Have these Amiga games been dumped?

[BarryB]

Looking through my collection (All bought in the UK so are English) and cross referencing with the SPS games list the following games don't seem to be dumped:

Armour Geddon - 1991 Psygnosis
Cool Croc Twins, The (Amiga Challenge Compilation)
Crystals of Arborea - 1991 Silmarils
Dungeon Master - 1986 FTL Games/Software Heaven
Gold of the Realm - 1988 Magnetic Images
Indianapolis 500 (Amiga Challenge Compilation)
Killing Game Show, The - 1990 Psygnosis
The Munsters - 1989 Tiger Developments/Again Again
OBITUS - 1990 Psygnosis
Paradroid 90 (Amiga Challenge Compilation)
TIME

If any of the above need dumping, how would I do it without a Kryoflux? I do remember dumping my copy of Menace for CAPS (0823) so would the same method work?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by BarryB

Looking through my collection (All bought in the UK so are English) and cross referencing with the SPS games list the following games don't seem to be dumped:

Armour Geddon - 1991 Psygnosis
Cool Croc Twins, The (Amiga Challenge Compilation)
Crystals of Arborea - 1991 Silmarils
Dungeon Master - 1986 FTL Games/Software Heaven
Gold of the Realm - 1988 Magnetic Images
Indianapolis 500 (Amiga Challenge Compilation)
Killing Game Show, The - 1990 Psygnosis
The Munsters - 1989 Tiger Developments/Again Again
OBITUS - 1990 Psygnosis
Paradroid 90 (Amiga Challenge Compilation)
TIME

If any of the above need dumping, how would I do it without a Kryoflux? I do remember dumping my copy of Menace for CAPS (0823) so would the same method work?

All the Psygnosis ones have been dumped, but its a stupid MFM format that was mastered with no error checking, which means a substantial amount of work for only a handful of titles. If memory serves me, all the ones you list are of the same protection format.

[BarryB]

Looks like the SPS site hasn't been updated to include them then? I also can't see any of these in the various SPS releases that get loose in the wild which made me check.

Well, if any of them do need dumping I can probably mail them to a UK SPS member.

[mr.vince]

Just dump them with the old Amiga tool, no need to re-image Dungeon Master and the Psygnosis titles. There are good dumps, but the recording formats are very special and would need a huge amount of time to be added to the tools, time which is spent on other things at the moment. There exists a version of Dungeon Master released by Psygnosis, so the only titles that you currently can't run from IPFs are these few Psygnosis titles.

As for the others... please go ahead and submit a ticket here (http://www.softpres.org/contact) so you can submit them to our FTP.

[BarryB]

Ticket submitted.

Ran the dumping tool and pasted the CTOUT.TXT into the form too, also mentioned that my DF0: has had the upper head off and while 're-aligned' so it doesn't produce errors reading/writing/formatting DOS disks, it's probably pants for dumping!!

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

All the Psygnosis ones have been dumped, but its a stupid MFM format that was mastered with no error checking, which means a substantial amount of work for only a handful of titles. If memory serves me, all the ones you list are of the same protection format.

Killing game show has not been dumped

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Killing game show has not been dumped

I think, as mr.vince said, SPS have dumps of them but they can't be made into useable IPF's due to the reasons given.

[kipper2k]

Originally Posted by BarryB

I think, as mr.vince said, SPS have dumps of them but they can't be made into useable IPF's due to the reasons given.

Yah, so its either keep the original safe or use a hacked one, my original is in the box on the shelf

[BarryB]

I have a working backup of my killing games show disks and my originals are in the box too!! I've been hanging my nose over a Kryoflux for the sole reason of making 100% backups of the disks I own, but obvioulsy I've a few games that are causing SPS problems

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

Killing game show has not been dumped

It has. All the few Psygnosis games (3 or 4) not listed in the DB exist as good dumps; we'd just create (=define) a new encoding scheme in the Analyser. It's not that this can't be done, it's just much (couple of days) work that is currently spent on other things, e.g. completely revamping disk support in VICE to make C64 emulation as good as Amiga emulation in regard to accessing disks. With success... See http://kryoflux.com/index.html#download

So it's not we couldn't, it's just we don't have the time. And as this is a pretty boring and tedious task...

It means we have good & valid data. It's just not been IPFed.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by BarryB

I have a working backup of my killing games show disks and my originals are in the box too!! I've been hanging my nose over a Kryoflux for the sole reason of making 100% backups of the disks I own, but obvioulsy I've a few games that are causing SPS problems

Just for your information (and pleasure), i have created extendedADF images of :

-Killing Game show (in its gory original protection format)
-Obitus (Same protection )
-Armour Geddon (Idem)

Armour Geddon - 1991 Psygnosis
Cool Croc Twins, The (Amiga Challenge Compilation) => PM me
Crystals of Arborea - 1991 Silmarils => PM me
Killing Game Show, The - 1990 Psygnosis
The Munsters - 1989 Tiger Developments/Again Again => copylock inside
OBITUS - 1990 Psygnosis
Paradroid 90 (Amiga Challenge Compilation) => PM me
TIME => from empire in english ? No IPF

[mr.vince]

Dennis, you're our hero (really! ), but what does that have to do with the original question?

