Hard disk adapted game compilations new policy

[+SoulBuster]

I threw up in my mouth a little when I read all this.

 

You got some good points of why you are doing it, but it still tastes like shit. 

 

Some people won't mind it, but you are going to turn sour a bunch of other people and that may reflect on the items you did create that you have for sale, as in loss of sales.  Is it really worth it?

 

You are the only one I have heard of in these times that is charging a fee for labor while everyone else is happy to give their labor to the community for free.

 

I am glad I was downloading all along and have all 1400+ games on my hard drive already.

[wietze]

What can I say, some people really act like d*cks. But usually these things happens when money gets involved. 

 

I wonder if I should not offer my downloaded game libraries up for download myself; for free of course...

Edited July 16, 2021 by wietze

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Loss of sales already happened - especially around this year start. Including hard disk driver SW, ACSI-CF adapter. Surely, important factor was covid, loss of jobs, incoming. But there are other things too - and I would just call it overall moral crysis. Selling my actual SW illegally, or giving illegal copies of it with HW.  So, yeah, money is involved for sure.

 

I like how those disgusted with this my move ignoring to say anything about mentioned Marcer's DVD sales (with games mostly), and that was about 10 years ago - when life was better in this region, and I think overall in Western part.

 

All 'arguments' saying that nobody charges "fee for labor" are not correct - there is not only labor involved. All it needs money - to maintain equipment operative, and old computers need more and more  repair. Then need to pay for hosting of all those files, and other.  1440 games need over 1 GB space, only in single copy. With additional compilations of all them that space goes up to 4 GB (when they are ZIPped).

And it is trend now to make money with movie downloads - if no charge on site with it, will be on file share site - because size, speed restrictions, so must pay for premium mode, for instance.

 

And let's look about time invested in this 1400 adaptations:

Who other makes presentation YT videos of all games numerous with which dealt ? I don't know other one who made over 1000 such YT videos.

Here is how it goes with 1 game: 

First need to check game somehow - is it really good, worth of dealing with. That includes finding good source - and I prefer STX images, because they are more reliable than cracks, and often are easier to extract original files - because used diverse packings in menu disks, spoiled pictures (with added crack messages - what barbarianism ! And other problems).  Most of smartheads think that copy protection is hardest part, but that's not correct. Hardest part is understanding custom floppy code.

Time needed to get original files or images of floppies if there are no regular files may be from 1 hour to multiple days.

Then need to make launcher, code what redirects floppy reads to hard disk, optional trainers, game state save support. Another couple days in harder cases. And then - testing.  That's the part what others can do too, and I insisted on it - with smaller success. Far from what could community do - and yeah, that's when man start thinking about - hey, why I doing this for free at all ?

When it works fine, it is time to put it online. In my case it includes taking screenshots, converting  them, making separated DL page with some descriptions, help text for every game separately - and there is YT video embedded too. Ah yes, making YT video costs another hour per game in average - it needs preparation, copy to Flash card used with real Atari (Mega STE mostly in my case), then doing capture of it's video/audio output - with another PC, what has good quality Pinnacle TV card - such things are not manufactured anymore, and I can not use that card with newer Windows versions.  Quality capture is done with special codec, and it is about 600-800 MB per minute. So, needs conversion to other codec, format, with good compression (x264 today) - then it will be some 10 MB/per minute, good to upload to YT - and that takes another 10 minutes for 1 video. Then need to upload game files too on host, adding new items with data to MySQL database ...

All in all, all this steps for 1 game take about 4-5 hours in average. What would be about 6000 hours for all it. Not counted development of supporting library, TOS in ROM files in it.  Time would be much more if I'd not use Steem Debugger and having not lot of practice with it. That makes most boring and exhausting process of tracing game code much faster and more efficient.

I don't regret all that time spent with it - surely much better than watching TV, sitting and drinking in bars, or other time killing activities.

What hearts is overall attitude of most Atari ST users in all this years - ignorance, not reading instructions, advice. Completely misjudging how hard all this is - calling it crack, conversion and similar.   And I made some game improvements, which took weeks in effective time - for 1 game. 

And what is result ? Can see it well in this thread - all it is compared with putting together bunch of images, ZIPs, done mostly by others. Often even without asking for permission, any testing, checking.  Nice example is Son Shu Shi - it was online in diverse floppy images, by diverse crews (but all based on same crack), and nobody played it farther. Or more likely, some played, but did not take care to report problem, or just nobody listened to them. Like morons from AL, who will not put there info that it is bad image, just because I said so. And it is not me who discovered problem, but one of people who played my adaptation - then I spent bunch of hours to trace problem down (hey, another hours) .

