding
For printing we'll use a photocopy machine,
binding is done with a saddle stapler, and the final
trimming we do with a guillotine. You'll find
these contraptions in most well sorted copy-shops, but beware, not
all of the machines are usable for us.
The photocopy machine
You can use any "superb quality" (latest model) photocopier, but your first
choice is the XEROX Docutech as it your PostScript-printer and copier
in one machine. Phone around, and if there is one in your town, and the
people who operate it are ok in price and service (not much above 0.04
US$ per copy and 5US$ for feeding the PostScript file) ... then go ahead,
your No1 problem is solved. With this hell-of-a-machine you can print direct
from floppy disk. You just need to give the guys the floppy disks and the
floppy
disk instructions.
Norbert can also send "paper-originals" and you can use the XEROX 5090
optical higi-speed copier, or any other "latest model" paper-sorting copier.
If you need paper-originals and Norbert only sends floppy disks, you
will need to find a PostScript Printer.
Stapling machine
The stapling machine that works best (so far) is a nice small "clamp-to-the-edge-of-the-table"
RAPID
101 or RAPID 106. They are not rare, you should find them if you look.
REMEMBER to organise the right 8mm staples, you need the 26/8 or 66/8 types
I think. The photo-copy shop might not have them, as they mostly use 6mm
staples. Make them buy a packet (5000 staples cost 5 US$), or buy one yourself.
These staples are special for RAPID machines.
The guillotine
The right guillotine (paper cutting machine) is the most difficult to find.
Maybe let a professional show you how to do it... but they often are clueless
how to do it perfectly.
There are two cuts needed. The first cut is easy, and most guillotines
have no problem cutting through straight reems of paper. But the second
cut, the "edge-finishing" of the diaries, is hard to accomplish with the
wrong machine. I often had to do the first cut where I did the printing
(copying) and go somewhere else to get the finishing done.
For this important second cut it is best to use a machine which allows
clamping the diaries in place straight and orderly. A hand-wheel,
clamp-down mechanism allows "devine human guidance", the cut itself is
best by the motor-force (push two buttons and *whaaaack*).
So you want to find a guillotine which has no safety-covers over the
back, so you can reach behind to ensure a straight clamping-down. Thats
the main thing. I have made a series of photos of how I make the
diaries... but I haven't come around to make the web-page for it yet...
extracting the PostScript file from floppy disk
The files are on three disks, socalled "multiple-volume-archives". This
means, they are compressed and chopped in disk-size pieces. They need to
be extracted (i.e. expanded) and glued together. The ARJ.EXE programme
does the job. Assuming your floppy-drive is A: and you want to extract
into the C:\TEMP directory, you need to follow this procedure:
(Get a DOS-prompt and insert the first disk
arj e a:* -v c:\temp\ *.*
If it says bad command or filename
Postscript Printer
Some laser-printers have a PostScript-option, Apple Laserwriter, HP 4,
HP 5, Oki, NEC, Star, QMS, Canon, Brother ... you will have to check. A
simple test (get a DOS prompt. ah ...a DOS prompt looks like this for example:
C:\WINDOWS\>
MacIntosh
people look here ):
copy con test.ps (always hit ENTER at the end of a line)
%!
/Times-Bold findfont (spell exactly ! capital "T" small "imes" etc)
600 scalefont
setfont
22 22 moveto (B) show
showpage
% (don't press ENTER on this line yet...)
Then hold down the control-key and press LDZ and release
control key and press ENTER. It should show ^L^D^Z and "1 file(s) copied"
on the screen.
You are winning... you just wrote a test-file to be sent to the possible
PostScript printer. Now send it:
copy test.ps lpt1
... you may need to replace lpt1 with lpt2 or com1 or so, depending on
what port your printer is connected to. If it says "1 file(s)
copied" is has sent the file ... hopefully to the printer. Maybe the
printer shows it is getting data by blinking a light ... hopefully it spits
out a page eventually.
If you have a printer which understands PostScript, you will
get a page with a huge B on it. If your printer is too dumb to
understand PostScript you will see just the words /Times-Bold findfont
... and so on. In this case: oh dear! phone all your collegues and
friends and find one.
MacIntosh Users !
Well, what can I tell you? All you need to do is download DropPS
right here. You need to convert this BinHex-File with Compact-Pro or
Stuffit or something, anyway, in the end you will want to have the DropPS
icon on your desktop. All you need to do then is to drag Norbert's PostScript
file onto this icon.
