Slightly OT: IBM PC game preservation!

[Galaxy]

I'd prefer to see Amiga applications given a higher priority than PC games. I think these are more important to preserve because the Amiga had a much smaller user base, and the market for apps was very small when compared to games meaning that there are much less copies around. These other platforms could be preserved through spin-off projects run by like-minded (and skilled) people, leaving the CAPS team to do what they set out to do originally - preserve the small piece of computing history known as the Amiga.

[viernez67]

IFW, i understand you, also i know that suporting AtariST will allow the developement of a technology to support another FDC clones(Well, even some MSX uses wd1772). But i think that the problem is different or perhaps we're mixing some concepts here.

Caps are doing a great work, but Caps are doing to different things. First one is they're developing a good technology to preserve Disk, they're wasting all their hobby time in doing it, AND second one, they're doing the preservation process, they're trying to get all disks out there and preserving them. Both, although different tasks, are directly connected.

I mean, that, even having a technology to dump C64 or MSX disks for example, you won't do that, because perhaps you will waste your time in developing more technology or dumping more Amiga(or other System that you started to do).

i think that, you can send your dumping tools(when MFM is possbile) to C64PP and they can get the task of at least start dumping their disks and also start doing some CAPS promotion to C64 community to dump using your tools or to send disks to C64PP. Caps team doesn't need to take care about all, because all is done by C64PP team, if Caps team need some C64 dumps to study and improve the technology behind them, then they can get a lot ones from C64PP team.

I think that this division of tasks can do things speed up a little and more disks of different systems can be preserved, also will finish with the main problem of preservation: "INFORMATION", many communities can know what CAPS is doing if some people inside them start supporting your technology and in this way they're doing a promoton of it.(I didn't even know about C64PP: thanks Andreas, and also i knew about CAPS too late, so as you can know: information and promotion are important inside a community)

One question: http://pasti.fxatari.com/ -> Presertation project war in Atari?

[fiath]

@Galaxy

Preserving Amiga applications will be very easy from a technical perspective. On the next site update I think we might in fact be removing the fact that we do not do applications. That is not to say that we will do them immediately or maybe at all, but that if people start dumping them we will certainly consider doing them. However, we do need some discussions about how we are going to do this, since one of the reasons we did not want to do applications in the first place, was because some may still be active - especially on platforms such as the Amiga.

So the problem is more social than technical, I can't see that taking up a lot of time. Supporting other systems will take a lot of work though, so it is rather different.

To assure you, doing other platforms is likely to take virtually no time away from Amiga preservation for one simple reason: Good dumps of unique Amiga games are starting to dry up. That is not anything we can do anything about. However, by doing other platforms we will hopefully get more exposure, which would be likely to lead to more people saying: "Oh, you do Amiga too? I do have an Amiga and quite a few games btw...".

@viernez67

I think that perhaps what you say about the splitting of "preservation tools" and actual "preservation of software" is perhaps a little idealistic, no offense intended! Technical issues aside, one of the reasons for starting CAPS was because we could see that nobody else was going to do it. Granted, todays attitude to preservation is better than it was, but I think I can speak for all of us at CAPS in saying that we don't like the thought of making technology that other people can use, and then nobody actually (1) taking advange of it or (2) doing it properly. Preservation projects are starting to emerge now, which is great, but I still think that to a greater extent "If we don't do it (properly), nobody will". Not to say people can't, just that with the effort and knowledge required - it is very unlikely - and it would be a huge shame if games for other systems were lost just because nobody took the initiative.

Doing it properly is very important. Sure, we can get other projects to dump disks - that would be the same as the present situation, they would effectively be just another contributor, though perhaps a high-volume one. But I guess from what you say that you mean they should be able to make the final images too. If that is the case, then there are technical problems involved. As you may know, each and every IPF image preserved by CAPS is inspected on various levels. There is automation in this, with the help of the tools we have developed we can do many preserved titles with formats that are know fairly quickly. But there are a whole host of things you just can't automate even on simple ADOS games, these are things that are really very difficult to convey - though we try our best in our WIP's. I think our efforts on quality show when you consider that these games we are preserving actually do really work.

