_The Doctor__ Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) moving along very well for all methods of delivery how to snag the latest most verified preserved images... magnet:?xt=urn:btih:42e3ba1640a45164e5ad005b87934d7b12b4b692&dn=Atari8bitPreservedSoftware2019-02-03http://ftp.pigwa.net...ware 2019-02-03https://atari-owner....erved-software/https://mega.nz/#F!g...cNFSHe7220HG-VAmagnet:?xt=urn:btih:42e3ba1640a45164e5ad005b87934d7b12b4b692&dn=Atari8bitPreservedSoftware2019-02-03 in person meeting distro..USB stickSSD and to help with the project..http://a8preservatio...des/diskDumping Edited February 8, 2019 by _The Doctor__ 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Had a thought.. Might be nice to include djaybee's straight cracks with this torrent in future releases? Nice way to keep things consolidated, since they are directly derived from the ATX's. Makes every title potentially more accessible/usable. Or, maybe a separate torrent release for those. Unless I missed this being done already... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 I think it might be good to be just a little bit paranoid. of what or whom? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 it would be separate, as this has to be preservation only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 I was curious what are the earliest known uses of disk copy protection that we can glean from the ATX's in this archive, when different types were first used, and when Atari actually started using any, so I looked a but through the currently preseved titles with known copy protection. The earliest I can find is 1980: VisiCalc v1.74a (1980)(VisiCorp)(US)[disk] - Blank tracks 11-39. Then in 1981 we also start seeing some 3rd party: Adventures 1-2-3 (1981)(Adventure International)(US)[disk] - !crc(4,5) Adventures 4-5-6 (1981)(Adventure International)(US)[disk] - !crc(4,5) Deluxe Invaders (1981)(Roklan)(US)[disk] - mis(379-396) Frogger v1.0 (1981)(Sierra On-Line)(US)[disk] - bad(60),chk() Mouskattack (1981)(Sierra On-Line)(US)[disk] - mis(55-72) (Track 4) FileManager 800 v3C (1981)(Synapse Software)(US)[disk] - bad(101,150) And Atari enters the arena in 1981: Macro Assembler and Program-Text Editor v1.0A (1981)(Atari)(US)[disk] - mis(363) The info on the a8preservation.com may be a bit out of date (ie many titles say protection 'unknown', and I could not find Synapse Protector listed) so curious to hear others thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebiguy Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 I remember reading, many years ago, an article about the very first protections on Atari based on DOS structure (no physical protection on disk). This was just a tweak on allocated sectors so that the Duplicate Disk option would not copy all needed sectors. Of course this was before the release of sector copiers. Anyone knows which titles had this kind of protection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpforbes Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 I remember reading, many years ago, an article about the very first protections on Atari based on DOS structure (no physical protection on disk). This was just a tweak on allocated sectors so that the Duplicate Disk option would not copy all needed sectors. Of course this was before the release of sector copiers. Anyone knows which titles had this kind of protection. I think Letter Perfect did something like that. I seem to recall that it shifted the VTOC and/or Directory by a few sectors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DjayBee Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 The earliest I can find is 1980: VisiCalc v1.74a (1980)(VisiCorp)(US)[disk] - Blank tracks 11-39. The info on the a8preservation.com may be a bit out of date (ie many titles say protection 'unknown', and I could not find Synapse Protector listed) so curious to hear others thoughts. Yes, Farb has only a subset of my findings. I posted the full list of all my cracks incl. some information about the file's format there: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/284657-happy-super-archiver-backup-mtrix/?view=findpost&p=4150774 Visicalc has only lots of unformatted tracks but no real (test for) protection. A sector copy will work. There are several titles working like this; marked as "_NotFound" in the list attached to the above posting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farb Posted February 21, 2019 Author Share Posted February 21, 2019 Yes, sadly, many of those entries have not been filled in on the site yet. If anyone is interested in helping to update the protection entries on the website, I have already written a command-line tool that scans an ATX and outputs the appropriate protection string. I simply haven't had the time to create a script to run it against the preservation torrent and get the output into a format that I can load into the preservation database. