Flight Simulator II Scenery Disks

[Farb]

I recently obtained subLOGIC Scenery Disks 1-7 + Japan (for Flight Simulator II) from eBay for purposes of preservation. All were shrink-wrapped except for #3.

 

I opened them and found that:

 

1. Disks 2 & 5 had some sort of build-up on the disk surface. A careful cleaning with alcohol and multiple dump attempts worked for disk #2 but disk #5 was pretty bad and is unrecoverable through any means I'm aware of.

 

2. The label adhesive from Disk 7 (actually two disks: A & B) had "leaked" through and adhered the disks to the plastic sleeve they were sitting in. Took some care to get them detached without hurting the disks or the labels. Fortunately, the disks dumped just fine.

 

I thought I'd mention this since there may be a perception that shrink-wrapped titles are "safer" then non-shrinkwrapped ones. Age and storage conditions will be a factor regardless of whether the title is NOS or not.

 

The good news is that disk #2 is identical to a previous dump of #2 I made and the Japan disk is identical to a dump that Clay Cowgill provided me several weeks ago. So we can consider those two dumps verified.

 

Interestingly, disk #3 showed significant differences against another dump I had made. I did an analysis of both and it turns out that the newest dump is actually a different version (v1.01). I didn't realize that there are multiple version of FS2 scenery disks -- at least for #3 but there may be others.

 

So, if anyone has any of the following they would be willing to contribute (either as a dump/scan or a loan), it would make this effort complete:

 

1. Scenery disk 5.

 

2. Scenery disks 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12 and associated paperwork. I know for a fact that #11 exists (it's up on eBay right now for more than I'm willing to spend) so I assume the others do as well.

 

3. The Los Angeles map sheet for scenery disk 3.

 

4. Any of the 12 scenery disks that have a version number. You can determine this by running FS2 as normal until you are ready to take-off, wait for the drive to stop spinning, insert the scenery disk and press Ctrl+E. None of my disks show a version number except for #3 I mentioned above and #7 (both disks show v1.0).

 

Now, to get on with a bunch of awful paperwork scanning :-P

Edited February 7, 2016 by Farb

[deanolium]

Great work - I've been wanting the scenery disks myself for ages; but being in the UK they're like gold dust.

It's always a shame that datadiscs like these seem to get the short straw in terms of preservation. Are you planning on distributing these files once you've done all the scans and such?

[Farb]

Yes, they will be ultimately be distributed as part of the Atari Software Preservation initiative. See this thread:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/234684-atari-8-bit-software-preservation-initiative/page-10?hl=%2Bpreservation&do=findComment&comment=3426231

[olavese@online.no]

Not sure which I have copies of, but you can check:

 

http://pokeysoft.no/games/atari/a8str.htm

 

Search for : Flight Simulator II Scenery

 

They are called LA, Ch, NY, SF Star, Seattle Fa, Tokyo Osak

 

Haven't booted them in a looong time, so do not remember if they are any of the disks you need

[Farb]

Thanks, olavese. Unfortunately, these look like cracked images as they don't have copy protection. I'm interested in originals for preservation.

[sup8pdct]

I thought the scenery disks were one thing i would never see in my lifetime. Good to see. :)

 

 

James

[Mclaneinc]

If anyone has these originals please consider lending them to Farbs team who are 100% trustworthy as other lenders will vouch, they are doing a great job in preserving software that WILL end up giving in to bit rot eventually, to get dumps of the originals is the ultimate way to preserve them...

Edited February 8, 2016 by Mclaneinc

[+orpheuswaking]

I believe I have loaned all of the ones I have, but I recently got a big package I need to go through that may have some new ones in. However I cannot vouch for the quality of the media, the two disks I've already pulled from the box were not in the best shape