I 100% agree with your "information" point. People don't realise this is going on, and so we probably miss out on a lot of stuff. In fact, CAPS was only really actively promoted in the early days when we were getting of the ground, we are all very much tied up with the preservation aspect nowadays. To a some extent it is now self-promoting, but this does not really replace good old active exposure. At the moment, there is not a lot we can do about that.

About Pasti. Since we need to do the Atari ST platform regardless, the fact that a disk dumping effort exists is quite irrelevent. The two projects have very different goals anyway, and so I would say that you really can't really compare one to the other, and I certainly won't attempt to do so here.

[derSammler]

Originally Posted by Mr Creosote

<...> but regarding the initial point, not only PC booters are a critical group, but also OS-friendly MS-DOS games. Why? Because there isn't a single project in the 'PC world' which actually preserves games in their original state like CAPS does.

I was working on such a project last year, called "PCPP". But I stopped after I heard that CAPS is going to preserve PC games as well. I still have some dumps left...

[IFW]

I guess people don't realize that doing "ST" (but see above how really it is "ST" or just generally referred as "ST" by us) is mandatory, unless we want to miss out on possibly a hundred games and almost all early coverdisks, plus all multi-format releases.

To put it into some perspective:
StraGlider 2 is dual-format
The original Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back releases use atari protections.
Beyond Dark Castle, Realm of the Trolls, Hunter, James Pond, most Thalion games etc are all dependant on "ST" support

Unfortunately it has to be done, once we do it we won't go for simple hacks that barely get amiga specific "ST" format games running (that would have been possible for years), and once we do it properly... might as well use the technology that we developed and did cost a fortune to produce.

[viernez67]

Sorry, fiath, you undestood wrong. I mean that you can use (for example) C64PP as a big contibutor(as you said).
Imagine this situation: CAPS team after some time, has enough knowledge about how to preserve C64 and start requesting to C64 community original disks to RIGHT preservation.
Well, imagine now that i'm the author of C64PP or one of its contibutors. How do i fell?, i waste a lot of time/money is preserving c64 disks wrongly because i have not all knowlegde that CAPS team has. ALL this work was useless and i should trash all my dumps .
Edit: The same for Wordofspectrum(they are preserving disks), ADATE(Amstrad CPC).

But you can do another thing better: You can contact for example with C64PP team, and tell them:"Hey guys, we will develop a dumping tool to dump C64 disks, you can use it. Talk with C64 community about preservation and start requesting people to send you disks to be dumped". So in this way C64PP can have a lot of disks dumped(I mean, dumps like those generated by Amiga CAPS tools, NOT IPF).

Is like the same problem as TAPES, perhaps a system has no TZX support to preservate those cassettes, but you can use a TOOL(like Goldwave) to generate Waves and then in the furute, although those Tapes can be unreadable, at least we have WAVs to play with and preserve them when a TZX or similar format is supported.

I know that making IPFs is very time consuming process, as you said, and also only CAPS team adds quality. So in the future, if CAPS team thinks:"It's time to preserve all those C64 disks", then they will have a lot of them already dumped and they only must concentrate in doing IPFs of them.

It's better to dump some disks using your tool now, and then in the future create IPF of them. Than dump those disk in the future to do IPFs, i think that they will be better conservated now, than in the future.

I don't know if a Generic tool can be done now to dump C64 disks and get all information for a future usage in the creation of IPFs.

I hope you understand now what i mean, i know that my english is a shit :P

[fiath]

Originally Posted by viernez67

Sorry, fiath, you undestood wrong. I mean that you can use (for example) C64PP as a big contibutor(as you said).

Ah, I see. In that case then, yes, I think that is a very good idea. But see below.

Imagine this situation: CAPS team after some time, has enough knowledge about how to preserve C64 and start requesting to C64 community original disks to RIGHT preservation.
Well, imagine now that i'm the author of C64PP or one of its contibutors. How do i fell?, i waste a lot of time/money is preserving c64 disks wrongly because i have not all knowlegde that CAPS team has. ALL this work was useless and i should trash all my dumps .

Hmm, this is a rather difficult situation. C64PP have very good intentions and much potential.