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 I've started to finally copy and ATR my huge archive of software, its nice not worrying about congestive heart failures every month and having gone through 7 heart operations that side lined me for years. So Ive started with a lot of the mega oddball things no one has like the various BBS software and I'm working on my laserdisc controller source code disks and such to post up. I'm surprised no one from the SPS ever contacted me to ask for help, Although I just helped Roland and Kevin with Atari Accountant so I know Roland is hard at work on that. I would've been more than happy to have helped out, I've been recovering and posting stuff for over 25 years, the SWEAT tools for the 800, the source codes to over 20 7800 console games, the encryption code for the Jag carts & JagCD released back on the Jags 10th anniversary, the early code to Cloak & Dagger for the 800, anything I've recovered I've posted so if you want more help I am always glad to lend it to contribute to the community having more things recovered and preserved for all to use. So let me know and I'd be happy to get involved more so than I've already been doing. 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 Someone give this man a Kryoflux! 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) @Curt: WOW! I really didn't know, you have done so much, that is awesome! Please go ahead, you are vital for the community! Wish you from the heart a steady health situation! @Mr Robot: Yeah, and a SCP, too! @all: please support Curt, he has done so much for the community! Very(!) shortly, a giant publication will come, we all have to thank him for! Stay tuned! Edited February 21, 2019 by luckybuck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farb Posted February 21, 2019 Author Share Posted February 21, 2019 I've started to finally copy and ATR my huge archive of software, its nice not worrying about congestive heart failures every month and having gone through 7 heart operations that side lined me for years. So Ive started with a lot of the mega oddball things no one has like the various BBS software and I'm working on my laserdisc controller source code disks and such to post up. Sorry to hear about your health problems and glad you are back in the saddle so to speak :-) I'm surprised no one from the SPS ever contacted me to ask for help, Although I just helped Roland and Kevin with Atari Accountant so I know Roland is hard at work on that. Just to make sure it's clear -- the Atari Preservation Initiative has nothing at all to do with SPS. IMHO, the SPS seems to care very little about Atari 8-bit stuff. I've spoken to them several times over the course of the past few years offering to submit the many hundreds of Kroyflux dumps I have if they would finally do the work to support creating IPF files from Atari raw dumps. They have never taken me up on the offer. I would've been more than happy to have helped out, I've been recovering and posting stuff for over 25 years, the SWEAT tools for the 800, the source codes to over 20 7800 console games, the encryption code for the Jag carts & JagCD released back on the Jags 10th anniversary, the early code to Cloak & Dagger for the 800, anything I've recovered I've posted so if you want more help I am always glad to lend it to contribute to the community having more things recovered and preserved for all to use. So let me know and I'd be happy to get involved more so than I've already been doing. Thanks for the offer, but it sounds like your time is far better spent doing the work you've been doing and now archiving your collection. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say your work has been greatly appreciated! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 Someone give this man a Kryoflux! They are almost back in stock, I plan to order one asap :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 Sorry to hear about your health problems and glad you are back in the saddle so to speak :-) Just to make sure it's clear -- the Atari Preservation Initiative has nothing at all to do with SPS. IMHO, the SPS seems to care very little about Atari 8-bit stuff. I've spoken to them several times over the course of the past few years offering to submit the many hundreds of Kroyflux dumps I have if they would finally do the work to support creating IPF files from Atari raw dumps. They have never taken me up on the offer. Thanks for the offer, but it sounds like your time is far better spent doing the work you've been doing and now archiving your collection. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say your work has been greatly appreciated! Sorry about the confusion, I'm all new to this on a formal level, so to speak, so I didn't know you were different from the other effort. Your site is really nice btw. I've cut my teeth the hard way, sort of. I've already recovered 1,500 TU78/80 9 track backups that were from Atari when they closed 1196 Borregas back in 1996, they threw them all out and I spent 4 days with a uhaul van collecting them up and freighting them back to NY and recovering them on a Vax4000-200 with Leverage Host running on it acting as a Novell 3.12 server connected to my office network. That where a lot of internal source code has been recovered and released from. Just worked last week with John Hardie from VGHM and we combined dumps of rare cartridges from Atari so that stuff should be going up soon as well. Keeping up the good fight to keep getting more stuff out to the community. Your work is definitely great, Franck at Atarimania is just phenomenal with what he's done and I'm happy to add whatever small amount I can to the massive effort to preserve this priceless data. