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Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative


Farb

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How about having the the RAW as a separate torrent.. as many of us would like to preserve in the truest sense and the more of us that have the raw archive the less chance it all disappears one day!

 

This is certainly something to consider for the future because it would be a lot of work. Right now, I have my hands full with the current torrent and the website :-)

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Hi Farb,

 

results of dump comparison for the latest images submitted here:

 

 

Same version as the one on Atarimania which I submitted some time ago.

 

 

I've got an image in the older VAPI archives: attachicon.gifUSAAF s2.rar

 

@remowilliams:

Do you have an ATX of the first side as well?
I suspect the current dump in the torrent to have a gone-bad sector.

 

Zaxxon (1983)(Datasoft)(US)[OS-B].atx

 

Hangs on sector 383.... The VAPI image I got from Atarimania works just fine.

 

There is a version of Zaxxon which only works on unpatched NTSC OS-A and OS-B. It crashes exactly as you describe.

Maybe you tried it with the patched OS-B which comes with PC XFormer archive just like me. ;)

 

Just recently imaged: Zaxxon.ATX.rar

 

This is a third version of the game beside the "picky one" from above and the older (patched?) one on Atarimania (which you removed from the torrent some time ago).

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Hi Farb,

 

results of dump comparison for the latest images submitted here:

 

There is a version of Zaxxon which only works on unpatched NTSC OS-A and OS-B. It crashes exactly as you describe.

Maybe you tried it with the patched OS-B which comes with PC XFormer archive just like me. ;)

 

 

This is a third version of the game beside the "picky one" from above and the older (patched?) one on Atarimania (which you removed from the torrent some time ago).

 

Confirmed... the one in the FARB archive requires either OS-A or an unpatched OS-B.

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@remowilliams:

Do you have an ATX of the first side as well?

I suspect the current dump in the torrent to have a gone-bad sector.

 

The disk I have handy seems to have an error: WARNING: Track 33, sector 17: Stable CRC error detected at position 0.43

 

I'm pretty sure I had more than one copy of this disk, but I can only find the one at the moment.

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The disk I have handy seems to have an error: WARNING: Track 33, sector 17: Stable CRC error detected at position 0.43

 

Assuming the track count starts at 0, this is exactly the same sector which is bad in the current dump.

Then maybe it has to be bad and is just not used when loading the game.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I am using kyroflux to digitize an important and unique collection of Atari disks — Mark Reid's disks which include the source code for Getaway!

 

Some are the disks are fine, but some are having problems which can be lumped into two areas:

 

1) Trouble reading the disk, which generally looks like this: (dtc -fM25track -k2 -g0 -i0 -r5)

00.0 : frev: 3820, drift: 0.683 us, tfer: 0 B/s, rpm: 3603.077

00.0 : band: <invalid>

02.0 : frev: 3920, drift: 0.133 us, tfer: 0 B/s, rpm: 3603.105

02.0 : band: 16.499 us?, 17.999 us?

04.0 : frev: 4024, drift: 0.283 us, tfer: 0 B/s, rpm: 3603.797

04.0 : band: <invalid>

06.0 : frev: 3467, drift: 0.200 us, tfer: 0 B/s, rpm: 4003.024

06.0 : Drive speed problem detected

06.0 : frev: 2976, drift: 0.142 us, tfer: 0 B/s, rpm: 4507.599

06.0 : Drive speed problem detected

06.0 : frev: 3962, drift: 0.092 us, tfer: 0 B/s, rpm: 3603.235

06.0 : band: 13.986 us?, 17.494 us?

08.0 : frev: 3845, drift: 0.233 us, tfer: 0 B/s, rpm: 3603.062

...
2) Some disks seem to read just fine with the kyroflux, but a8conv has all sorts of complaints, which generally looks like this: (./a8rawconv M25\track00.0.raw M25.atr)
Kevins-iMac:Mark kevin$ ./a8rawconv M20\track00.0.raw M20.atr

A8 raw disk conversion utility v0.92

Copyright © 2014-2016 Avery Lee, All Rights Reserved.

Licensed under GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.

Reading KryoFlux track stream set (96 TPI)...

