Non-Amiga: 3,400+ 8bit games - preserved!

[mr.vince]

Ok, this isn't Amiga related but to keep the tradition sharing SPS-related news on EAB... here it is!

It started with improving the compatibility of floppy emulation of the famous Commodore 64 emulator Vice, to give it extended G64 support to load many images properly without any user interaction or patching of the data. From there we got more involved with the wonderful C64 community, especially Pete Rittwage's excellent C64 Preservation project, and together we've been working behind the scenes on something very special.

Softpres.org has now been updated with a list of more than 3,400 fully verified, properly preserved original titles in pristine condition for Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Plus/4, Apple II, PC and Atari 8-bit platforms. Hundreds of hours were necessary in a joint effort with contributors and platform specific experts from all over the world to get a hold of dumps which were then analysed with our new chain of tools, the SPStudio* framework.

See for yourself: http://softpres.org/games


The addition of the most popular and widespread 8-bit platform, the Commodore 64, marks an important step for Softpres. We now aim to preserve all versions for all platforms so budget versions, collections, cover disks, promotional disks and magazine disks are more than welcome.

So don't be shy - please consider offering your original disks for preservation.

Enjoy. If you like it, please consider donating. Thanks!

The Software Preservation Society


*) SPStudio allows us to accurately verify that a disk is unmodified, professionally duplicated, or otherwise in such condition as it was when it was sent to a retail market. It requires excess knowledge of the various media formats used on these platforms to correctly decode and verify that the data is free from any unintended errors. Please understand that this is a time consuming process with an important priority on first having the fragile data checked and preserved before it is too late. Later on this verified good data can be used to produce such formats as IPF or G64 for general use.

[clenched]

I was pleased to see the Vorpal Utility Kit made the list. That thing makes the 1541 sound like it has a turbocharger. Excellent selection of Broderbund, Synapse, Epyx (to name a few) titles I would love to get my paws on.

[Hewitson]

It's a good achievement, but I still wonder what the point of it is when these files aren't available for download.

[mr.vince]

Come on, you can do better than that. You can engage in the political discussion about orphaned works in your jurisdiction.

Things that go into a national library also aren't available for download. Still - I appreciate they keep a copy of every film, record or book made. Sadly they don't care about games. Once they do - it's likely too late.

We hope that one day these can be made public (accessible) without sending anyone to jail.

[Doc Mindie]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Come on, you can do better than that. You can engage in the political discussion about orphaned works in your jurisdiction.

Things that go into a national library also aren't available for download. Still - I appreciate they keep a copy of every film, record or book made. Sadly they don't care about games. Once they do - it's likely too late.

We hope that one day these can be made public (accessible) without sending anyone to jail.

Got nothing to say about the original post really... but I would like to "Like" this post, or "+1" it or whatever people do in these lands to show appreciation for what was said in a previous post.