Pete did contact us about just this (well, about the complete solution) before he started the project, but I think he wanted to get going as soon as possible and didn't want to wait on us until we had time to add support (even the dumping solution will take time we don't have at the moment). Nobody can really fault him on this since we could not (and still can't) promise when we would get round to it any time soon.

From his point of view, what if we never "got round to it". Better what they can do than nothing at all I guess.

But you can do another thing better: You can contact for example with C64PP team, and tell them:"Hey guys, we will develop a dumping tool to dump C64 disks, you can use it. Talk with C64 community about preservation and start requesting people to send you disks to be dumped". So in this way C64PP can have a lot of disks dumped(I mean, dumps like those generated by Amiga CAPS tools, NOT IPF).

They know we want to do C64. But ultimately, I think our age-old enemy creeps in here once again. We have a lot on our plate right now with the stuff we are currently doing. Be assured that the C64 in particular is quite close to our hearts, so it will be done when we possible can. Unfortuately, that is not right now.

Is like the same problem as TAPES, perhaps a system has no TZX support to preservate those cassettes, but you can use a TOOL(like Goldwave) to generate Waves and then in the furute, although those Tapes can be unreadable, at least we have WAVs to play with and preserve them when a TZX or similar format is supported.

That is okay, but of course you need to keep in mind that these are "unproven" dumps. They could be completely bad and you wouldn't know. What we do for games we have not added support for yet (where the situation is exactly the same), is to dump every copy we can get our hands on, that way we won't get frustrated if a dump we assumed was good was later found bad when we added support (if they are all bad, we have not lost anything, just not gained anything either).

Not an ideal situation on a larger scale though, especially since there may not be much of a concept of "progress". But I am sure that the more dumps available, the sooner we will be inclined to look into it.

I know that making IPFs is very time consuming process, as you said, and also only CAPS team adds quality. So in the future, if CAPS team thinks:"It's time to preserve all those C64 disks", then they will have a lot of them already dumped and they only must concentrate in doing IPFs of them.

That would be very nice. I'm not sure if people will accept that though, since they will be completely "at our mercy", so to speak.

I think what you say is great, but selling the idea (even on the Amiga this was so) is always something much more difficult.

It's better to dump some disks using your tool now, and then in the future create IPF of them. Than dump those disk in the future to do IPFs, i think that they will be better conservated now, than in the future.

See above about games being dumped not meaning games preserved.

I don't know if a Generic tool can be done now to dump C64 disks and get all information for a future usage in the creation of IPFs.

From what IFW has said, it is a matter of supporting 5.25" drives and adding a GCR mode to the dumping software. I do not know how much work this is, but I know he is in completely negative supply of time right now.

I hope you understand now what i mean, i know that my english is a shit :P

Yes, I do now, thanks

I think you have some great ideas, and appreciate the faith you have in what we are doing. The main problem I see is getting people to believe it without trashing other efforts, without appearing elitist, and without appearing to barge in on other peoples "turf". I know this might sound silly, but it has happened too many times already.

If we had something to offer right away, the situation would be rather different.

We can only do what we can... Unfortunately.

Sorry for being so negative.

[IFW]

