Sega Master System, Sega CD, Sega 32X, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast Manual Scans (+ Nintendo/SNK)

tsolfan

tsolfan

CAGiversary!
Back in July, I started a Sega Saturn instruction manual scan project over at The Cover Project:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=6791.0

On Halloween, I started up my Sega Dreamcast project, and since it was Halloween, I queued up all of the "horror" related games from the start:

http://www.ratigators.com/

From there, I pulled/still pull one from each end of the alphabet (similar to what I did for Sega Saturn, which is now complete) to scan in my mornings before work.

I also got a jump start on my Sega CD project, clearing out the "horror" themed games there as well for Halloween.

With access to complete/near complete collections for all three (only missing Daytona USA Netlink for Saturn and ESPN NBA Hangtime for Sega CD), I thought I'd take a crack at scanning in all of the NTSC-USA manuals for all three systems. These are all 300dpi scans, 75% quality JPG compression.

For each of the games I scan, I also upload a zip with all of the image in a single download. Just click the "Image View" button in the upper right to see the manuals in a nice gallery view.

Here in a few days, I'll start on my Sega CD project in full.

The only other system I have a "complete" set for is Atari Jaguar/Jaguar CD, though, over at atariage.com, someone has already taken care of getting all of those manuals scanned in.

 
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I've started uploading my Sega CD scans, so from here on out, expect 2 a day, 1 from each end of the alphabet. I'm still wrapping up my Sega Dreamcast scans as well, so my Sega CD scans are in addition to what I'm already working on.
 
Sure, glad I could help. Here's some photos of a manual that someone over at The Cover Project put together using my scans:

http://s1098.photobucket.com/albums/g374/games-go-round/

It definitely takes a bit of effort to take my scans and convert them to printable sheets front and back to replicate a manual. I was going to build a utility to automate this (browse to a zip and it will chop and reassemble the inner page scans into printable scans for assembly), and had the logic worked out, but never got around to coding anything.

Though, if anyone wants to take it upon themselves and throw together a script/utility of their own, I'm sure it would be appreciated.
 
Keep up the good work! I have more disc only PS2 games from Gamestop's Buy 2 Get 2 free sale, but I do have a few DC games like Tech Romancer and others that I don't have manuals for.
 
3746 more scans later, my Sega Dreamcast Instruction Manual Scan project is complete (6994 scans total adding in Sega Saturn). In a little over a week, I'll be wrapping up Sega CD as well.
 
Today mostly wraps up my Sega CD scan project with an additional 1952 scans (8946 total when you add in Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast). I say "mostly" because I skipped 2 titles. I have a backup copy of Kris Kross: Make My Video on its way (the last game I had where my only copy was still sealed), so that will get scanned in as soon as it arrives, and I'll scan in ESPN NBA Hangtime '95 as soon as I pick one up.

Also, tomorrow I'm starting my Sega CD 32X scan project, though, this one will go quick, since there were only 5 games.

When those wrap up in a couple of days, that should take care of anyone looking for any manual for any US Sega console game on an optical disc format.

After that, I'll be taking a break from scanning for a few months, but then I'll be back (hint, scroll to the bottom :)
 
These look great. What kind of paper do you print the scans on or do you take them somewhere? What's your process?
 
As I mentioned, Sega CD 32X was going to go quick, and today wraps up the entire collection, adding 57 new scans. Also, Kris Kross Make My Video came in the mail, so that has been scanned in and linked up in the Sega CD section (8 new scans).

Also, here's a preview of one of the things I'm working on next (after I return from a break in scanning for a while):

Sega Master System Game Catalog 1986 (USA)

[quote name='McCHitman']These look great. What kind of paper do you print the scans on or do you take them somewhere? What's your process?[/QUOTE]

The links to the prints weren't mine, they were from another user at The Cover Project, and was the result of printing my scans. So, unfortunately, I can't answer that question. Though, as far as the process to actually make "front/back printable" pages, it would take a bit of work, though, nothing horribly complex. I would think it would be easiest to start from the center, since you can print that with no modifications. From there, take the right page of the scan prior and make it the right side of an image and take the left page of the scan next in line and make it the left side of the same image. That combined image would get you the "back" for the front/back print.

Just repeat that until you work your way through all of the scans for a particular game.
 