Writing such extended ADFs would for sure lead to trial and error (not sure if there's anything that would write them anyway), e.g. no write splice point defined.

[dlfrsilver]

BarryB will at least have the games in original format it will make the waiting more sufferable

BTW, thanks for the congrats XD ! i have tried each extended ADF with the whdload installer, and all of them install faithfully with no errors so i guess i did it right

since he has the games in original boxes, no need to write back to disk

all this thanks to Toni because he has modified rawread tool to support huge tracks.

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

so i guess i did it right

Yes, maybe you were lucky.

[BarryB]

dlfrsilver, thanks for uploading those ADF's, working a treat in WinUAE

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

Yes, maybe you were lucky.

Not lucky, i have tested the extADF i made after each try, and tried to install them with whdload.

If it fails, it means that there is an error on disk. I only know that the installer of Obitus is known to have problems even on real amiga (hence the note in the installer).

Otherwise, they are ok.

@barryB : My pleasure

[mr.vince]

What I meant was that just because a WHDLoad import works this does note or mean something is proven to be good although it's likely. Extended ADFs are pure data, unverified and mostly impossible to write back to a real disk without making assumptions (gap area etc.)

The only way to verify these games is to read all data through the games' internal loader; there is no duplicator checksum. Probably the reason why Psygnosis did not continue using it. It's unable to verify during replication.

We could discuss this over and over again, and I could come to every ext-ADF related thread and point it out, but I don't have to.

[kaffer]

You could be confident of a good dump if you have multiple independent dumps of each disk and the apparent data contents match. It's a bit more involved than just comparing ext-ADF files (or any other dump file format) of course, as they will naturally differ across dumps even if the data matches. So it needs multiple dumps *and* someone who knows what they're doing.

[mr.vince]

Indeed. Hence our decision to develop something that separates data and representation, therefore making it possible to verify data from a single dump and being able to automatically compare data (one IPFed).

[MethodGit]

@dlfrsilver: I'd be interested in your copies of The Munsters (if it's the standalone version as opposed to the Kids Pack version in SPS) and Paradroid '90 (Challenge release) (no working ADF of this exists and the crack code for the retail version can't be used with it) if possible.

[mr.vince]

Would you mind using PM for this, or using a separate thread?

[BarryB]

Well, i've bit the bullet and ordered the Kryoflux Personal Edition Premium (I actually kept calling it kYRoflux for some daft dyslexic reason!!)

So now I can write IPF's of most of my originals, except those not IPF'd already!!

And I've submitted 2 test dumps to the SPS FTP and notified them so they can see which of my 2 drives is best for dumping!!

[mr.vince]

Thanks, will be checked.

[BarryB]

I have a 2nd external Amiga drive for dumping, an Amitek, if needed!! But, I may as well wait until I have my Kryoflux and dump with that.

Also, I have the following PC floppies for use with the Kryoflux:

ALPS DF354N113F
SONY MPF920-E
PANASONIC JU-257A607P

Which of the above 3 will be suitable?

[kaffer]

The majority of PC drives work fine for dumping Amiga DSDD disks. Just try them out on a known-good AmigaDOS disk when you get the Kryoflux. Probably you will find all three drives work!

[kaffer]

It's an interesting track format. It's not MFM, but instead a variable-length encoding which provides the same guarantees on flux density as MFM. That is, that there will be between 1 and 3 quiescent bitcells (0 bits) between every flux-reversing bitcell (1 bit). The encoding efficiency is at least as good as MFM: its encoded size is always between 1.5x and 2x larger than the original data.

To discount a few myths about this format:

There is a checksum per track, however you must decode the track to get the checksum. Possibly this was beyond the Trace machines used to do duplication back in the day, but for WHDLoad installers, mfmparse, and the like, it is quite possible. So it will be possible to verify disk dumps without having to run the entire disk through the game's track loader.

I also read that this format achieves the theoretical best encoding efficiency. Well, that's a bold statement as reasoning about encoding efficiencies gets into some exciting information theory. Certainly it is data-dependent how much better this scheme is than MFM -- for certain data it will perform no better (but also no worse!). It is also the case that for most data, packing it and then using normal MFM will be more efficient -- that's how the original cracks of these games can easily fit on the same number of disks (also, the disks generally aren't full in the first place!).

[dlfrsilver]

Thanks for clarifying these Good to know that finally there is checksums used on tracks !

[BarryB]

Ok, have now got my Kryoflux

Have set it up according to the instructions, wrote an IPF and checked it works on my Amiga (which it did) so the drive I'm using (Sony MFP920-E) seems OK.

If I want to start contributing Kryoflux dumps do I need to do a test dump or use specific commands?

Have also used the Linux tools by kaffer (great bloke ) to create and write some IPF's of my own so it appears the Kryoflux is working.