 

Finally, probably main reason why I went on charging is obvious lack of interest for universal Atari ST SW online database - recent thread here about. I gave it up - obviously community is far from understanding idea, benefits of it. I dare to say that I see many things wider than average people. And  especially diverse crews, who act like they are best in  this in most cases. And even not hiding it. Well, those who think that 10 Euros is too much - nobody forces you to pay it. Hate me as much as you like. I'm sure I doing the right thing - and in this idiotic times right thing is often not so usual.

I never was much for freeware - and those who produce it, talking loud against commercial SW are not so good programmers in fact. Linux is good example about it - all best distros went commercial after some time - I used RedHat, Mandriva - they are now commercial. 

There is people who don't need to care about money - they have it. Like from daddy, grandma or whatever - they just should not dictate to others how to distribute their SW work. They have no clue about how average (and most people) living.

 

Wietze wrote: "I wonder if I should not offer my downloaded game libraries up for download myself; for free of course... "

Sicherlich, Herr wietze - you are who should decide what and how  with other people's work, because asking little money is so selfish, dirty.

No, asking from others to do things for free is selfish, and at the end counter productive.

 

[+DarkLord]

Just curious and I'd really like to see the responses to the following...

 

Hypothetically, if Peter dropped the set price and started asking for

donations instead, (like Marcer did with his DVD v2.0 and 3.0) sets,

would your criticism go away?

 

If yes, would you donate and how much would you give for the years

of work he's done?

 

Thanks (really just curious)...

 

[+CyranoJ]

6 minutes ago, DarkLord said:

Just curious and I'd really like to see the responses to the following...

 

Hypothetically, if Peter dropped the set price and started asking for

donations instead, (like Marcer did with his DVD v2.0 and 3.0) sets,

would your criticism go away?

 

If yes, would you donate and how much would you give for the years

of work he's done?

 

Thanks (really just curious)...

 

Would that include royalties on the ULS code? Because its really odd how he 'discovered' how to do these just after I released the source for that... and that his first few have byte for byte identical sections....

 

How about a blank partition image with his driver on it for $10? I mean there's effort to make that as well.....

[+SoulBuster]

8 minutes ago, DarkLord said:

Just curious and I'd really like to see the responses to the following...

 

Hypothetically, if Peter dropped the set price and started asking for

donations instead, (like Marcer did with his DVD v2.0 and 3.0) sets,

would your criticism go away?

 

If yes, would you donate and how much would you give for the years

of work he's done?

 

Thanks (really just curious)...

 

That would make a difference definitely.

 

As you can see I am a subscriber to AtariAge. I get nothing (for me anyway) by subscribing other than being able to edit posts within 30 days.  The reason I do it  because I enjoy coming here and I want to see it stay around.

 

Would I donate, yes.  I have done so on other projects that ask only for donations.

 

How much, probably $20 or so.

 

@Peter.  I did not read your large explanation, because frankly none of that would change the way I feel on how you went about this.  It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth no matter what the justification.

[Showaddywaddy]

Not wanting to fan the flames.  But all our HD patches are free and always will be. This has always been our ethos from way back in 1987 as Was(not Was) / LSD through 1988-1991 as Automation to finally D-Bug. 
 

Shw

Edited July 16, 2021 by Showaddywaddy

[Goochman]

Not that anyone was asking for my opinion but here it is:

 

1.  Pulling back after these have pretty much been out there is never a good strategy.  Anyone who has these files can easily rehost them for free.

2.  Setting up a donationware format would work better - not everyone will pay, but at this point you most likely might get donations from folks who already have the sets

3.  Playing off #2, you can setup a paywall for future updates to the sets.  A one time access fee which you are talking about sounds reasonable

4.  For any $$ to be sent to you needs to be frictionless.  Im not sure you have a commonly used pay application at this time.  I understand changes to Paypal, GooglePay, etc... have caused problems but if you could get on a pay platform which most people use it would be alot easier for someone to throw $10 your way for your efforts.  Having to create a new pay account or deal with foreign electronic payments is a stopper for most folks here

 

Thanks for your efforts to help the community and good luck with your fee system

[wietze]

1 hour ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Wietze wrote: "I wonder if I should not offer my downloaded game libraries up for download myself; for free of course... "

Sicherlich, Herr wietze - you are who should decide what and how  with other people's work, because asking little money is so selfish, dirty.

No, asking from others to do things for free is selfish, and at the end counter productive.

 

You should do whatever you want, Im a big proponent of people doing what they want. As such I also like to do what I want :). If you see the need to ask payment for your efforts; I could see the need to just pay for the efforts and subsequently distribute what I've puchased for free...

 

Im also a big proponent of speaking one's mind if one wants to. And I wanted to, and thus I did. But to be concise, I never asked you to do something for free. Don't turn around the words I spoke there, thats just mean!

