Acorn Archimedes Software Preservation - Page 5

Interceptor · 25 May 2009, 10:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyon

Umm but who preserved them and with which image format (ipf ???) ? and which acorn emulator open ipfs

Kyon this has been answered here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=42670

please read that carefully.

Kyon · 25 May 2009, 11:23

Oh ok i remember that i hope you found second disk asap

Sensi · 25 May 2009, 11:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Interceptor

Kyon this has been answered here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=42670

please read that carefully.

I read that thread carefully and it seems something is wrong with the disk. Does it mean there may be something wrong with the Amiga disks?

I need 100% working disks. Can someone from the caps team verify all swos disks for me? And is there list of verified swos disks? I want the list. Maybe we should make another thread about this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kyon

Oh ok i remember that i hope you found second disk asap

But I have to have it now :-(

Kyon · 25 May 2009, 11:53

@ Sensi what is wrong ? you have which disk ?

Sensi · 25 May 2009, 11:55

Wrong? Disk? What are you talking about?

Kyon · 25 May 2009, 12:01

you say that in the last message

Tom Walker · 26 May 2009, 15:29

Just want to add my opinion, as an Archimedes emulator author (and probably the only person in a position to add copy-protected disc support) :

Archimedes disc preservation has been going on for more than 3 years now, but there are quite a few barriers :

- Originally FDI was used, and I have a large number of images in that format. However, there were quite a few problems with the fdi2raw code used (slow, memory leaks, broken high density support), but the killer was licensing, as it's GPL and Arculator isn't. I wrote a replacement, and while it's better on the images it works with, it doesn't work on most images.

- IPF was the next target, and SPS have archived a large number of discs. However, I haven't seen a single image, and can't implement IPF support until I do. Also, some people (including myself) aren't entirely happy with the closed nature of the format.

- As an alternative, I added support for the extended ADF images produced by rawread. This spawned into a new format (APD) to overcome a few issues (no single or high density support, plus images need processing due to glitches with rawread). This is what all my discs are imaged with. However, as it's a format I've invented, no-one ever is going to use it.

- Distribution is the real killer for all of these though, as the likes of R-Comp and 4th Dimension have had most previous Arc game sites shut down. Even sites distributing the TOSEC set have had endless complaints from 'RISC OS users' saying that 'they're destroying the market'.

killergorilla · 26 May 2009, 16:13

And I thought Amiga users were bad!

Tom Walker · 26 May 2009, 16:42

Amiga users are nothing compared to Acorn users!

killergorilla · 26 May 2009, 16:43

You can keep them then

prowler · 26 May 2009, 20:48

Hi Tom, and welcome to EAB!

Thanks for creating the wonderful Arculator and RPCEmu emulators.

BTW, are you still looking for a copy of RisciX, or did you find it?

prowler

MarkYoungIW · 26 May 2009, 21:57

Personally I like the idea that IPF's can only be produced by SPS, therefore if you have an IPF file you know its good!!

I do have a concern if anyone can make an images, there will be loads of different qualities of image floating around, so I can see merit in the IPF way.

So, that being the case, like Tom says, how can he work with something that he hasnt seen? I assume there have been 'no' successful dumps of Archimedes Discs to SPS, therefore meaning no IPF's have been sent back to the contributors? If this is not the case, it would be good to know from SPS who has contributed sucessful dumps so that Tom could contact them to use them to be able to further IPF support for Arculator, then obviously as well Tom will be able to confirm which IPF's work with Arculator.

I know there is a concern that alot of people have that IPF is a closed format, but like I said above, this is sort of good to maintain the quality of the dumps.

With regards to distribution, this has always been a hard one, but I think the developer of the only emulator that will support the format will need access to the IPFs for testing.

Interceptor · 27 May 2009, 00:07

arc, spectrum, st, pc, sam coupe, cpc all fall under the same dev cycle, and we couldnt address all of them and converse with all the emu authors at once.

the WD1772 emulation we were working on also needed some revamping, and the lib changed along with it.

this is pretty much done now, and we're preparing a dev pack for Tom, he'll be hearing from us via email shortly, and it'll be up to him if he chooses to add IPF support to Arculator or not.

Tom Walker · 27 May 2009, 00:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkYoungIW

Personally I like the idea that IPF's can only be produced by SPS, therefore if you have an IPF file you know its good!!

I do have a concern if anyone can make an images, there will be loads of different qualities of image floating around, so I can see merit in the IPF way.

On the Amiga this works, as if SPS haven't successfully dumped a game due to a modified disc, you can fall back on a cracked version.

On the Acorn though, the cracked versions tend to either not exist or not be available! Case in point is Sensible Soccer - unless someone's hiding a cracked version somewhere the only playable dump is the IPF one. Which won't be released due to it being modified. Therefore no version available!

Quite a lot of games will almost certainly never be dumped by SPS due to modification - lots of 80s games save CMOS info to the disc before rebooting with a new setup, and a few 90s games (eg Stunt Racer 2000, Bloodsport) automatically save config info to disc - and unused/unmodified copies of these games are going to be nigh-on impossible to find.

