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Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative


Farb

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Guess it depends on how much bandwidth you have. Web site would be better in most cases. People could choose to only download what they need without pulling a single big file. Plus, it seems that this torrent may not be popular enough to always be seeded well. Again, web site would eliminate that. Finally, there are some places where torrent downloads are not allowed (Companies, possibly universities, etc.)

 

The site is relly nice as a museum right now. Adding links to the files would really take it to the next level of usefulness. Kind of like a more curated, higher quality version of Atari Mania.

 

-Todd

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Don't ditch the torrent! Let Atarimania do the downloads.

 

I agree. Don't drop the torrent.

 

If not, then at the very least keep a log on the site of changes, additions & upgrades so us collectors can keep up to date with your great work.

 

k1w1

Edited by k1w1
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  • 1 month later...

Zeppelin (1983)(Synapse Software)(US) restarts quite often between games when it does one of its secondary protection checks. Therefore I suspect the dump to be bad.

 

Perhaps somebody else can verify this behaviour with the attached dump.

 

The protection choses a random track except tracks 5 and 6 and reads its 1st sector and immediately the 1st sector of the following track. The needed time is verified against a table and the game reboots if the check fails.
Set a breakpoint to $2395 for the start of the initializing routine.

  1. Sector 37 is bad which does not make sense with the above protection because it will destroy the needed timing.
  2. In Altirra the timing itself fails nearly every time making the game reboot.
    This might be due to a non-perfect disk emulation in Altirra, but I doubt this to be true.

Farb: Do you still have the original disk to verify the dump?

 

Does somebody else have a working original disk which could be dumped?

Zeppelin (1983)(Synapse Software)(US).atx.zip

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Farb: Do you still have the original disk to verify the dump?

 

According to the database, that ATX was created by remowilliams and I don't have a raw dump of the disk. @remowilliams, do you still have the original disk by chance?

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Zeppelin (1983)(Synapse Software)(US) restarts quite often between games when it does one of its secondary protection checks. Therefore I suspect the dump to be bad.

 

The disk is damaged. Like 99.99% of the copies of this title.

 

This title must be the worst of all in this regard. I collected something like half a dozen, may be more, original disks and all are physically destroyed. Besides being so fragile, the timing is quite critical. Even the original disk might sometimes fail depending on the drive firmware and the computer OS. I traced the protection long ago and found what appears to be a bug that makes the timing much more critical than they probable intended to be.

 

IIRC, there are multiple protection checks that are randomly selected at boot time. So depending on how exactly is damaged, it might sometimes work. Be careful when checking this under emulation.

 

Most important, if somebody is going to dump this tile with a SCP or Kryoflux, be very careful. I wouldn't recommend the default parameters. Chances the disk will not survive.

Edited by ijor
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The disk is damaged. Like 99.99% of the copies of this title.

 

This title must be the worst of all in this regard. I collected something like half a dozen, may be more, original disks and all are physically destroyed. Besides being so fragile, the timing is quite critical. Even the original disk might sometimes fail depending on the drive firmware and the computer OS. I traced the protection long ago and found what appears to be a bug that makes the timing much more critical than they probable intended to be.

 

IIRC, there are multiple protection checks that are randomly selected at boot time. So depending on how exactly is damaged, it might sometimes work. Be careful when checking this under emulation.

 

Most important, if somebody is going to dump this tile with a SCP or Kryoflux, be very careful. I wouldn't recommend the default parameters. Chances the disk will not survive.

 

 

 

It's been a while, but in my loft I have/had copies of the disk that Zeppelin gave to retailers to "copy" for users who bought the tape, but wanted a disc version - for this and Draconus.

 

I will try and dig, em out...

 

sTeVE

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It's been a while, but in my loft I have/had copies of the disk that Zeppelin gave to retailers to "copy" for users who bought the tape, but wanted a disc version - for this and Draconus.

 

Interesting. But was that the original copy protected Synapse US release? And you were supposed to "copy" the disk with some advanced hardware copier or something like that?

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According to the database, that ATX was created by remowilliams and I don't have a raw dump of the disk. @remowilliams, do you still have the original disk by chance?

 

No, that disk passed away like so many of its Synapse brethren. That dump was pre-kryoflux so there's no raw data either :/

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Well I took a look - I had a few of the unprotected retail discs given to me in the U.K. to support disc owners. Although I am unsure how widespread this was - as the company I worked for did distribution too...

 

So far I have only uncovered a couple of flippy discs, one disc has NYC and Alley Cat, the other Speedace and Zybex. Supplied unprotected for me to copy for tape purchasers...

 

I will continue to look for the others - I know there were more US Gold ones (I got them when the Americana label was live) where the Synapse games went to die in the UK.

 

There we also others from U.K. Publishers - I had Draconus and Cosmic Pirates at one point...

 

I will test them as they've been untouched in boxes for around 20 years!

 

sTeVE

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Well I took a look - I had a few of the unprotected retail discs given to me in the U.K. to support disc owners. Although I am unsure how widespread this was - as the company I worked for did distribution too...

So far I have only uncovered a couple of flippy discs, one disc has NYC and Alley Cat, the other Speedace and Zybex. Supplied unprotected for me to copy for tape purchasers...

 

Very interesting. Never heard of something like that. How are they labelled?