 

My principle for contributing to the Atari community is because I love doing so; and it seems to be in line with a lot of other wonderful people that are involved in the scene, that contribute to the scene following this same ethos. And as such all my efforts will be from my own motivation and will never involve any charge, whatever the time spent on it .

 

I think the main question I really have here is; do you need money; or do you want to charge for your stuff out some principle? For me this didn't really get clear.

Edited July 16, 2021 by wietze

[ParanoidLittleMan]

10 hours ago, wietze said:

You should do whatever you want, Im a big proponent of people doing what they want. As such I also like to do what I want :). If you see the need to ask payment for your efforts; I could see the need to just pay for the efforts and subsequently distribute what I've puchased for free...

 

Im also a big proponent of speaking one's mind if one wants to. And I wanted to, and thus I did. But to be concise, I never asked you to do something for free. Don't turn around the words I spoke there, thats just mean!

 

My principle for contributing to the Atari community is because I love doing so; and it seems to be in line with a lot of other wonderful people that are involved in the scene, that contribute to the scene following this same ethos. And as such all my efforts will be from my own motivation and will never involve any charge, whatever the time spent on it .

 

I think the main question I really have here is; do you need money; or do you want to charge for your stuff out some principle? For me this didn't really get clear.

I was talking  generally - and it was some kind of discovery during typing reply/post - to rephrase - I never said that you asked to do it for free. Although, idea to host what you DL-ed is just bad.  Like you will do some justice with it. No, you just  don't know enough about whole thing to be able to make right decision. I specifically ask to not do hosting of my files, but putting links to origin site.  Months before decided to do charging. Because hosting without knowing enough about it is just not right way. From multiple reasons (will not repeat details).

 

Argument about contributing is really pathetic. It is not money, paying or not the main problem in all this.  And never say never ...

 I said that will never go over 1200 games, and I'm now over 1400. 

 

Do I need money - yes. Do I charge out some principle - yes. Actually, attitude of most people, especially those active in forums is main reason.

They don't listen, even after asking for help - I saw some really cretenic responses, just because they did not get reply in fashion they expected.

More in next reply ...

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

10 hours ago, Goochman said:

4.  For any $$ to be sent to you needs to be frictionless.  Im not sure you have a commonly used pay application at this time.  I understand changes to Paypal, GooglePay, etc... have caused problems but if you could get on a pay platform which most people use it would be alot easier for someone to throw $10 your way for your efforts.  Having to create a new pay account or deal with foreign electronic payments is a stopper for most folks here

 

Thanks for your efforts to help the community and good luck with your fee system

PayPal is dead for me since begin of 2020. What might be not entirely their fault. There are signs that Hu government, some powerful bankers enforced some changes in their policy, and that resulted in mess. And dead account.

And I don't care for PayPal anymore - they raised fees already in 2019 a lot. I have now much better online money transfer service.

And sorry to say this, but what is foreign for you is not it for me. USA is not center of this planet. And even not country from which I have most costumers. Despite that, plenty of people from USA is satisfied with (transfer)wise, and can do payment with minimal fees (to Europe too) - less than with PayPal or banks. 

Free just sounds better. Fair charge is real thing. Don't believe in advertisements - you are not fish.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

11 hours ago, SoulBuster said:

 

@Peter.  I did not read your large explanation, because frankly none of that would change the way I feel on how you went about this.  It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth no matter what the justification.

Surely, you know all it best, just because you feel the things. Should skip posting too - if nothing else, it is not fair to post comments without reading what is written. But that's something very common in this shallow times. And I don't give a shit about bad taste in your mouth. Imagine this: I had lot of bad taste after reading so many shallow posts in this forum. But that's really stupid to write about it, and that way.

[wietze]

Dude, sounds like you got issues (its not me, its the forum, the world, the other people; generally speaking, of course). And Im afraid I cant help you with those.

 

Good luck with your stuff.

[Justin Payne]

@ParanoidLittleMan
Just wanted to understand something you said. Did you said you created YouTube videos for each game? I don't think I've seen these YT video and, yes, they would take time but are they necessary? It seems like they might be a bonus to have but I wouldn't think it would be something you'd add to the reasons why you'd want to charge for the compelations since they aren't necessary to have.
As far as "Why am I doing this"? That's something only you can answer but I can think of several reasons.

