Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative

[Farb]

And soon as I hoped in an earlier post, its hard separating the wheat from the chaff with all the versions of games going up for checking, needed to have a new lump so the others can be removed...

 

Not trying to hurry the guys up, just trying to suggest some clarity..

As you said, the dumps being posted here are for purposes of analysis and (in my opinion) shouldn't be retained by anyone that doesn't have particular interest in having multiple dumps lurking around. Using ClrMamePro with the .DAT file distributed as part of the torrent will ultimately be the best way to differentiate good, verified dumps from others. Another option is to check the a8preservation.com website for the CRC, MD5 or SHA1 values for the titles in question since that is being in updated in real-time as we process new dumps. As for creating an interim torrent to help people clean up their messy downloads, sorry, not going to happen -- I simply don't have the bandwidth.

 

On that note, I have a working copy of the torrent generation script but I am not yet confident in the ZIP files it is producing. There are now quite a bit more files than previous torrents due to the new file naming conventions. Anybody want to volunteer to help quality check the ZIP files to weed out any remaining bugs? I simply don't have the time at the moment with all the work getting these great new dumps organized, analyzed and added to the database. That is simply a higher priority right now.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Farb

[Farb]

I'm looking into getting one also (kryo). Does anybody could recommend me a good, compatible, 5.25" floppy drive to go with it?

I already have a spare PSU to power it. A compatible 3.5" would be nice also for future use.

The list of drives that the team has personally tested are on this page:

 

http://a8preservation.com/#/guides/diskDumping

[Mr Robot]

 

On that note, I have a working copy of the torrent generation script but I am not yet confident in the ZIP files it is producing. There are now quite a bit more files than previous torrents due to the new file naming conventions. Anybody want to volunteer to help quality check the ZIP files to weed out any remaining bugs? I simply don't have the time at the moment with all the work getting these great new dumps organized, analyzed and added to the database. That is simply a higher priority right now.

 

 

I'm up for helping with that. What would you like me to do?

[AMenard]

The list of drives that the team has personally tested are on this page:

 

http://a8preservation.com/#/guides/diskDumping

Thanks!

[Farb]

Farb: Not sure if you've seen my occasional reaching out to try and find underground apps for the atari from back in the day - wardialers, long distance code scanners, etc.. But with you seeming to be an archiver I'm curious if you've come across things like this and maybe aren't "preserving" them for some reason or another or if they are just as rare in modern times as they seem to be for me...? C64/Amiga and Apple 2 all have HUGE archives of this sort of software and I personally used lots of it on the Atari back in the 80's.. It boggles my mind that collections of underground software were NOT preserved it seems.. Your input would be welcome...

Hi doctor_x, I can't say that I've come across anything so far. I only focus on original, commercial media and I assume most of that stuff would have been distributed by BBS and Sneakernet on non-commercial media. I will try to keep an eye out when I talk to folks about dumping their collections.

[Zarxx]

Well... this is a first.

It was the fastest dump ever, showing at over 4800 rpm.

 

Once opened I could see why.

 

I had to tape over all the other holes. Unfortunately all 3 disk are terribly degraded and only one is booting. Attempting repairs.

 

 

[Fox-1 / mnx]

Reminds me of that large stack of old 5,25" disks I stashed in my shed years ago. I think it's still there. Someone wanted to get rid of them but forgot to mention those were all hard sectored disks.

[tschak909]

HARD SECTORED?!

[Atari_Ace]

OK, now that I have it working I'm giving the KyroFlux a workout. The attached ZIPs have raw dumps of pns Forth 1.5, ValDOS I (two copies), ValDOS II, QS-Forth 1.0, TextWizard 1.3, and ValForth_Turtle_and_valGraphics_and_Advanced_Floating_Point_Routines (two copies)

 

I took a look at the QS-Forth 1.0, since I'm digging through old versions of Forth looking at how they changed over time. It's identical to the one that's been available elsewhere, except that FIRST, LIMIT, PREV and USE values are smaller than in that image, making it possible to run this Forth in 24K (48K was a luxury in 1981), and there's a minor difference in the screen definitions for the IOCB commands GET and PUT. In this version, they zero the BUFLEN field in the IOCB before invoking CIO, in the other version they zero the BUFADR field.