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by kaffer

There is a checksum per track, however you must decode the track to get the checksum. Possibly this was beyond the Trace machines used to do duplication back in the day, but for WHDLoad installers, mfmparse, and the like, it is quite possible. So it will be possible to verify disk dumps without having to run the entire disk through the game's track loader.

Ok, so you don't run it through the game's loader, but your own loader, which on top also needs to understand this special transport layer, which is not MFM compatible. Don't see where this is less work, because you basically implement a completely "insane" format with no real advantages, that needs to decode a stream from the beginning to the end to get the data.

Trace would expect the checksum to be added to the end of the raw data for verification purposes, which does not work, because there is none and I am pretty sure that if there was, Trace would have had a problem with the way the data was written anyway. At least it can not decode it from the stream.

This means that to add these four games to any toolchain, you put in a lot of work, to just support these four games. It's therefore been shelved for the time being, at least on our end, to be implemented with the next big overhaul of the Analyser.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Thanks for clarifying these Good to know that finally there is checksums used on tracks !

Well, it's not available for any tools, as written above, unless you code your own decoder, which is not standard MFM (see above again), so much work. And not trivial for anyone not coding, hence all you can do is actually play it.

Originally Posted by BarryB

Ok, have now got my Kryoflux

Have set it up according to the instructions, wrote an IPF and checked it works on my Amiga (which it did) so the drive I'm using (Sony MFP920-E) seems OK.

Sweet. The Sony is a good choice (only 82 tracks, but has all the bells and whistles needed otherwise), ALPS is really worse.

[kaffer]

Got Nitro, KGS, Obitus supported in mfmparse now, and generating good IPFs. Just a bit more work to do for Armour-Geddon -- a few more track formats in that one...

[dlfrsilver]

Now since you've made working IPF, i don't understand the story SPS told us.

They said it was not possible since the SPS library lacked the "transportation" layer.

And now Kaffer has made IPF XD !

Any explanations would be good.....

[Abaddon]

Originally Posted by kaffer

Got Nitro, KGS, Obitus supported in mfmparse now, and generating good IPFs. Just a bit more work to do for Armour-Geddon -- a few more track formats in that one...

Ill test out your mfmparse update with Nitro NTSC version and let you know if it works. Are you looking for raw streams of games to add to your parser? I have several Synergy releases that all have the same disk format and many other raw steam dumps as well.

[kaffer]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Now since you've made working IPF, i don't understand the story SPS told us.

They said it was not possible since the SPS library lacked the "transportation" layer.

And now Kaffer has made IPF XD !

Any explanations would be good.....

The tool that SPS use to make their IPFs needs extending in order to handle these Psygnosis games. However, SPS recently released source code for their IPF decode library, and that has allowed others to reverse-engineer and support the format. So, in short, I do not use SPS's analyser tool.

[kaffer]

Originally Posted by Abaddon

Ill test out your mfmparse update with Nitro NTSC version and let you know if it works. Are you looking for raw streams of games to add to your parser? I have several Synergy releases that all have the same disk format and many other raw steam dumps as well.

Yeah, always looking for more raw streams! Cheers!

I have a small queue of stuff to do (Armour-Geddon, double check of some apparently unused Obitus tracks, and an old Rob Northen hidden-sector protection on Time). But not a great deal.

[kipper2k]

@Kaffer

I'm kinda confused with your statements about the Psynosis games. Are you saying that you have created an ipf of KGS and able to write it ?

[kaffer]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

@Kaffer

I'm kinda confused with your statements about the Psynosis games. Are you saying that you have created an ipf of KGS and able to write it ?

Yes.

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Now since you've made working IPF, i don't understand the story SPS told us.

They said it was not possible since the SPS library lacked the "transportation" layer.

And now Kaffer has made IPF XD !

Any explanations would be good.....

well firstly, lets get Kaffer's definition of a "Good IPF"

[kaffer]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

well firstly, lets get Kaffer's definition of a "Good IPF"

Fully working to the extent of the original game disks on real Amiga or emulator.

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by kaffer

Fully working to the extent of the original game disks on real Amiga or emulator.

That seems to be most people idea of a good IPF.

Thing is though, the official releases are checked as authentic, so we know we aren't releasing tarnished/modified images out in the wild.

hence the preservation aspecdt of it, without this, IPF just becomes yet another disk image container.

[kaffer]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

That seems to be most people idea of a good IPF.

Thing is though, the official releases are checked as authentic, so we know we aren't releasing tarnished/modified images out in the wild.

hence the preservation aspecdt of it, without this, IPF just becomes yet another disk image container.

I had a discussion with SPS about this. It is not my intention to have my generated IPFs be confused with SPS-generated and -blessed archival quality images. I stamp my IPF headers with some magic values to make them particularly easy to spot. Further more, of course, SPS keeps CRC32 values for all their blessed images, so this is another way to distinguish between them. This could be beefed up to sha1sum or similar if collisions (accidental or forged) were a concern.

IPF can be a general-purpose container *and* the preservation format of choice.