1. Making the software run from other media besides floppies. Heck, when I got my hdd back in the day, I dumped as much as I could only that thing but, as we all know, games weren't, generally, one of those things. I think what you've done by making this happen a huge contribution to the community. I don't know, however, if that effort is lessened by the advent of the Gotex drives but for some of us who have Falcon's (Which only allow for one floppy, if we chose to keep the internal floppy intact, putting all of the games on HDD is very desirable.
2. Notoriety. Yes, some people are motivated by the admiration of others.
3. Personal Challenges. Some people like the technical challenges that might come with a certain effort. I'm guessing this process has some of those technical puzzles that might interest someone like yourself.
4. Just for the love of retro. Heck, you might just do it because software makes the hardware and having another way to access these games with keep that community alive longer.
5. Cash. Well, we all like cash. I don't know how much you'll make off of this effort but maybe it'll be enough to keep up this effort of converting games.

I don't tend to judge people for asking for compensation for the work they put into things. I might question what they think that work is worth, and I feel that it's not unusual for people to share feedback but in the end, that's your decision to make. I do a less-than-regularly-released podcast. My reasons were personal and not financial or for the adulation from fans....because I don't think it's good enough to get either ? BUT what I can tell you is the effort is extensive. Now, if at some point in time I completely lost my mind and thought I should start charging people for this effort, that's within my right and I'd expect some people who would not approve of this decision.

If you're finding the effort isn't worth your time, another option is to teach others how you do such things. Since you said you do YouTube videos, a conversion tutorial would be very helpful and would take some of the work off of your shoulders.

[Tillek]

6 hours ago, Goochman said:

Not that anyone was asking for my opinion but here it is:

 

1.  Pulling back after these have pretty much been out there is never a good strategy.  Anyone who has these files can easily rehost them for free.

2.  Setting up a donationware format would work better - not everyone will pay, but at this point you most likely might get donations from folks who already have the sets

3.  Playing off #2, you can setup a paywall for future updates to the sets.  A one time access fee which you are talking about sounds reasonable

4.  For any $$ to be sent to you needs to be frictionless.  Im not sure you have a commonly used pay application at this time.  I understand changes to Paypal, GooglePay, etc... have caused problems but if you could get on a pay platform which most people use it would be alot easier for someone to throw $10 your way for your efforts.  Having to create a new pay account or deal with foreign electronic payments is a stopper for most folks here

 

Thanks for your efforts to help the community and good luck with your fee system

Well, technically, DarkLord kinda did ask for your opinion (and everyone else's) especially regarding thoughts on the "donations" part, so you're cool.

 

[Atariforce]

On 7/16/2021 at 9:01 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

This is ridiculous, how some people doing this strictly on personal base. Of course AL member did not react on my note about Marcer's selling of games on DVDs, or his using of other people work without permission. No, asking 10 Euros for making available and playable 1400 old games on modern storage is something most immoral thing on this planet .

And to add that Atariforce aka cb is D-Bug fan (hey, are they those who sold pirated games on floppies before Internet time, and name of crew was automation ? ) .  Total clear case of double standards, personal bias.  Please, write here more, embarass self more with repeating your idiotic comments.

Interesting that now we have new books about whole piracy scene, mostly years when Atari ST, Amiga were well sold. Are pirates presented as some heroes in them ? I guess yes, in big part. And of course, as it is always, they think that did useful thing for community.

Well, the truth is always somewhere between - saying that every pirate copy means 1 sale of SW less is overstatement - surely those who bought pirate copy did it because: was no other way (like Eastern Eu. countries), could not afford to buy original for like 100 DEM (I paid Microprose F1 GP 120 DEM in 1992, for instance) . 

 

My comment about AL advert posted above: yes, all those who did something for AL are super self sacrificing heroes (like today medical workers fighting against covid 'to the last gasp' - and we know the result now - there will be more waves, more vaccinations, more money earned by industry ...) . They worked countless hours, while someone who made self more games than all them together wants only money for games which are made by others ?  

Piracy is piracy even if they don't ask money for it. The point is not so much in earning money with it, but in harming legal sales of SW . Or movies, music etc ..

I apologize to all SW, game authors for doing this - keeping their old games still alive. For making corrections, improvements in games (what is btw. usually forbidden, there are notes in some cases, like 'only unmodified files' ) . Well, there were actually couple cases that authors said thank you to me for it.

 

 

... To answer Darklord's question, I don't think it is just a matter of money, but more a matter of consequences. He (PLM) can sell whatever game he wants, I actually don't care. But who would ever be motivated to release new software (specifically games) for free when they see it might end up behind a paywall just because someone spent an hour patching it? Because it is safe to assume that those free games he admits selling are probably all those fairly recent free games that were on his website, released by currently active people. Can you imagine the demotivation? That's how you kill an already rather small scene.

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

21 hours ago, Justin Payne said:

@ParanoidLittleMan
Just wanted to understand something you said. Did you said you created YouTube videos for each game? I don't think I've seen these YT video and, yes, they would take time but are they necessary? It seems like they might be a bonus to have but I wouldn't think it would be something you'd add to the reasons why you'd want to charge for the compelations since they aren't necessary to have.
As far as "Why am I doing this"? That's something only you can answer but I can think of several reasons.