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[quote name='McCHitman']Where in the world did you get all the covers and manuals???![/QUOTE]

From 20+ years of collecting:

http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=4817.0

That's from over a year ago, so of course, a few things have been added here and there (such as, the Wii games have been moved upstairs to make room for more 360 games, receiver downstairs has been upgraded to a Pioneer SC-27, picked up a few more Gamecube games, a few sporadic SNES and N64 titles, etc).
 
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Hey, thanks for taking the time to do this. I'm looking through and checking out the games I missed from the SEGA CD days. (I had one but only had about 30 games for it)

Awesome stuff. I loved my SEGA CD but just didn't have the money at the time to get many games for it.

EDIT: I miss manuals. There will come a time soon when they no longer exist.
 
I have that Mortal Kombat banner. I got it while working at a game store during the release of SNES/Genesis Mortal Kombat.

Oh, and awesome collection. I had one going that may have looked like that but sold it off little by little. :(
 
I started posting my 32X Cartridge manual scans (CD scans were already done) and also did a test Sega Master System scan (along with the case insert, since there doesn't seem to be a good source for a full set of scans for those either).

http://www.ratigators.com/

I'm missing a few games, so I'll go back and fill in when/if I eventually pick them up. Here's a list of what I'm missing to scan in:

Blackthorne
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
Primal Rage (I only have a loose cartridge)
Spiderman: Web of Fire
T-Mek
World Series Baseball '95
Zaxxon Motherbase 2000

Donations/trades/deals on any of those are welcome, with the arrival of the second kid a few months back, not as much disposable income these days :)
 
[quote name='tsolfan']I started posting my 32X Cartridge manual scans (CD scans were already done) and also did a test Sega Master System scan (along with the case insert, since there doesn't seem to be a good source for a full set of scans for those either).

http://www.ratigators.com/

I'm missing a few games, so I'll go back and fill in when/if I eventually pick them up. Here's a list of what I'm missing to scan in:

Blackthorne
Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
Primal Rage (I only have a loose cartridge)
Spiderman: Web of Fire
T-Mek
World Series Baseball '95
Zaxxon Motherbase 2000

Donations/trades/deals on any of those are welcome, with the arrival of the second kid a few months back, not as much disposable income these days :)[/QUOTE]
I have a complete US 32X collection, so I could scan these if worse came to worse? Problem is I'm waiting on the home I purchased to close so everything is boxed up at the moment.
 
Sweet stuff dude! I have a strange love for video game manuals, and way too many that are disk only. Used to visit replacementdocs a lot to get new updates, but that site has largley stagnated over the years. At work now, but will def. check out your uploads once I get home.
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']I have a complete US 32X collection, so I could scan these if worse came to worse? Problem is I'm waiting on the home I purchased to close so everything is boxed up at the moment.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the offer, I may take you up on it if I haven't picked up copies by the time I've finished Sega Master System scans. I've already crossed two more off the list, Primal Rage and Blackthorne.
 
[quote name='Zmonkay']Sweet stuff dude! I have a strange love for video game manuals, and way too many that are disk only. Used to visit replacementdocs a lot to get new updates, but that site has largley stagnated over the years. At work now, but will def. check out your uploads once I get home.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. Not to discount ReplacementDocs, though, what you will find with my scans is that I don't add a watermark to the images like they do (uh, because, I don't own the original artwork, and seems odd to stamp a watermark on it like I do). Granted, someone may rip all of my scans and claim them as their own, but who cares, as long as people realize they are there and people looking for them can find them. Plus, I've got message board time stamps in my favor :p

Also, just a quick comparison, I pulled down one of their manuals (Dark Savior for Sega Saturn), and theirs was a 2MB PDF, highly compressed, and mine was 25MB worth of JPG files.

I kept everything JPG to avoid any additional compression, plus, it makes them nice and easy to throw on a tablet to browse with any standard image viewer (I throw all of mine on a fire sale Touchpad).

As you can see from an earlier post in the thread, if you take the time to separate the images into printable pages, you can get some pretty nice results (not my work, though, my scans):

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9286552&postcount=4

That individual even went the extra mile to resize the scans to where the final result would fit in a DVD case (as the original size does not).
 
T-Mek?! I haven't heard of that game since the 90s. I remember playing it at a local arcade, sitting inside the cabinet. Thanks again for the effort!
 
That can't be the United States "Illbleed" cover. It's actually as good as the Japanese. I remember getting the United States version and the cover was fucking horrible, just black with the title.
 
