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8-Bit Software: A Preservation Effort


SoulBuster

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1 hour ago, SoulBuster said:

Why do you need a Flux level dump of an unprotected disk?  An ATR will give you an identical disk. After all it is a sector copy.

Not exactly. We want to preserve the low level details of the disk, such as the sector interleave and the track skew. These details are lost in a simple ATR image. Many original disks have duplication signatures that we also want to preserve if they are available. Lastly, some disks seem to be without copy protection but they really are, such as some Microprose releases.

 

Of course, an ATR image is better than nothing.

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6 minutes ago, ijor said:

Not exactly. We want to preserve the low level details of the disk, such as the sector interleave and the track skew. These details are lost in a simple ATR image. Many original disks have duplication signatures that we also want to preserve if they are available. Lastly, some disks seem to be without copy protection but they really are, such as some Microprose releases.

 

Of course, an ATR image is better than nothing.

I will go back and take .SCP of the original disks I have done already.  I will have to split them open and flip the media for the B side as I do not have a flippy drive.

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All Flux disk images have been added to all original disk posts.  Any one that needs the flux images will need to go through the thread again to get them.

 

All new posts will have the flux images included along with the ATX and ATR versions in the same zip.

 

Note: I am slicing open the disks and getting a proper index hole version of b sides on all originals by flipping the media.  These disks are going to be bad in a few years anyway.

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15 hours ago, SoulBuster said:

I will have to split them open and flip the media for the B side as I do not have a flippy drive.

 

Ouch ... May be it is a bit too much to do that on every single flippy disk. I would say, if the title is not very rare, it is not copy protected, and it is marked as preserved already on the a8preservation database, then a simple ATR for the flippy side might be enough.

 

It is, of course, completely up to you. We will certainly appreciate the images. I was just feeling a bit guilty for encouraging to do that massive work.

 

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4 minutes ago, ijor said:

 

Ouch ... May be it is a bit too much to do that on every single flippy disk. I would say, if the title is not very rare, it is not copy protected, and it is marked as preserved already on the a8preservation database, then a simple ATR for the flippy side might be enough.

 

It is, of course, completely up to you. We will certainly appreciate the images. I was just feeling a bit guilty for encouraging to do that massive work.

 

It takes 30 seconds longer to slice it open and flip the media. No big deal.

 

Have you noticed that some of these Antics have two holes already?

 

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4 hours ago, Larry said:

@ijor-

How reliable is a flux level dump in terms of being able to reproduce a working floppy?  Is it 100%? Or are multiple attempts sometimes needed?  Just curious.

I"m not sure I understand the question. Unless the disk was damaged, a single dump should be enough. Multiple dumps are usually required for verification that the data is authentic (the disk was not modified), or in some cases to recover damaged disks. There might be software, or even hardware, complications to actually write back the image to a physical floppy, but that is a different issue.

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2 minutes ago, SoulBuster said:

Have you noticed that some of these Antics have two holes already?

 

Honestly, no :) I didn't note until now that you mentioned it. But, unfortunately, I don't think this is very common for most other publishers.

 

May be Antic did it in purpose to support the Chinon mechanism that appeared in later XF551 units. Without a second index hole, those drives can't access the flippy side at all.

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