1. Making the software run from other media besides floppies. Heck, when I got my hdd back in the day, I dumped as much as I could only that thing but, as we all know, games weren't, generally, one of those things. I think what you've done by making this happen a huge contribution to the community. I don't know, however, if that effort is lessened by the advent of the Gotex drives but for some of us who have Falcon's (Which only allow for one floppy, if we chose to keep the internal floppy intact, putting all of the games on HDD is very desirable.
2. Notoriety. Yes, some people are motivated by the admiration of others.
3. Personal Challenges. Some people like the technical challenges that might come with a certain effort. I'm guessing this process has some of those technical puzzles that might interest someone like yourself.
4. Just for the love of retro. Heck, you might just do it because software makes the hardware and having another way to access these games with keep that community alive longer.
5. Cash. Well, we all like cash. I don't know how much you'll make off of this effort but maybe it'll be enough to keep up this effort of converting games.

I don't tend to judge people for asking for compensation for the work they put into things. I might question what they think that work is worth, and I feel that it's not unusual for people to share feedback but in the end, that's your decision to make. I do a less-than-regularly-released podcast. My reasons were personal and not financial or for the adulation from fans....because I don't think it's good enough to get either ? BUT what I can tell you is the effort is extensive. Now, if at some point in time I completely lost my mind and thought I should start charging people for this effort, that's within my right and I'd expect some people who would not approve of this decision.

If you're finding the effort isn't worth your time, another option is to teach others how you do such things. Since you said you do YouTube videos, a conversion tutorial would be very helpful and would take some of the work off of your shoulders.

There is YT  video embedded (so watchable with single click without opening other page) on over 1000 game DL pages. It is hard to not notice it, at least  with any modern browser.

Are YT videos necessary ? Well, I would 'answer' - is playing games necessary ?   Are screenshots from games necessary ? My idea was that it helps in presenting game a lot, especially for those not knowing game at all. And even someone like can see something what never heard about, even 35 years later than it went public. 

In any case, YT videos are for sure not involved in this charging. And if someone thinks that asking only couple bucks would be more appropriate - the reason of going on round amount is mostly because transfer charges.

Why I'm doing this ? Because I dealt with computer games since 1983 - Sinclair Spectrum.  Doing modifications in them for easier start was since very beginning - like faster tape loader (turbo load) . Even did state save to tape, so could continue from that pos. - then faster tape save/load was very welcome, because 48 KB with original tape speed means about 5 minutes.

Atari ST with it's floppy based games was some kind of challenge - instead single parted games loading from disk during game play, diverse copy protections etc.

 

1. Again Sinclair Spectrum:  I made floppy adapter for it. So, first what did was to transfer all valuable SW, games to floppies.  And i wet fast, mostly because 99% of it is single parted. So, in 1991-1992 I had over 600 games on floppies.  Next step was adding hard disk to Spectrum - 1993. And of course transferring games from floppies to it. I still have that 60 MB 2.5 inch operative - mostly because not using it much. But I did very simple CF adapter for spectrum around 2004, when they arrived on market - 8 bit mode of it helped a lot.

Must say that with Atari ST moving games from floppy to hard disk was about 100 harder (not exaggeration), because all different loading system, multiple files, floppies, then TOS version related problems bad DOCs related problems (mostly user input related), etc.

Then making it work on Falcon, TT was extra work - what I forgot to mention in previous longer post here.

Comparing running of games from hard disk (now rather Flash cards, so I will use abbrev. FC in further text here) with running them from some HW floppy emulator is not good idea. Yes, both use some mass storage media - FC in this years mostly, but hard disk adaptations offer many benefits:

Faster loading times. No need to deal with 'floppy changes' (that part also may need extra work, since game SW often has really weird ways to detect which floppy is currently in drive).  Then as mentioned Falcon, TT support. And some extra code may be needed with Mega STE.  Then very important part is TOS version compatibility - solved usually by using TOS in RAM.  Possible exit to Desktop with single key press and useful thing: state saves - single key press to generate state file, what later can be activated by simple double click, and continue at that point.

And as I know ingame saves are not possible with usual HW floppy emulators - so Gotek, Goex ... I had for some time one of firsts, if not firs one: HxD - and it was USB version of it, so attached to PC - that knew little more than FC based version.  I even worked with Jeff (man who wrote firmware and PC SW for it) on adding STX (Pasti) image file support for USB version (with SD card version it was not really possible because rigid clock rate) - without any help from ijor. We had partial success - some simpler protections worked, but there were such ones which not, and big part of problem was STX file format self - lacks some necessary info. So Jeff just stopped to deal with it.