 

qsforth1.zip

 

P.S., this Forth doesn't work on XL/XE because of direct calls into CIO in 4 places. I've included a fixed version.

 

P.P.S., the disk "Beginner Forth 1.0" is the same Forth, just with fewer screens included and the prompt modified.

[ijor]

Well... this is a first.

It was the fastest dump ever, showing at over 4800 rpm.

 

Once opened I could see why. I had to tape over all the other holes.

 

Original disks recorded on hard sectored disks are not that rare. I've seen a few, but they were very early releases. I wouldn't expect it on a disk published on 1985.

 

[BigBen]

The disk of "The Tail of Beta Lyrae" is OK, the game is loaded without problems. For comparison, I have created two dumps with the Teac FD-55GFR and Mitsumi D503 drive. Both ATX files are not running. I think that Mitsumi drive from an XF551 is the better one.

 

How can I make a working floppy copy with the SCP-File?

Mitsumi_D503_Drive___The_Tail_of_Beta_Lyrae__Databyte.zip

TEAC_FD-55GFR_DRIVE_The_Tail_of_Beta_Lyrae__Databyte.zip

Edited May 27, 2018 by BigBen

[BigBen]

 

Here you go.

 

 

Thank you Zarxx!

After a review of my broken disk dumps with the Zarxx files, only two were broken, Blue Max 2001 and Goonies. The dongle is missing on Leader Board and Mercenary The Second City needs the previous version to boot. Sometimes you should read the manual. It's great to check your collection like this.

 

I found a little treasure. After opening the packaging I thought it would be missing a floppy disk. Look for yourself ...

[+DjayBee]

The disk of "The Tail of Beta Lyrae" is OK, the game is loaded without problems. For comparison, I have created two dumps with the Teac FD-55GFR and Mitsumi D503 drive. Both ATX files are not running. I think that Mitsumi drive from an XF551 is the better one.

 

How can I make a working floppy copy with the SCP-File?

 

First of all, go there for a working dump (done by Zarxx):

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/158241-the-tail-of-beta-lyrae-washouts/page-4?do=findComment&comment=3650401

 

Regarding your disk drives: I have the impression that your TEAC drive does not read reliably. The dump contains lots of missing sectors (pipe-signs in the comparison) which in reality do not miss:

 

But the reason for the crash are more bad sectors. Check for the bad CRC sectors in the 1st half the disk and also many missing ones in the 2nd half. COmparison between Zarxx' dump and your MItsumi dump:

 

Output from Altirra's command "lfe disk" just before the crash:

DISK: Reading vsec= 89 (1/1) (trk=4), psec= 88, chk=e1, rot=56.15 >> 0.28 >> 0.69 (w/CRC error).

DISK: Reporting missing sector 608.

DISK: Reporting missing sector 609.

DISK: Reporting missing sector 610.

DISK: Reporting missing sector 611.

 

All these sectors must be good.

Perhaps you can try to read these sectors on your Atari using any sector editor from your real floppy and see if they are OK.

[ijor]

The disk of "The Tail of Beta Lyrae" is OK, the game is loaded without problems. For comparison, I have created two dumps with the Teac FD-55GFR and Mitsumi D503 drive. Both ATX files are not running. I think that Mitsumi drive from an XF551 is the better one.

 

Clean your drives. As DjayBee is saying, the dumps are missing some sectors. The Mitsumi is slightly better, but still not quite good enough.

 

[hueyjones70]

Are the preserved titles going to be available for public use?

[Farb]

Are the preserved titles going to be available for public use?

 

Yes, they are distributed via a torrent that gets posted to this thread.

[Atari_Ace]

OK, now that I have it working I'm giving the KyroFlux a workout. The attached ZIPs have raw dumps of pns-Forth 1.5 …

 

I haven't come across an archive of pns-Forth 1.5 (Pink Noise Forth) before, so I built an atr out of this KryoFlux dump using a8rawconv. I got the 'best' result with clock period 118, although any value from 108-123 recovers the same data for tracks 0-6. Higher tracks appear to be a lost cause, but the forth Kernel resides on tracks 0-5, so all that is lost are any Forth code screens. There might not be any, there's nothing in track 6 but memory dump remnants.

