toddtmw Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 Okay. I'm going to say it. I was kind of a pirate back in my Atari days. I used to collect games to collect them, and didn't play them nearly as much time as I spent collecting and organizing them. I kept all of my games catalogged in a (Pirated) copy of Synfile. (A friend had a Happy 810.) Unfortunately, I got rid of the disks when I was downsizing to move about 7 years ago (went into the trash, I regret it to this day). However, I was digging through some old boxes and found a printout of my Synfile list! It's a nice retrospective of what teenage me thought of these games. (Apologies in advance if any of these games were created by anoyone on here and I gave it a bad rating or bad description.) Anyway, I've had fun looking this over and thought others on here might also. (I'm very tempted to try to recreate thes disks exactly like this, just to see if I can...) (Or not...) Atari Software List.pdf Does anyone else have a similar list from back in the day? -Todd 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivop Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 (edited) I was recently made aware of this site by F#Ready: http://gotpapers.untergrund.net/ This looks like a perfect submission I'm considering scanning all the letters I got in the eighties and nineties. They're still in a box on the attic of my parent's house. Unless Silverfish got to them first... Also looking through my floppies if any letters were written on the sleeves. Edited March 23, 2019 by ivop 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 I didn't have a list like that but I remember assembling both themed and "stuffed" floppies trying to use up all of the 707 sectors. I even manually modified a floppy with a disc editor and put one sector that wouldn't fit into one of the unused directory sectors. I still have them in a floppy filing drawer with neatly typed numbered labels. I recently found a long writeup probably typed during a boring night duty and explaining various matters Atari (in German) which accompanied a stack of discs a fellow soldier in another garrison which I never met in person had sent to me to be filled with stuff for his newly acquired Atari (I don't recall the details but I think one of our drivers met him on a trip and knew I was into Ataris) - it's getting increasingly hard to believe that and how we met people of like interests before Internet (and even BBS). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 However, I was digging through some old boxes and found a printout of my Synfile list! It's a nice retrospective of what teenage me thought of these games. (Apologies in advance if any of these games were created by anoyone on here and I gave it a bad rating or bad description.) Anyway, I've had fun looking this over and thought others on here might also. (I'm very tempted to try to recreate thes disks exactly like this, just to see if I can...) (Or not...) Atari Software List.pdf Does anyone else have a similar list from back in the day? -Todd I'm sorry, I don't think I can take you seriously after seeing you rate Wavy Navy with a C. :-) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 23, 2019 Author Share Posted March 23, 2019 I'm sorry, I don't think I can take you seriously after seeing you rate Wavy Navy with a C. :-) Hey. 20-year-old me had some standards. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted March 23, 2019 Share Posted March 23, 2019 I'm sorry, I don't think I can take you seriously after seeing you rate Wavy Navy with a C. :-) Well, he rated Shamus, M.U.L.E. and Archon A, so his judgment is not completely off. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 24, 2019 Author Share Posted March 24, 2019 Wavy Navy was just a stupid Space Invaders wannabe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted March 24, 2019 Share Posted March 24, 2019 Wavy Navy was just a stupid Space Invaders wannabe. SHOTS FIRED!!! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted March 24, 2019 Share Posted March 24, 2019 Wavy Navy was just a stupid Space Invaders wannabe. I think part of the reason is that you had the pirated version, so the helicopters never fired. Try the version here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/227376-interesting-issue-with-a-wavy-navy-atr/?p=3026370 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted March 24, 2019 Share Posted March 24, 2019 My dad also had what seemed like 1000+ disks of pirated software, (long gone) and also had it all databased in SynFile+ (which I do have!) ... Took 2 double density disks, and was unusable without 2 drives, otherwise it's endless swapping. It's on my to-do list of disks to archive to ATR. Would be cool to print it out. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted March 24, 2019 Share Posted March 24, 2019 (edited) Well done Todd for publishing the list, many were pirates back in the day, I've never hid that I was one and surfed both sides of the fence. I never made lists tho, for me personally I'm one of the most disorganised folks you could meet but in a job situation I was spot on, odd the way it was split. I'm going to have to read this as its great to see what a younger person thought at the time, my thoughts towards some games has changed but I was never in to sims then and I rarely even boot one now...No change really.. Thanks for the list Todd, its a saved memory which I love.. Cheers... As for your thoughts on Wavy Navy, you Galley Slave!!! (lowest rank) I love that game, so addictive and such a nice variant on Space Invaders clones....2nd thing I did with the game after hours of try to get great scores was to jump in to Omnimon and cheat it (boo hiss) Edited March 24, 2019 by Mclaneinc 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 24, 2019 Author Share Posted March 24, 2019 To be fair, I hade like 10 pages of games to rate. I probably only played Wavy Navy for like 2 minutes. Like I said, I was much more into collecting than actually playing the games. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted March 24, 2019 Share Posted March 24, 2019 I was the opposite, although when it got to the Amiga time I just felt I was collecting little blue and black squares (the disks) with the 8bits I was just loving to play but because I had so much of everything on hand I never had enough time to play it all. Thankfully during the Amiga days I stopped all the collecting and FINALLY got back to playing.....Your average good software buyer just does not realise the amount of stuff that came through the pirate software channels, even back then.... Databasing it all, far too much time needed... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 24, 2019 Author Share Posted March 24, 2019 Ive actually started recreating this in syn file. Im almost done with the first page. (I needed to do this so I can sort it by disk and start recreating my library.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 24, 2019 Author Share Posted March 24, 2019 I'm up to the C's! I'm cheating. I'm doing it in Altirra. Better keyboard, plus I can make a quick copy of my data disk every page so I don't lose it all if there is a data issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 24, 2019 Author Share Posted March 24, 2019 This is the picture I mean to attach. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted March 24, 2019 Share Posted March 24, 2019 I think part of the reason is that you had the pirated version, so the helicopters never fired. Try the version here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/227376-interesting-issue-with-a-wavy-navy-atr/?p=3026370 Oh that reminds me. I need to add the fixed Wavy Navy XEX to my disk set, (Kheffington's set with some but not nearly enough updates) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 25, 2019 Author Share Posted March 25, 2019 I dood it! Here is the first draft of my retyping of the whole list into Synfile+! retyped games list.pdf I need to do some proofreading and stuff, but it's a good start. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 25, 2019 Author Share Posted March 25, 2019 if anoyone wants to see the data disk, here it is. Synfile Data Disksingled.atr 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 27, 2019 Author Share Posted March 27, 2019 My dad also had what seemed like 1000+ disks of pirated software, (long gone) and also had it all databased in SynFile+ (which I do have!) ... Took 2 double density disks, and was unusable without 2 drives, otherwise it's endless swapping. It's on my to-do list of disks to archive to ATR. Would be cool to print it out. That's more than I had. I only had ~500 games on ~50 disks and I thought I was the Elite WAREZ guy. Little did I know.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted March 27, 2019 Share Posted March 27, 2019 That's more than I had. I only had ~500 games on ~50 disks and I thought I was the Elite WAREZ guy. Little did I know.... All the more reason for me to dig out and image those synfile disks, to see how good my childhood memory was haha. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 27, 2019 Author Share Posted March 27, 2019 All the more reason for me to dig out and image those synfile disks, to see how good my childhood memory was haha. I'd love to see it!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted March 28, 2019 Share Posted March 28, 2019 Top work Todd, I believe all this stuff is as exciting as the games and programmes, it brings a 'real person' touch to it...Even us old Mega Warez pirates (Arrr Jim) had an awkward but important part to play in it all back then. Obviously at the time back then it would have been seen to be an obvious bad part, hey no one argues that piracy was wrong, but historically the piracy and scene allowed for lots of alternate development ie Happy Boards etc which these days are as much part of the Atari folklore as all the other stuff. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted March 29, 2019 Share Posted March 29, 2019 Alright, I found the disks, and imaged them last night! (Imaged in both senses of the word, first in the 1050, then the flatbed scanner haha) along with another dozen or so... yeesh time consuming! But nice to have those pictures for preservation / memory jogging going forward... and my dad will get a kick out of seeing this... Last Backup July 1987... I remember a 132 columns wide printout floating around the office for ages with lots of handwritten notes of new high scores, potentially many not on this.... and I'm only noted on one game I can't even remember. Anywho... This evenings chore was re-learning how to deal with this unwieldy 2-disk database in Syn-File+... Boot program, swap data disk 1 in, open file, insert data disk 2, then disk 1, ... It's