So, to resume:  Hard disk vs. Gotek (and other HW floppy emul.):  hard disk is faster, no need to image changes. Can perform ingame saves in most cases (that needs extra work too) - and if not, there are state saves in all HD adapations since 2010. Better TOS version compatibility. Exit to Desktop option.

 

2. Surely is good and motivating to hear people's thank you, being satisfied with it, and other praise.  But I must say here that I appreciate little more if it is not only usual "great work" and similar. Some details are always welcome.  And sad truth is that 99% of those DL-ing it just don't write anything.  Some do very dismotivating things in forums: shallow posts, complaining how it works not, while even did not read attached instructions, specs of it.  But that's nothing new, some just wont learn, rather come with egoistic attitude.

 

3. Yeah, challenge is big part of it - as in my area no hills, I chose Atari games as challenge ?

 

4. Retro games - I think that we have 2 factors here. Older people like to play them because of good memories. Younger ones, those who did not play them when were younger does it from curiosity, and I guess more important: games are simpler, more straight than today's mainstream games for modern computers, consoles.

In my case it can be factor called: finish what started decades ago: make all quality games usable from hard disk - and as hard disk became in meantime very small, cheap Flash card, it is still pretty much useful activity.

 

5. Cash was not factor in this until this new World crysys (what happens about 100 years after big one in previous Century). It is really not fair to come with idea that it is (was) my motivation in it.  It is just that I adapt to new times. And as said already in  some post above - making money with some Internet site is in 'progress', especially in last year and half. In big part via adverts.  I could add diverse adverts to pop up after almost every click, but no, that's just annoying and at the end (effectively) bad for environment.

 

I wrote some tutorials, which, it looks went unnoticed by most. Not so good with English speech to make YT video with audio instructions.

And I think that simple WEB page, with mostly text, some pics and if it is useful even short video would be best.

There are already some pages about game adaptations on my site (links to them on game DL page).

Detailed instructions: only for people familiar with Atari ST, TT, Falcon HW, TOS, and MC68000 ASM.  Who is interested, should start with learning it.

 

I have no problems with doing YT videos. And as said, that has no influence in pricing. Other retro computer people does them too .

As I see, most of them does them with emulators on PC - capturing emulators screen and audio in video file. 

That's not the best way - capturing from real retro computer is right approach. And I an do it pretty good quality - thanx to my S-Video mod.

http://atari.8bitchip.info/stvid.php

Some Amiga people even claimed that I did it with emulators, and that I lie ?

In any case, to make quality YT videos from real retro computers minimum is analog video capture card (usually together with TV receiver, analog one, of course) . That's not easy to find now as new. There are some professional cards, at very high price. Don't know about capture device what can work with old standard RGB signals - that can give best quality.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

9 hours ago, Atariforce said:

... To answer Darklord's question, I don't think it is just a matter of money, but more a matter of consequences. He (PLM) can sell whatever game he wants, I actually don't care. But who would ever be motivated to release new software (specifically games) for free when they see it might end up behind a paywall just because someone spent an hour patching it? Because it is safe to assume that those free games he admits selling are probably all those fairly recent free games that were on his website, released by currently active people. Can you imagine the demotivation? That's how you kill an already rather small scene.

 

And moron just continues with his ridiculous arguments. 

I don't sell games. I gave help to many of new game authors - mostly because of my experience in it, and TOS knowledge. And imagine what - I did not ask money for it. They published games as they wanted, and that's all about. Ah, this reminds me on that some new games are not free. I did not deal with such games, and you will not find their adaptations on my site - because real bad thing is not asking little money for service (in this case it would be less than 1/100 Eur for 1 game), but distributing new SW for free, or whatever charge without permission of author.

So, claim that it harms and dismotivates  new SW creation, releasing is total idiocy - nobody is forced to use hard disk adapted version from PLM - and funnily, they are free for DL as single game ZIP on my pages.  DL-ing compilation with 1400 games is just an option, to make it easier and faster to people - and that required extra work - as said weeks, to put it all together and check. 10 Euros are asked mostly for that extra work.

Only shallow people and notorious haters can come with argument of 'selling games'.  When I will want to do it will be priced like in old pirate times - 5 bucks for floppy with 6 games. "Oh, you want 1400 game in single DL. No problems, you can get it for 499 bucks, or as special today offer - if order it today it will be only 399 $ - because I love my customers so much ! "

Everyone can DL new releases from sites of original authors. So, how on Hell some game compilation can do harm ? 