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted February 21, 2019 Share Posted February 21, 2019 (edited) I have heard, you even jumped into an Atari garbage container to save all the good things Atari wanted to trash? So, you prohibit a 2nd time ET-cartridges in the New Mexico desert! :-) Otherwise, the close to publication would have been lost in time, like tears in rain. Regarding BBS: ACTION! is at 100 %, just the Graphics Utilities Library and Shape Editor are still missing, which were published via BBS only by OSS: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Action#section-Action-StillMissingGraphicsUtilitiesLibraryAndShapeEditor Thant would be a great, if some day, this could be found. :-) Edited February 21, 2019 by luckybuck 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DjayBee Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 If anyone is interested in helping to update the protection entries on the website, I have already written a command-line tool that scans an ATX and outputs the appropriate protection string. I simply haven't had the time to create a script to run it against the preservation torrent and get the output into a format that I can load into the preservation database. Taking this information from the disk images makes only limited sense. Many disks have far more bad sectors than needed for the protection (like Visicalc). And on the other hand you cannot get any information on track alignment or sector skewing. If you send me a dump with (preferred) the ATX-filenames or (less preferred) ATX-hashes then I can prepare a list which contains the protection information from my table which currently contains nearly 800 dumps (500 from the torrent) with some sort of protection. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 Curt, great to hear you are archiving your collection and hopefully releasing it, I wait with bated breath to find stuff in that collection because if anyone will have something special, its you.. Thank you for your many years of Atari work, your status is legendary to those of us of a certain age or great scene knowledge. Sorry to hear of all of the ills, life isn't always fair but I can only hope you are feeling well. To the folks not familiar With Curt, do a google search or look in here or better still visit his site via the link in his sig...This man is a Supreme Jedi Take care Curt.. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 more crap on the disk than is needed or even used is also a way to make folks not want to bother, it looks way to complicated to crack... of course some of us know better Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 'it looks way to complicated to crack...' with our combined jedi forces, there is nothing too complicated, just work or even much work to do... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farb Posted February 22, 2019 Author Share Posted February 22, 2019 Sorry about the confusion, I'm all new to this on a formal level, so to speak, so I didn't know you were different from the other effort. Your site is really nice btw. No problem at all. I figured it was worth clarifying just in case. Also worth clarifying -- your assistance with any aspect of our humble project would be GREATLY appreciated. I was merely suggesting that the other work you are doing archiving your collection is far more important than the fairly mundane task of updating protection entries in our database If you do have the time and interest to help out, there's plenty of stuff to do and we'd be honored to work with you! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 Yeah, we really should support Curt the best way we can. This is key. I will explain on CX401, why. Stand by. Preserving the ones, we do not have already must be 1st priority! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farb Posted February 23, 2019 Author Share Posted February 23, 2019 Taking this information from the disk images makes only limited sense. Many disks have far more bad sectors than needed for the protection (like Visicalc). And on the other hand you cannot get any information on track alignment or sector skewing. I would agree that it is less than ideal but also better than many entries saying "Unknown" :-) If you send me a dump with (preferred) the ATX-filenames or (less preferred) ATX-hashes then I can prepare a list which contains the protection information from my table which currently contains nearly 800 dumps (500 from the torrent) with some sort of protection. This would be great, thanks. Let me see what I can put together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry1968 Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 I have scanned the first batch of my Atari stuff. It can be found under http://xatremu.whdload.net/batch1.zip I will leave this up only one week, so better get it now. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted March 8, 2019 Share Posted March 8, 2019 Thank you so much Harry1968, your work is now save for generations to come. No Blade Runner 2049... due to your support. Thank you! :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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