Not that I'm against SPS and IPF in general. But I do think we need games dumped in another format also.

Quote:

Originally Posted by prowler

BTW, are you still looking for a copy of RisciX, or did you find it?

Haven't found one, and Acorn's bizarre policy with RISCiX (no install floppies, an engineer came and installed it off tape for you) means I don't think I'm going to find one!

prowler · 27 May 2009, 00:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Walker

Quote:

Originally Posted by prowler

BTW, are you still looking for a copy of RisciX, or did you find it?

Haven't found one, and Acorn's bizarre policy with RISCiX (no install floppies, an engineer came and installed it off tape for you) means I don't think I'm going to find one!

I have a copy.

Do you have anywhere I could upload it for you?

gulliver · 27 May 2009, 03:09

Hi, i have a compressed file, like 170MB of an image of a Riscix install. By the way, also remember there are other unix flavours for Archimedes machines, like Minix and NetBSD. On Acorn´s FTP you can also download a riscix boot floppy, somewhere.

Good luck!

PS: If you really insist and no one else has it, I may upload the file for preservation purposes!

prowler · 27 May 2009, 03:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by gulliver

Hi, i have a compressed file, like 170MB of an image of a Riscix install.

PS: If you really insist and no one else has it, I may upload the file for preservation purposes!

I can't remember much about my copy of RisciX. I'll get the details tomorrow. It might well be the same file!

MarkYoungIW · 27 May 2009, 12:10

With regards to modified games, I understand thats a problem, but in the same breath, I have seen a number of (still sealed) games on eBay over the course of time. And with regards to another format, perhaps this is where C20 could come in once its up and running.

Can someone from SPS confirm what has been successfully dumped for the Archimedes so far (if anything). Then we can work at sending other dumps to SPS, and use another format as a backup too.

Out of interest Tom, I had seen nothing about using .fdi for Archie dumps, could you explain this as if this works, it could be another way of dumping it?

With regard to cracked software, although I can say I am not entirely a fan, being able to play games from the HD is of convenience, so as we go along, I am fairly sure we should be looking at modifying each title for HD installs.

I had the good fortune of finally witnessing how good WHDLoad is on the Amiga, and I have to say, and Acorn equivilent does seem the way to go, so if we could get a format up and running that supports keydiscs, then I am sure we could get some of the existing Archie programmers to have a look at HD installs for them, much in the same way WHDLoad does.

RisciX!! Always had an interest in getting it running on an A3010, but as never seen it anywhere, dont know if it was possible!!

Interceptor · 27 May 2009, 14:28

no Archie IPF titles are 'done', as Generic MFM support to the analyser that covers these is not finished.

we have several titles dumped, some are modifled, some are not professionally duplicated and we need more copies, and a couple are probably known good.

however, right now we are on a 'All titles needed' policy for all formats except amiga until such times as official releases are made.

we're hoping the cyclone20 usb device will mean more people can contribute.

what this means is, we can get archie dumps, we can make test IPF files manually but they are not final and can only be used, internally for testing.

we've not sent any to Tom yet becuase doing that would also mean supporting the inclusion of the IPF library, and we're already doing that for ST right now we'd be spread ourselves too thin, since the new version of the library is not finished and is in beta, this also means no documentation for developers.

i'm about to email Tom now.

prowler · 27 May 2009, 16:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkYoungIW

RisciX!! Always had an interest in getting it running on an A3010, but as never seen it anywhere, dont know if it was possible!!

Hi Mark,

You may be about to find out!

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25 May 2009, 11:23	#82
Kyon Banned Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: SOS Brigade Age: 32 Posts: 696	Oh ok i remember that i hope you found second disk asap

25 May 2009, 11:53	#84
Kyon Banned Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: SOS Brigade Age: 32 Posts: 696	@ Sensi what is wrong ? you have which disk ?

25 May 2009, 11:55	#85
Sensi Unregistered User Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: N/A Posts: 1,643	Wrong? Disk? What are you talking about?

25 May 2009, 12:01	#86
Kyon Banned Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: SOS Brigade Age: 32 Posts: 696	you say that in the last message

26 May 2009, 15:29	#87
Tom Walker Registered User Join Date: May 2009 Location: Nottingham / UK Posts: 58	Just want to add my opinion, as an Archimedes emulator author (and probably the only person in a position to add copy-protected disc support) : Archimedes disc preservation has been going on for more than 3 years now, but there are quite a few barriers : - Originally FDI was used, and I have a large number of images in that format. However, there were quite a few problems with the fdi2raw code used (slow, memory leaks, broken high density support), but the killer was licensing, as it's GPL and Arculator isn't. I wrote a replacement, and while it's better on the images it works with, it doesn't work on most images. - IPF was the next target, and SPS have archived a large number of discs. However, I haven't seen a single image, and can't implement IPF support until I do. Also, some people (including myself) aren't entirely happy with the closed nature of the format. - As an alternative, I added support for the extended ADF images produced by rawread. This spawned into a new format (APD) to overcome a few issues (no single or high density support, plus images need processing due to glitches with rawread). This is what all my discs are imaged with. However, as it's a format I've invented, no-one ever is going to use it. - Distribution is the real killer for all of these though, as the likes of R-Comp and 4th Dimension have had most previous Arc game sites shut down. Even sites distributing the TOSEC set have had endless complaints from 'RISC OS users' saying that 'they're destroying the market'.