alive! Verdict is 1580 records. This includes multiple titles per disk for binary loads, so some extra work to do later to see number of actual disks... Record 1 showing the form layout and fields.... Hey I never knew my dad had an Archiver... I thought he only had a Happy 810 then Happy 1050. Will have to ask him about that. Then try listing it off to screen... columns are pretty wide so not much fits... First attempt was to re-index it by disk #... seemed to die into a never ending processing loop reading 1 sector every minute... reboot since it's already indexed alphabetically! in summary... BAD idea.. I started over! OK, then I tried to print a report to a disk file on disk 2 (where there is some disk space) but after a few records it asks for disk 2 in drive 1... that's not going to work since it will then try to write the output to the disk in drive 2 that is now in drive 1... Start over again! Now write output to a NEW DD disk in drive 2... and then endured about 30 minutes of manual disk swapping disk 1 and 2 into drive 1 while it writes the output to a file in drive 2... All the while cursing that it takes 6 mouse clicks to swap disks between drives in Altirra... (A few less with alt-shift D) and... I could have SWORN this could print accessing both disks simultaneously without swapping... Started over yet again! Finally I found and tried Altirra's P: printer capture device, and let it print a report to there... First it asks for disk 1 in drive 1... then disk 2 in drive 1 (oh no I'm thinking, not again!) But then as long as disk 1 is then in drive 2 and disk 2 is in drive 1, it will keep going accessing back and forth with no disk swaps! YAY! It starts spitting out entries to the printer output about 1 every 2-3 seconds... kick in warp speed in Altirra and the whole list is dumped in a matter of minutes. Sample from RAW output: PROGRAMS DSK# PROGRAM COMPANY #K'S C/D FORMAT SD TYPE DOC BACKUP MY HIGH SCORE OTHER HIGH SCORE ---- -------------------------- ---------------- ---- ---- ------ -- ------------- --- -------- ---------------- ---------------- 8 A.E. BRODERBUND 48 DISK BOOT 2 ARCADE NO ARCHIVER 22,800 8 ABC COMPILER ? MONARCH 48 DISK BOOT 1 UTILITY NO ARCHIVER 8 ABRACADABRA ? TG SOFTWARE 16 BOTH BINARY ARCADE NO DOS 20,590 LEVEL 8 8 ABUSE ? ELECTRONIC ARTS 48 DISK BOOT 1 GAME NO HAPPY 8 ACEY DEUCY ? EASTERN HOUSE 16 BOTH BINARY CARD NO DOS $5,087 8 ACHILLES ? BEYOND 48 BOTH BINARY ARCADE NO DOS SILVER METAL 8 ACTION BIKER ? ??? 48 DISK BOOT 1 ARCADE NO DOS 45,499 8 ACTION QUEST ? JV SOFTWARE 8 BOTH BINARY ARCADE NO DOS 8 ACTION! ? OSS 24 DISK BANK16 1 LANGUAGE YES BANK16 8 ACTION! DEMO'S ? ??? 48 DISK BOOT 1 DEMONSTRATION NO DOS <snip> And the view from Altirra after the print job was complete. (Atari Attract mode kicked in pretty quickly lol running in warp speed! lol) Alright, now for cleanup... Copy to notepad.... replaced odd " ? " trailers on some name fields - not sure why those are there, they don't show in the program, some kind of end-of-field delimiter? Then corrected double carriage returns on titles that had 'other' high scores. Import into Excel. paste to column A, run Text-To-Columns. Set manual spaced delimiters, set column A to 'TEXT' so it doesn't try to convert some disk ID's to scientific notation. Freeze top row, set courier font, auto-set column widths to maximum entry, and we're looking pretty! SO... using excel's 'remove duplicates' function on the "DSK#" column, it is reduced to 194 unique values.... which implies 194 physical disks (at least that were catalogued). Still not a tiny number! Scrolling around in Excel/Notepad so seamlessly through the whole list after the pain to get the data entered and printed back then from a 200K database... wow new respect for the data processing power we take for granted today. Surprises me he had some titles that I was completely unaware of at the time that only discovered recently... "ARCHIVER 1050 (FOR HAPPY)" ... the fabled "HAPPY CUSTOMIZER 3.2" that is not archived anywhere online that I (and others in other threads) would love to find! As a kid, after he sold off this collection to a friend, I still had my own 8-bit with a small set of disks, and for a while I had a chance to copy disks from this archive when visiting them... but of course I would focus on the games back then. So.. Attached is a ZIP of both my cleaned up .TXT and a formatted Excel .XLSX in "Programs.zip", and finally for posterity's sake, attached are the ATR's you can check out with SynFile for yourself if you desire. (Along with I guess a cracked SynFile+ 130XE version, because it runs just fine from an ATR image) Cheers! Thanks @toddtmw for the inspiration to finally excavate this! PS: In my closet adventures I also found an original SynFile (non XE version) manual & disk, and that one boots up identifying itself as 1.01, 64K detected (on a 512K 800XL). Has 1.01 been preserved, or does it need a verification image in the preservation project? The 130XE version reports as 1.02. Programs Data Disk #1 (S1-SynFile Data).atr Programs Data Disk #1 (S2-SynFile+ 130).atr Programs Data Disk #2 (S1-SynFile Data).atr Programs.zip 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 29, 2019 Author Share Posted March 29, 2019 Wow. Thats a lot. Ill post a more comprehensive reply when I have more time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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