How you will get Norbert's PostSript file ready for the dragin'
& droppin' on your MacIntosh appliance, is another matter. Here are
my suggestions: If you have a programme called UNARJ or similar, try opening
the file on the floppy with that. Failing this, if you have a PC emulator..
use (download) ARJ.EXE (the packer-programme) and extract
from disks to a "shared" directory. You can access the resulting YYYYxxx.ps
file from the MacIntosh Finder and drag in onto the DropPS icon. If you
do not have a PC emulator.. try to find a person with a PC and extract
it there. Then transfer it on some large "removable" drive (Syquest, ZIP)
which can be read by both PC and Mac. Or if you have the PC networked to
the MacIntosh .. well, lucky you.
US-letter paper format (8" x 10")
For the moment the originals are just available for A4 (297mm x 210mm)
format. Please get A4 in your A4 paper-tray. I haven't had the need to
output onto US-letter paper, yet. Let me know if it is more convenient
for you to output onto US-letter, and I will get off my arse and reformat
everything for US-letter.
Translators ... Local Editors
... Marketing people needed.
Exclusive contract offer.
Here a couple of words for those who think about making and selling
the diary at their place:
You are most welcome, and Norbert will try to help you with all his
energy
In a nutshell:
You translate and localise the diary, and help to market
it. With localise I mean that you enter regional and national
dates, your culture's archeo-astronomy, and other local customs. Norbert will print the originals and either send you the ready made
diaries and/or help you with local production. (see above)
The deal is as follows: We both put a fair amount of work into
the thing, and share the profits 50/50. If there is team-work of more people
involved, Norbert's share is still 50, the rest is split fairly between
the others. Norbert commits himself to your edition. You can stop your
commitment anytime, no obligation. Should there be unfair behaviour or
neglect on your part (or in agreement with you), Norbert can discontinue
your participation and/or enlist other people. But if you commit yourself
and you say so, then you can be the sole operator for your local edition
and stay in that position. Should you decide to stop the commitment, you
still are entitled to a share of profits of editions, which contains your
input. However, the share will diminish in every year of non-participation
in the project.
What else should I say about this deal? Ah, yes.. maybe some background
info. So far there was only one person who got money from working on the
project. It was Nordine, who did the translation for the french version.
This is because only the english and german version ever had any significant
sales (over one hundred copies), and those are Norbert's babies. The french
edition sold 100 copies of the 1996 edition and 50 copies of the 1997 edition
and 150 copies of the 1998 edition. Nordine didn't work at all on the last
editions, all the work was done previously, but still he got some money.
The Spanish, Italian and Greek editions didn't sell at all. No wonder,
because zero marketing was done. And as you can see from their respective
web-pages ( french, .... greek
and
spanish),
they need some work. However, since it
is a printed product,
it has the potential of good commercial results, and your edition may just
be the one which writes the success story. Especially if you do anything
for marketing. To give you an example of the marketing efforts made so
far for the english and german verisons: A mail-out campaign of 200 letters
to planetariums etc... and a small article in the Sky
and Telescope Magazine (which brought about 10 real hard-core fans
who order the diary every year ;-)... Thats almost nothing, I yet have
to place an advertisement !!!! I just haven't got the money.
But, hey, all the hard work has already been done (by me!), so you should
have fun. While translating you learn and also it may be rewarding
to give the marketing a try and make contacts.
Of course, the major draw-back of this diary is the fact that one has
to make a multitude of editions, a separate edition for every location.
This makes a lot of work (for me, as I make the originals), so I don't
have any spare time (and no talent evidently either) to go and market the
thing.
CP437n (Special Characters) Is Norbert's own character-definition. It is almost exactly the same
as on DOS machines. If you use ANSI (Windows) then you need to tell Norbert,
he can convert it. If you need a special character, expose yourself to
mental hardship (just kidding). To access any character you hold down the
ALT key, (keep it pushed) and then go 1 3 5 (tip, tip, tip) on the number-key-pad
on the right hand side of the keyboard, then release the ALT-key. Not you
should have ç (ccedilla) character that is used in Françoise.
If you are running Windows you can use CHARMAP (Start > Run > type:
charmap and press Enter, but you may need to install it first
or download charmap.exe from here.) Anyway, if
you get stuck, ask Norbert.