[quote name='Sarang01']That can't be the United States "Illbleed" cover. It's actually as good as the Japanese. I remember getting the United States version and the cover was fucking horrible, just black with the title.[/QUOTE]

Actually, it can be, because it is :)

I've never seen the variant cover that you have, though, would be curious to see it. I couldn't find any references to it here:

http://www.segaage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=42&threadid=60527

or here:

http://www.segaage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=42&threadid=56718
 
Since you're all about the covers and these Horror games have you seen the action figure for "Illbleed" ever. I've been looking all around for it and can't find it. Any help you might be able to give?
 
Next week, I'll start posting Sega Master System games. I'm still about 20 manuals short of a full NTSC-U set, though, figured I had enough to get started, and will go back and upload what I skipped when I find a good deal on a game I'm missing. I'm also scanning the case inserts (cover art), as there didn't seem to be a great resource for those anywhere either. I went ahead and posted Montezuma's Revenge so people know what to expect.

Unless there's demand for Sega Pico manual scans, or people are interested in donating Sega Genesis manuals (I'd be willing to pay for shipping) or I decide to finish out a complete Game Gear collection (which is tough to find complete games for), this will be the end of my manual scans.
 
Today wraps up my scheduled Sega Master System insert/manual scans. There are still 6 games, 3 manuals and 2 replacement inserts that I still need to eventually pick up, and I'll post here in this thread when I make any updates.

I have 3 more games on the way that I'll get scanned and uploaded once they arrive.

For those wanting some stats, so far I'm at 1,182 Sega Master Scans, so if you take away the insert scans and do the math, that's another 2,148 pages of manuals scanned.

As for MediaFire stats, they tell me I'm now hosting 11,348 Sega scans. If you take away the zip files and once again do the math, that means I've scanned about 10,564 times, resulting in approximately 21,128 pages of manuals scanned.

I did post in a few places (TCP, DigitPress, SegaAge, etc, and including here earlier in this thread) about trying to do a more collaborative effort on Genesis and Game Gear, with manuals either being donated or with me covering cost of shipping and return shipping (to ensure a level of consistency with all scans), and I received no response.

So, other than scanning in any missing items I pick up or deciding to do back inserts across the board for Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast, this closes the book on my system level scan projects.
 
Alex Kidd: High-Tech World, Ghouls 'N Ghosts and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker have all been scanned in (adding 35 scans) and linked.
 
Maxim, an admin over at SMS Power (smspower.org), is taking all of my scans and OCR'ing them to have plain text versions. Thus far, he noticed two games where when I was flipping pages to scan, I flipped too many. I've scanned in the missing pages and re-uploaded the individual scans and zips. This affected Zillion and Zillion II: The Tri Formation. Odd that it was two games in a row.

If anyone else notices any errors, please let me know, and I'll correct them.
 
Since I've pretty much closed the door on manual scans, I'm coming back to a few systems to do pickups on back insert scans. I did a trial run this morning on Sega Saturn, and I estimate I can knock out about 10-20 of these a morning. I uploaded 3D Baseball through Baku Baku. These are in the same folders as the manual scans I've already finished:

http://www.ratigators.com/

I don't have time this morning to re-upload the zip files, so just know, if you currently download the zip files, you'll still just get the manual scans.

My goal is to have Sega Saturn back inserts wrapped up by the end of the month. I'll post in this thread when I do another batch of uploads, as I can't guarantee I'll be able to do a batch every day consistently.
 
Picked up copies of Casino Games and Rampage, so both of those have been scanned in and linked on the Sega Master System side of things.
 
Back inserts for Dark Legend through Highway 2000 have been uploaded (37 games). I had to skip Doom, as apparently, my back insert is glued in the case, and I can't remove it without damaging it. My F1 Challenge apparently had a cutout UPC, though, I scanned it in anyways and added both on the "to be replaced" list. Scanning always somehow ends up costing me money :)
 
I know I just sort of dropped this Sega Saturn back insert project, though, had to go out of town for work, and since getting back, things have just been crazy busy (end of the year is always busy). My goal is to cross this off my list this year.

I uploaded The Horde through NBA Live '98 (42 games). My Last Bronx had a cutout UPC, though, I scanned it in anyways and I'll get that replaced sometime in the future. That leaves me with 111 more back inserts to scan.

Also, on the Sega Master System side, I posted Power Strike, and I have a copy of R.C. Grand Prix in the mail.
 
Just uploaded the back inserts for Sonic Jam through Virtua Cop (26 games). I had to skip True Pinball, because just like Doom, the back insert of my copy is stuck in the case, so I've added it to the list of eventual replacements.
 