Indeed. As said above "ST" and clone hw systems are being worked on, because it is needed for our original goal, namely Amiga preservation.
C64 is a different matter, though I used to have a very "advanced" C64 setup (parallel, 256k, speedos many drives, AR, anything you can name) until probably around early 1990s. I still have a 1541 drive with parallel interface to pc - but no idea whether it still work or not You can certainly find many of my c64 dumps in gamebase from the late 90s...
For c64 to become reality, we need to have:
1, a hw interface solution that is not amiga based, since it is very hard to find 5.25 drive for the miggy nowadays, though thanks to a contributor from Germany I have one now. Also this hard to find drive has to be altered in order to change the rotation speed.
MK4 or a custom hardware is a likely solution for all these problem. Using a 1541 is not a good solution as its accurate reading capability is very limted, the cpu and the hw is simply too slow for a software that could read everything flawlessly without knowing what it is, and the hw alters the data read to a point that it can only be guessed in many cases especially for advanced protections.
2, pc 5.25 drives - those should also be altered, but not the rotation speed -, or the 1541 electronics somehow interfaced to a standard shugart one.
3, adding GCR layer(s, there are many encodings in circulation) to the analyser and encoder.
4, adding GCR layers to the decoder (ie library)
5, dumps from originals
6, really competent people reverse-engineering the disk formats so the authenticity and integrity of the dumps can be checked through analysation. "Being an ex-cracker" is no good for that; people wrongly assume that cracking a game requires understanding how the protection or disk access works, while in reality only the loader and protection check routines got ever patched, until the "new warez" worked. However the assembly competency gained is very helpful of course.
It has to be people who actually understand how the drive works as well as understand 6510 code run on the 1541 and c64, and people who don't give up easily as it takes time to get it going for the first few hundred games, until major disk systems are covered.
A lot of time and even more.
I could do it, but I am certainly not very keen on doing that again on my own, nor do I have the time to do it. However adding format scripts etc to the analyser by me would be much easier if reliable people would be involved in the process of reverse-engineering. Note that "I think it does..." is not good enough it was not good enough for amiga, not good enough for ST and won't be any good for the c64 either.
7, collaboration with emulation solutions, the current ones have to be improved like it or not.

As you can see all this takes time and people just don't like the idea of waiting, even if better things can come of it than what is available right now.
It is also not very easy to tell people that what they are doing could be done better, but it would possibly take hundreds of times the work that is invested right now.
It is also worth noting that as usual it would be quite a time until the first images appear, since what is involved is much more compliacted than how these projects work right now and many people won't be happy to wait.
I don't blame them and you shouldn't either: there is nothing like when a game first appears on your screen working again in its former glory
But imagine what happens if you are telling people that the next time this is going to happen is possibly a year or more again... if everything goes fine and real life does not interfere with the project?

Also note - again - that this is all unpaid work, but takes as much if not more time than a real world full time job... however you have to do your real world work to have money for so simple things like food and mortgage, and after that you can continue with the development of disk preservation.
Not a very convenient situation in the long run I can assure you.

Originally Posted by Unknown_K

I do have a working Central Point deluxe option board here, if anybody does start preserving CGA games let me know!

I picked up a Deluxe Option Board on Ebay.
Unfortunately, the cable described in the manual is missing.

Would you have a description, i.e. a diagram of this cable to eventually make one ?

Thanks.
The Wimpus.

[Amiga1992]

HEy, what about the 1571? I know it has some pretty advanced modes of operation, I think it could format many disk formats like IBM and others, too...

[Unknown_K]

Originally Posted by wimpus

I picked up a Deluxe Option Board on Ebay.
Unfortunately, the cable described in the manual is missing.

Would you have a description, i.e. a diagram of this cable to eventually make one ?

Thanks.
The Wimpus.

Which cable? I think there was a special one for tandy or ps/2 systems and a normal one for the others?

Originally Posted by Unknown_K

Which cable? I think there was a special one for tandy or ps/2 systems and a normal one for the others?

Page 4 of the documentation states:
"... verify that your Deluxe Option Board package is complete. You should find the following:

1. This manual
2. A disk labeled <Deluxe Option Board Software>
3. The deluxe Option Board and cable."

I think I've sorted out my confusion.
It would appear that "THE deluxe option board cable" is simply a floppy ribbon cable with a "PIN" style connector on one end and what the documentation calls an "EDGE" slot style connector (to connect to the 18 finger double sided pcb connector of the board) on the other end. I probably should assume this was a wide spread cable type in the early 90ies so I'll go hunting for one in the obsolete part dumps.

Thanks for your help.

[jmmijo]

Standard PC floppy cables can have either one or two drive connectors at the one end. The pin type or IDC connector is for the 34-pin floppy connector you find on all 3.5" floppy drives. You can also have a bigger edge connector, this was for the 5.25" floppy drive.

Here's a good rule of thumb to use when deciding what connector goes where if there isn't any printing/labeling on either end of the cable.

The A: drive gets connected after the twist in the cable, regardless if there is both an edge and idc type connector or only one of either type. The B: drive gets connected before the twist in the cable, again regardless of the type of connector.

Of course many older drives, both 5.25 and 3.5 had jumpers on them to hard-wire the drive as unit 0 or 1 as well