CRC failure on sector header: 2BEB != 2BE9

CRC failure on sector header: 4FC2 != 4EA1

CRC failure on sector header: 23FF != 22FF

CRC failure on sector header: DB07 != DB05

CRC failure on sector header: 7099 != 7098

CRC failure on sector header: F9D8 != 78EC

CRC failure on sector header: AC8B != AC89

CRC failure on sector header: 40CD != 40CC

CRC failure on sector header: 8C09 != 8C08

CRC failure on sector header: CA17 != CA13

CRC failure on sector header: 40CD != 40CC

CRC failure on sector header: EA6B != EA69

CRC failure on sector header: CA17 != CA15

CRC failure on sector header: EA83 != EA81

CRC failure on sector header: 4025 != 4024

CRC failure on sector header: 9CDF != 946F

CRC failure on sector header: BCA3 != BCA2

CRC failure on sector header: 0703 != 0701

CRC failure on sector header: 715F != 7157

CRC failure on sector header: 0703 != 0702

Writing single density ATR file: M20.atr

WARNING: Track 0, sector 1: 3/5 bad sector reads discarded at position 0.78.

WARNING: Track 0, sector 16: Multiple sectors found at the same position

0.62 but different bad data. Encoding weak sector at offset 42.

WARNING: Track 0, sector 14: Multiple sectors found at the same position

0.57 but different bad data. Encoding weak sector at offset 19.

WARNING: Track 0, sector 13: Multiple sectors found at the same position

0.09 but different bad data. Encoding weak sector at offset 47.

WARNING: Track 0, sector 10: 1/5 bad sector reads discarded at position 0.47.

WARNING: Track 0, sector 9: Stable CRC error detected at position 0.99.

WARNING: Track 0, sector 8: 1/5 bad sector reads discarded at position 0.41.

WARNING: Track 0, sector 7: Multiple sectors found at the same position

0.94 but different bad data. Encoding weak sector at offset 11.

...
Is there anything you pros can recommend for either issue?
Thanks
Kevin
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I am using kyroflux to digitize an important and unique collection of Atari disks — Mark Reid's disks which include the source code for Getaway!

 

Some are the disks are fine, but some are having problems which can be lumped into two areas:

 

1) Trouble reading the disk, which generally looks like this: (dtc -fM25track -k2 -g0 -i0 -r5)

...

2) Some disks seem to read just fine with the kyroflux, but a8conv has all sorts of complaints, which generally looks like this: (./a8rawconv M25\track00.0.raw M25.atr)

 

Post or PM the raw images. Sometimes I can recover the errors.

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  • 2 weeks later...

just make sure the tape player is in great shape and rock solid steady.... if there is an audio track to capture it as well... there just isn't anything like missing music or voices when loading playing a game or learning a language... :) if compression is employed... a lossless file type should be used....

Edited by _The Doctor__
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Can anybody point me to a reference for the preferred manner of archiving cassette tape programs? (My inclination is just to dump them to .wav through my old Roland USB interface, but I didn't know if there's a more automated/preferred method?)

 

Thanks!

Try this : http://atarinside.dyndns.org/blog/index.php/tutorial-how-to-dump-an-old-atari-cassettetape-to-a-cas-or-wav-file/

If you choose the Altirra method, keep in mind that you must disable "C: patch cassette SIO" before Csaving.

As the doctor Said, if you have audio on the left track, you can't convert your program to a cas file, so keep it as wav, but check the result : sometimes the "stop" signal is missing or not loud enough (used by your Atari to stop playing the tape while waiting for an input), you'll have to replace it.

If you have no audio, a cas file will do the job.

Edited by Marsupilami
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It's worth noting that a8cas doesn't preserve any audio channels, it has no provision for that, so Dorsett cassettes, Atari language cassettes, as well as Atari titles with voice introductions can't be preserved correctly.

 

-Thom

That's true but in that case you can use a8cas to transform your data track (only) from wav to cas then open the cas in Altirra, Cload then CSAVE your program in Altirra, convert it to wav again with a8cas and sync the result with your audio track in audacity.

It's a long process but pretty reliable.

Edited by Marsupilami
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Can anybody point me to a reference for the preferred manner of archiving cassette tape programs? (My inclination is just to dump them to .wav through my old Roland USB interface, but I didn't know if there's a more automated/preferred method?)

 

Thanks!

 

I've been dumping cassettes to 44100Hz WAV files using a standard Sony cassette deck and a USB mixer (Behringer Q502). I know other preservation project members do something similar although the hardware details vary. We store the WAV files for preservation purposes and generate a CAS from it. We've had really good luck in creating CAS files even from damaged tapes that tools like a8cas can't successfully convert without human intervention.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The new website will have a download link for the torrent and should be released in the next week or so.

 

The web site is really amazing. But there do not appear to be any links to download anything. Any idea when that will happen?

 

Thanks!

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The web site is really amazing. But there do not appear to be any links to download anything. Any idea when that will happen?

 

Thanks!

I haven't decided yet whether to ditch the torrent in favor of website downloads. I'll have to give it some thought :-)

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