 

Do dump them please. I think at the very least it is interesting to get the "original unprotected" (for lack of better term) state of these titles.

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I don't think he has it. Isn't it the same thing to format a disk (using cut & paste's formatter)?

I don't think it is the same. But anyway, we can't be sure without dumping it, can we?

 

Yes it is, its really apart from archival purposed a non needed disk...

How do you know that? Do you have a dump and you actually performed a comparison, or are you just guessing?

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In regards to Zeppelin.. Shouldn't it be possible to deduce the information based on the protection used by Synapse and possibly fix up the atx image? I doubt when it comes to the sectors there is anything exotic going on.

 

With a lot it is possible (EA, SSI). Not so much with later Synapse titles. Here's a list of what protection I've recorded. You can see by year they start off fairly simple, then it goes bonkers. Not just format/sector types but timings also.

 

 

FileManager+ v4D (1981)(Synapse Software)(US)[bASIC][OS-B] - T5 - CRC s8, Duplicate s4, 7 x8

Protector (1981)(Synapse Software)(US)[!] - T13 (17s)

Chicken (1982)(Synapse Software)(US) - T13 (17s)

Nautilus (1982)(Synapse Software)(US)[OS-B] - T5 (17s) - Duplicate s4, 7 x8, T39 (16s)

Necromancer (1982)(Synapse Software)(US) - T5 (17s) - Duplicate s4, 7 x8, T39 (16s)

Protector II (1982)(Synapse Software)(US)[OS-B] - T5 - Duplicate s4, 7 x2, CRC s8

Shamus (1982)(Synapse Software)(US)[!] - T5 (17s) - Duplicate s4, 7 x8

Survivor (1982)(Synapse Software)(US)[OS-B] - T5 - Duplicate s4, 7 x8, CRC s8

Blue Max (1983)(Synapse Software)(US)[OS-B] - T0 - Duplicate (CRC x1) s1 x12, Duplicate s18 x5, T3 - CRC s3, Duplicate (CRC x1) s10 x7, T5 - Duplicate s4, 7 x8, CRC s8, T14-16 - Unformatted, T23-24 - Duplicate (CRC x1) s2 x18

Drelbs (1983)(Synapse Software)(US)[OS-B] - T5 - Duplicate s4, 7 x8, CRC s8, T32-39 - Unformatted

Pharaoh's Curse, The (1983)(Synapse Software)(US) - T5 - Duplicate s4, 7 x2, CRC s8

Shamus - Case II (1983)(Synapse Software)(US) - T5 - Duplicate s4, 7 x8, CRC s8, T6-8, 36-37 - Duplicate s1 x17, T27-28 (17s), T30 (15s), T31 (12s), T32-33 (10s), T34 (14s), T35 - Duplicate s1 x7, T38 - Unformatted, T39 (9s)

SynCalc (1983)(Synapse Software)(US) - T4 (17s) - Weak s16, T5-6, 16-17 (21s) - Duplicate s7, 9, 12 x2, T7, 11-14, 21-25 (34s) - Duplicate s2-5, 7-8, 10, 13-14, 18 x2, T15, 27 - Unformatted

Zeppelin (1983)(Synapse Software)(US) - T2 (13s) - Weak s4, 9, 13, CRC s16, T5 - Duplicate s4 x11, 7x5, CRC s8, T6 - CRC s3, T38 - Weak s14

 

Blue Max 2001 (1984)(Synapse Software)(US) - T0 (19s) - Duplicate (CRC x1) s7 x2, T1 - Duplicate (CRC x1) s7 x2, T2 (20s) - Duplicate s7, 9, 12 x2, T4 (21s) - Duplicate s2-5, 7-8, 10, 13-14, 18 x2, T5 (20s) - Duplicate s7, 9, 12 x2, CRC s14, T6, 17-23, 26-37- Unformatted, T25 (16s) - Weak s16, T39 - Duplicate (CRC x1) s7 x2

Dimension X (1984)(Synapse Software)(US) - T20 (17s) - Weak s16, T23-25, 28-29 (21s) - Duplicate s7, 9, 12 x2

 

Lode Runner's Rescue (1985)(Synapse Software)(US)(Side A)[!] - T0 (19s) - Duplicate s17 x2, T39 (20s) - Duplicate s15, 17 x2, CRC s16
Edited by Zarxx
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I don't think it is the same. But anyway, we can't be sure without dumping it, can we?

 

 

How do you know that? Do you have a dump and you actually performed a comparison, or are you just guessing?

 

Well I'm guessing but in an educated guess since the disk allows you to make a data disk there seems little reason for it to be any different, there's no protection for the data disk so I'd imagine its pretty much just the same as you can make with a fancy label on...

 

Sure ir there is a REAL one a dump would be nice but I'd bet and I rarely bet that it would be the same.

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Well I'm guessing but in an educated guess since the disk allows you to make a data disk there seems little reason for it to be any different ...

I don't agree with that reasoning. The original document disk might perfectly have additional samples, templates, or even a tutorial. And conceivable (although this is not very likely, I agree) some utilities or extra functionality.

 

The fact that the software can make a data disk doesn't mean anything. It wouldn't make any sense to not let you because, among other things, you might want or need multiple data disks.

 

Sure ir there is a REAL one a dump would be nice but I'd bet and I rarely bet that it would be the same.

Ok, let's bet. What you want to bet? :)

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