26 May 2009, 16:13	#88
killergorilla Lesser Talent Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: UK Age: 42 Posts: 7,957	And I thought Amiga users were bad!

26 May 2009, 16:42	#89
Tom Walker Registered User Join Date: May 2009 Location: Nottingham / UK Posts: 58	Amiga users are nothing compared to Acorn users!

26 May 2009, 16:43	#90
killergorilla Lesser Talent Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: UK Age: 42 Posts: 7,957	You can keep them then

26 May 2009, 20:48	#91
prowler Global Moderator Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Sidcup, England Posts: 10,300	Hi Tom, and welcome to EAB! Thanks for creating the wonderful Arculator and RPCEmu emulators. BTW, are you still looking for a copy of RisciX, or did you find it? prowler

26 May 2009, 21:57	#92
MarkYoungIW Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Isle of Wight Posts: 154	Personally I like the idea that IPF's can only be produced by SPS, therefore if you have an IPF file you know its good!! I do have a concern if anyone can make an images, there will be loads of different qualities of image floating around, so I can see merit in the IPF way. So, that being the case, like Tom says, how can he work with something that he hasnt seen? I assume there have been 'no' successful dumps of Archimedes Discs to SPS, therefore meaning no IPF's have been sent back to the contributors? If this is not the case, it would be good to know from SPS who has contributed sucessful dumps so that Tom could contact them to use them to be able to further IPF support for Arculator, then obviously as well Tom will be able to confirm which IPF's work with Arculator. I know there is a concern that alot of people have that IPF is a closed format, but like I said above, this is sort of good to maintain the quality of the dumps. With regards to distribution, this has always been a hard one, but I think the developer of the only emulator that will support the format will need access to the IPFs for testing.

27 May 2009, 00:07	#93
Interceptor Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Essex, UK Posts: 414	arc, spectrum, st, pc, sam coupe, cpc all fall under the same dev cycle, and we couldnt address all of them and converse with all the emu authors at once. the WD1772 emulation we were working on also needed some revamping, and the lib changed along with it. this is pretty much done now, and we're preparing a dev pack for Tom, he'll be hearing from us via email shortly, and it'll be up to him if he chooses to add IPF support to Arculator or not.

27 May 2009, 03:09	#96
gulliver BoingBagged Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: The South of nowhere Age: 46 Posts: 2,358	Hi, i have a compressed file, like 170MB of an image of a Riscix install. By the way, also remember there are other unix flavours for Archimedes machines, like Minix and NetBSD. On Acorn´s FTP you can also download a riscix boot floppy, somewhere. Good luck! PS: If you really insist and no one else has it, I may upload the file for preservation purposes!

27 May 2009, 12:10	#98
MarkYoungIW Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Isle of Wight Posts: 154	With regards to modified games, I understand thats a problem, but in the same breath, I have seen a number of (still sealed) games on eBay over the course of time. And with regards to another format, perhaps this is where C20 could come in once its up and running. Can someone from SPS confirm what has been successfully dumped for the Archimedes so far (if anything). Then we can work at sending other dumps to SPS, and use another format as a backup too. Out of interest Tom, I had seen nothing about using .fdi for Archie dumps, could you explain this as if this works, it could be another way of dumping it? With regard to cracked software, although I can say I am not entirely a fan, being able to play games from the HD is of convenience, so as we go along, I am fairly sure we should be looking at modifying each title for HD installs. I had the good fortune of finally witnessing how good WHDLoad is on the Amiga, and I have to say, and Acorn equivilent does seem the way to go, so if we could get a format up and running that supports keydiscs, then I am sure we could get some of the existing Archie programmers to have a look at HD installs for them, much in the same way WHDLoad does. RisciX!! Always had an interest in getting it running on an A3010, but as never seen it anywhere, dont know if it was possible!!

27 May 2009, 14:28	#99
Interceptor Registered User Join Date: May 2002 Location: Essex, UK Posts: 414	no Archie IPF titles are 'done', as Generic MFM support to the analyser that covers these is not finished. we have several titles dumped, some are modifled, some are not professionally duplicated and we need more copies, and a couple are probably known good. however, right now we are on a 'All titles needed' policy for all formats except amiga until such times as official releases are made. we're hoping the cyclone20 usb device will mean more people can contribute. what this means is, we can get archie dumps, we can make test IPF files manually but they are not final and can only be used, internally for testing. we've not sent any to Tom yet becuase doing that would also mean supporting the inclusion of the IPF library, and we're already doing that for ST right now we'd be spread ourselves too thin, since the new version of the library is not finished and is in beta, this also means no documentation for developers. i'm about to email Tom now.

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