 

 

This Forth is largely a standard fig-Forth. The core NEXT loop has 3 NOPs in the middle, removing a JSR TRACE that is usually present during bootstrapping the Forth, but as a result, there's 6 extra cycles of overhead per word not present in other Atari Forths. The assembler vocabulary is present in the boot kernel, so perhaps this did ship with no supporting screens, as many Forths required you to load the assembler if you needed it.

 

pns118.zip

[+Stephen]

What an unfortunate name. Did the manual state "my pen is awesome"?

 

Sorry - I watched too much Beavis & Butthead growing up

[+remowilliams]

What an unfortunate name.

 

'pns forth'

 

 

 

 

[Mclaneinc]

I'm sorry, I'm in that camp too...Fnarr fnarr

[Farb]

On that note, I have a working copy of the torrent generation script but I am not yet confident in the ZIP files it is producing. There are now quite a bit more files than previous torrents due to the new file naming conventions. Anybody want to volunteer to help quality check the ZIP files to weed out any remaining bugs? I simply don't have the time at the moment with all the work getting these great new dumps organized, analyzed and added to the database. That is simply a higher priority right now.

Any other volunteers interested in assisting with this? If so, PM me an e-mail address.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Farb

[Fred_M]

I can help. You have my email address

[BigBen]

 

Clean your drives. As DjayBee is saying, the dumps are missing some sectors. The Mitsumi is slightly better, but still not quite good enough.

 

Thank you DjayBee for the detailed diagnosis. As described in the guide Atari 8-bit Disk Preservation Guide by Zarxx, I have always cleaned the heads of the floppy stations. I could not create a working dump of "The Tail of Beta Lyrae" with the two drives, so I searched my entire hardware collection for more floppy drives. Two toms and a brand new XF551 were disassembled and tested on the SCP. The result was identical. It could be at the larger gap of the 1050 read head or at the higher speed. In addition, the problems in the inner circle of the disk can be found. Let's see if I can not find a solution. Actually, I wanted to transfer the collection of a friend next weekend, so I'll wait.

[BigBen]

Last files from my collections then I will make some dumps again.

 

 

Part XXIIV.zip

Part XXIIIV.zip

[BigBen]

I found the list of my friend's games. Do you need them all?

 

ADAX - LK Avalon
Android - LK Avalon
Around the Planet - Mrage
Bang Bank - Mirage
Barbarian - LK Avalon
Battalion Commander - SSI
Battleships - Mirage
Bertyx - Mirage
Blinkys Scary School - Zeppelin Games
Crypts ofe Egypt - Mirage
Dark Abyss - Mirage
Deluxe Invaders - Roklan Software
Draconus - Zeppelin Games
Drop It - Sonix
Fort Apocalypse - Green Valley Publishing
Gauntlet - Mindscape
Gemstone Warrior - SSI
Hans Kloss - LK Avalon
Hellcat Ace - MicroProse
Humanoid - Sonix
Jumpman Junior - EPYX
Juraasic Park II - Satantronic
Kolony - Mirage
Kult - ASF
Magia Krysztalu - ASF
Midnight - Mirage
Miecze Valdgira I- ASF
Miecze Valdgira II - ASF
Mirax Force - Zeppelin Games
Monstrum - ASF
Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory - Datamost
Ninja Commando - Zeppelin Games
Ogre - Origin System
OK.txt
Operation Blood - Mirage
Planetfall - Infocom
Rockford - Mastertronic UK
Rockman - Mirage
RYCERZ - Mirage
Side Winder - Zeppelin
Solar Star - Microdaft
Special Forces - Powersoft
Spitfire Ace - MicroProse
Spy vs Spy I - First Star Software
Spy vs Spy III - Arctic Antigs - First Star Software
Stack Up - Zeppelin Games
Starball - Mirage
T-34 the battle - ANG - 128kByte
Tanks - Powersoft
Technus - Mirage
The Last Guardian - LK Avalon
The Last Guardian - Tyne Soft
Thinker - Mirage
Top Gunner Collection Side A Hellcat Ace - MicroProse
Top Gunner Collection Side B Mig Alley Ace - Air Rescue - MicroProse
Tron - Mirage
Vicky - LK Avalon
War in Russia - SSI
Winter Challenge - Thunder Mountain
Wloczykij - LK Avalon
Zybex - Zeppelin Games