Funny how much I was accused for 'killing' this small Atari scene.  From people who already abandoned scene - like D-Bug about decade ago (or their mindless fans). Or ijor - who claimed similar thing, just because I wrote the truth. This reminds me on silly case at AF, with one of AL members, he asked me to not write negative comment about new game release (actually finished Jaguar X220 or something like that). All what I wrote is that it looks very good, but gameplay is not really good. It was actually not so negative, and if on some forum you can not write your opinion about new game release (good or not so good, or even negative) then that forum is bullshit. And actually they care more for self and their circle, than for the truth.  What is of course behind posts of cb too.

 

[Atariforce]

26 minutes ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

And moron just continues with his ridiculous arguments. 

I don't sell games. I gave help to many of new game authors - mostly because of my experience in it, and TOS knowledge. And imagine what - I did not ask money for it. They published games as they wanted, and that's all about. Ah, this reminds me on that some new games are not free. I did not deal with such games, and you will not find their adaptations on my site - because real bad thing is not asking little money for service (in this case it would be less than 1/100 Eur for 1 game), but distributing new SW for free, or whatever charge without permission of author.

So, claim that it harms and dismotivates  new SW creation, releasing is total idiocy - nobody is forced to use hard disk adapted version from PLM - and funnily, they are free for DL as single game ZIP on my pages.  DL-ing compilation with 1400 games is just an option, to make it easier and faster to people - and that required extra work - as said weeks, to put it all together and check. 10 Euros are asked mostly for that extra work.

Only shallow people and notorious haters can come with argument of 'selling games'.  When I will want to do it will be priced like in old pirate times - 5 bucks for floppy with 6 games. "Oh, you want 1400 game in single DL. No problems, you can get it for 499 bucks, or as special today offer - if order it today it will be only 399 $ - because I love my customers so much ! "

Everyone can DL new releases from sites of original authors. So, how on Hell some game compilation can do harm ? 

Funny how much I was accused for 'killing' this small Atari scene.  From people who already abandoned scene - like D-Bug about decade ago (or their mindless fans). Or ijor - who claimed similar thing, just because I wrote the truth. This reminds me on silly case at AF, with one of AL members, he asked me to not write negative comment about new game release (actually finished Jaguar X220 or something like that). All what I wrote is that it looks very good, but gameplay is not really good. It was actually not so negative, and if on some forum you can not write your opinion about new game release (good or not so good, or even negative) then that forum is bullshit. And actually they care more for self and their circle, than for the truth.  What is of course behind posts of cb too.

 

LOL. Another random and useless rant. Thanks for the good laugh! ?

[Showaddywaddy]

What utter drivel you spout. D-Bug inactive for 10 years , a quick visit to our site will blow that lie out of the water. Evidence of Automation charging for games? ….. silence. Anyway nice weather outside , time for a canoe trip on the River Severn.  Have a good day. 

[TheNameOfTheGame]

Well, everyone has their opinion, but for me, I am happy to pay 10 euros to support Peter's work.  He has done many great and useful softwares (including iTOS) for the Atari users and is helpful and responsive to requests.  As an example, I mentioned to him that Dynasty Wars was not on his drive image and he adapted it within 2 days!  Wow, I was so happy as I own the original game and now I could play it on the hard drive.

 

I realize just the idea of paying for a game compilation makes people take sides, but I'm not sure how many people would actually donate if that was the option.  But that's just speculation.  Maybe people would - at least some people.  But 10 euros?  I spent that much on a pack of beer last week.  I think it is a matter of principle for some people and I can understand that.  For me, the convenience of being able to download the entire archive without spending time downloading each title is way worth it.  And there is a selection menu now to easily run a game.  Just my opinion, but wanted to throw my support for Peter's work here.

[+CyranoJ]

5 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

like D-Bug about decade ago (or their mindless fans). Or ijor - who claimed similar thing, just because I wrote the truth.

 

Again more ignorant, hate filled ramblings.

 

*I* left the scene about 10 years ago, Not D-Bug. D-Bug is still going strong without me.

 

*I* left the scene, because someone basically stole my code and claimed it as their own idea - after I had donated the code to to the scene freely as a gift.  So yes, your actions actually did cause someone to drop out. Permanently. 

 

I honestly don't care if you think thats good or bad, but yes, you did that.  You could at least have the honesty decency balls to own it.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

14 hours ago, Showaddywaddy said:

What utter drivel you spout. D-Bug inactive for 10 years , a quick visit to our site will blow that lie out of the water. Evidence of Automation charging for games? ….. silence. Anyway nice weather outside , time for a canoe trip on the River Severn.  Have a good day. 

D-Bug self told that will not do Atari ST game 'patches', because of me - about 10 years ago. And that will work with Jaguar games.

And  this is topic about Atari ST games, there was "kill an already rather small scene" - so it is clear for everyone normal what I meant.