[quote name='tsolfan']Just uploaded the back inserts for Sonic Jam through Virtua Cop (26 games). I had to skip True Pinball, because just like Doom, the back insert of my copy is stuck in the case, so I've added it to the list of eventual replacements.[/QUOTE]

Out of curiosity, is this common among SCD games? I only have a handful of SCD games, nearly all of which are Working Design games, and the inserts for every single one has spots on them where the print came off the insert and is stuck on the case.

The only game this isn't an issue with is Time Gal, which came in one of those cardboard boxes.
 
Wrapped up my back insert scanning and uploaded Virtua Cop 2 through X-Men Children of the Atom (30 games). I also scanned in the jewel case cover and back insert for the Sega Rally and Virtual On Netlink editions. The front insert was just a single sided single piece for both.

Unless someone notices something I didn't, once I get replacements for Doom and True Pinball that I couldn't scan, and then inserts without UPCs cutout for F1 Challenge and Last Bronx, that should be it.

Also, if there's interest in me doing back insert scans for all of the Dreamcast titles, let me know.

On the Sega Master System front, R.C. Grand Prix arrived has been uploaded and linked.

I still need a copy of Alex Kidd in Shinobi World and James 'Buster' Douglas Knockout Boxing, as well as replacement manuals for Alf, Fantasy Zone, and Teddy Boy, and a replacement insert for Ghost House (without the UPC cutout). If anyone has extras of any of those and would be interested in donating or cutting me a deal, send me a PM.
 
[quote name='Vinny']Out of curiosity, is this common among SCD games? I only have a handful of SCD games, nearly all of which are Working Design games, and the inserts for every single one has spots on them where the print came off the insert and is stuck on the case.

The only game this isn't an issue with is Time Gal, which came in one of those cardboard boxes.[/QUOTE]

I haven't gone through and cracked open every single Sega CD game like I have for Sega Saturn, though, for those I have, I've never had a insert stuck in the case. For Sega Saturn, I've only had 3 (one that I already replaced). The affected titles weren't original to me (I wasn't the original owner), and from what I can tell, it just seems like they weren't stored in an optimal environment, perhaps an attic or cellar with a good deal of humidity.

So, I don't think it's anything common with the system across the board.
 
I bought multiple copies of these games trying to find ones that aren't damaged, but could never find one.

I never had the issue with Saturn games though.
 
Well, for what it's worth, the Working Design games had the super glossy heavy weight paper inserts, so they would be more prone to sticking to a case than a flat matte insert.
 
Yeah, that's what I figured would be the issue. And I should correct myself: I was able to find spotless copies of all but Lunar II. Lunar II is the game I had to buy like 5 copies of before I found one that was in decent shape...
 
Just got around to scanning and uploading these replacements for F1 Challenge and Last Brox. Also, my replacement copy of Doom also arrived so that was scanned and uploaded as well. That just leaves True Pinball as the last Sega Saturn rear insert I need to scan that's still stuck inside the case.
 
In the past couple of weeks, I received multiple notifications from MediaFire (where I was hosting my scans) that some of my scans were reported as a violation of some sorts, and had been removed. I contacted them asking if they could let me know who had contacted them so I could turn in turn request permission, though, multiple requests have all been ignored. By the time they had removed 8 games, I started working on an alternative.

I re-uploaded everything to my own server, so instead of just hosting the index, it now hosts the index and scans alike:

http://www.ratigators.com/

I kept the UI basic. Click a system, scroll through the "shelf" of games (which uses a lazy load, so only the items on screen load for bandwidth's sake, but as you scroll and items come into view, they will load), click to load the manual (which uses some basic math to determine the viewable height and do some rounding to keep the amount of cached thumbnails on the server to a minimum (100 pixel height increments)), and click any page for a full screen view (if the default manual isn't already large enough to read).

With the variable height interior manual preview images, if you are the first person ever to visit the site with your specific vertical resolution, the preview images may take slightly longer to load while the server builds them (the top thumbnails are consistent for everyone). The next time you view the same manual it will be quicker (or if someone running your same resolution has already viewed it). I did this so the server only has to build what is requested.

I threw the code together fairly quickly, and uploaded everything just the same, so if you notice any errors or glitches, please let me know.

Also, picked up the last replacement Saturn title I needed, and the back insert for True Pinball has been uploaded to my site.
 
Did some more user interface work on the new ratigators.com, and again, let me know if anyone notices any issues.
 
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