KryoFlux: DTC Scripting & IPF creation

[mr.vince]

Next milestones for development have been set.

That's one of the major requests that came in shortly after the very first release, but it also means a bucketload of work. Some time ago, we started a poll on our forums to find out about how new platforms and formats should be supported.

We have opted to go for for the second place of the poll. The first place would have meant adding more formats statically. Since reverse engineering the original recording scheme can be very time consuming, this would mean setting priorities and not being able to support certain platforms - for years! The upcoming scripting host links into the heart of DTC, thus enabling you to define your own formats. This means while we continue working on KryoFlux, the community can independently create and share format descriptors. This brings in huge flexibility and speed. It is also the way floppy disks were replicated back in the good old days, so it is a proven concept.

It will also bring user created IPFs. Our format is already standard for authentic and verified Amiga, PC, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and Spectrum preservation and supported by various emulators. Since IPFs are scripted, whatever needs to be added, can be put in. This means IPFs can store whatever data you may have, even the most sophisticated recording scheme violations - mostly used for copy protection. This is long term preservation as it should be.

We are putting all our efforts into this, but realistically, we don't expect this to be fully implemented before winter.

[Arnie]

Appreciated

[Abaddon]

Great to hear this is coming. This is the much needed functionality that allows us to validate our disk dumps. If you need beta testers I'm more than willing.

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by mr.vince

This means IPFs can store whatever data you may have, even the most sophisticated recording scheme violations - mostly used for copy protection. This is long term preservation as it should be.

So can you finally add those Psygnosis 1/2 MFM formats then or should that be "you can mostly store whatever data"?

[mr.vince]

We never said that was impossible, we just said it's "much" work.

IPF can store whatever data you want, even RAW, which we don't want, hence we don't (publically) support it. Anyone could add transport layers to the decoder library (the source is available for some time now), so these formats could be transported properly (=without trickery).

But with the burden of checking every single dump out of the way, we can finally focus on such things (adding those little oddities), while others can just share and create the scripts which make use of the underlying technology. IFW has already confirmed the support of these.

Just to put things into perspective: These Psygnosis games do not use proper MFM, hence the need for a new transport layer. Such edge cases affect 0.3% of software out there. IPF was designed with such challenges in mind, but that does not mean it does not require manpower. IPF is just the container, like MOV, MKV or AVI, with separate encoders (think of video codecs), like MPEG2 and H.264, handling the actual data.