But that's usual tactic of those who want to demolish someone - dig out some part from context, even just part of sentence and actually claim complete false thing.  

Ah, he asking money for game compilation - so he is selling games !  By that logic every salesman is doing harm for game authors/owners - because he adds his profit margin to price by them - no sellers should do all it for free ! How someone dare to ask money when computer games are involved ?

Seriously, with all this complete stoopid posts you just make opposite effect - what happened for instance 2 years ago, here in politics - there was huge anti campaign against candidate for major in capital over whole summer, before elections in early autumn - so many forced attacks, exaggerations, which resulted at end that he won (and I don't like him at all). Funny thing is that right now they do the same error. But what can someone not able to offer anything really useful for masses than using lies, twisting facts, desperately playing with words ...

 

[+CyranoJ]

1 hour ago, CyranoJ said:

You could at least have the honesty decency balls to own it.

So thats a no then. OK.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

10 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

Again more ignorant, hate filled ramblings.

 

*I* left the scene about 10 years ago, Not D-Bug. D-Bug is still going strong without me.

 

*I* left the scene, because someone basically stole my code and claimed it as their own idea - after I had donated the code to to the scene freely as a gift.  So yes, your actions actually did cause someone to drop out. Permanently. 

 

I honestly don't care if you think thats good or bad, but yes, you did that.  You could at least have the honesty decency balls to own it.

And here we are again at it - and must say that I expected that it will come up again. 

So, there is claim that me "stole my code and claimed it as their own idea " - that self sounds not coherent - so what was stolen actually ? Code, idea, both ? Or just position in rating of best Atari ST hard disk adapters ?

So, let see little history. D-bug and CJ were not first who solved redirection of floppy access to hard disk in case of Atari ST. It was done much earlier, if I remember correct around 1992 by crew Superior, with their FFLS loading system. What is FFLS ? It is basically simple hard disk driver for ACSI port and FAT16 filesystem - simple too, and limited - to max 32 MB partitions - what was not some big flaw with hard disk sizes in those years.

System was good, fast enough and did not take plenty of RAM. But it became obsolete after few years - 32 MB max partition size. Why they did not go on bigger partition support ? Because 32 MB is limit of basic FAT16, what is over it is BigDOS or BigGEM - with clusters, logical sector sizes bigger than 1 physical sector size (512 bytes). That would need much more complex code. And then came years, when interest for Atari ST, games for it lowered (a lot).  New interest started after 2000 - with powerful emulators, new storage media - Flash cards, degraded floppy disks, so people wanted to migrate games to mass storage.

What D-Bug did actually with their ULS ? The concept was not their idea - they took it from Amiga WHDLoad system (should I say 'stole' ?).

ULS concept is basically:  when disk access from game is needed (and that can be in situation when OS is 'killed') - then original RAM state with active OS is restored (that needs to save it before starting game, in high RAM) - doing hard disk access via installed hard disk driver, OS, then restoring game state (what needs to be saved every time before restoring OS and doing hard disk access) . Indeed, system has it's good sides, in first place that works with any decent hard disk driver. Bad side is time needed to save game state, restore OS, then again to save, restore game - it  may take several seconds with slow disk transfer rate and lot of RAM involved.

 

What I  did in 2010 was complete different approach, for accessing hard disk from game - I disassembled TOS 1.04, actually only it's GEMDOS part. What was used later for TOS calling games. For games not using TOS calls only FAT16 filesystem was enough - and it worked (and still works) so, that no RAM area swaps are needed - part of TOS works in high RAM, as hard disk drivers too. It works best with my driver (because I made it PC relative code 100%), and I added special code to support Hddriver and AHDI - other drivers work not with it - and that's the flaw.  The benefit is much better speed. So, nothing alike ULS or WHDload.  Only mindless creten can talk about stolen code.  In normal World it would be possible to sue him because of false accusation, but who cares for truth, justice among ordinary people.

 

Later I made my version of WHDload concept for Atari ST family - for instance I was only one who use PMMU code for avoiding RAM area swaps on TT and Falcon (including existing Amiga and ST solutions).  And I made much more than them (again both Amiga and ST coders) . There is not only hard disk access solution, but TOS 1.04 in RAM - what is used actually by more than 60 % of games, and that gives better compatibility, easier patching of problematic code parts (most of it is input related).

Then, to support not numerous games using AES (GEM) I made HAGE system, what is complete TOS in RAM, and it works best with floppy image files, which can be of very big size if needed. It has state saves too. Examples:  Breach, Chess 2150, Zak McKracken ...

 

And best thing - now CJ talks about having balls - huahahha - yeah, he got balls to push ridiculous lies (there are more - like "wiping partitions") - but those balls are balls of intellectual bully.  I have brain, decency, moral - something what counts by real humans.