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Do I have un-dumped disks?


Fujur

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All,

 

Some six years ago I bought a collector's entire collection - the man used to run an Atari 8-bit club if I'm not mistaken and was retiring. Anyway, turns out I have a few THOUSAND (I estimate 3,000-4,000) 8-bit floppies in dozens of boxes.

 

I've been wondering for a long time if there is any way for me to find out if I have something that needs dumping. Is there a good way??

 

-Fujur.

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Hi,

 

Thanks for posting!

 

Please check if there's anything on our MIA list. The titles are sorted both alphabetically and by publisher: http://www.atarimania.com/MIA_January_2006.zip

 

Also, if you see something that's not listed at all here, please let us know :)

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

 

Ok. I know what I'm going to do now.. I'm going to grab one box of disks per day and type in the names on the labels (ad note the box #). They are grouped sort of ok.. Boxes dont have mixed content (ie: Games stay with games, utils with utils, basic stuff w/ BASIC stuff). Then I'll use my list and do some digital massaging with your list and see what I have to contribute.

Its unfortunate we (Atari community) don't have all the content in digital format already, so I'm glad to help.

 

I also have a lot of manuals, books and magazines, but that would be incredibly labor-intensive to scan.

 

BTW... What's the deal with the VAPI and a new image format? Why not stick to .PRO images and enable that with emulators?

 

-Fujur.

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Great! Hopefully you find some. I would say the chances with 3000 or more disks are VERY high. I had two boxes of disks comprising about 400, and was able to contribute quite a few titles out of that alone :)

 

Speaking of, here is "Ship Of Stars" from the MIA list. I dumped it a few days ago, but did not test it yet. Hopefully it works fine.

Ship_of_Stars.zip

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Ok. I know what I'm going to do now.. I'm going to grab one box of disks per day and type in the names on the labels (ad note the box #). They are grouped sort of ok.. Boxes dont have mixed content (ie: Games stay with games, utils with utils, basic stuff w/ BASIC stuff). Then I'll use my list and do some digital massaging with your list and see what I have to contribute.

That would be fantastic!

 

Its unfortunate we (Atari community) don't have all the content in digital format already, so I'm glad to help.

Thanks in advance for your efforts. Hopefully, we can unearth some more rarities, even if they're crap ;)

 

I also have a lot of manuals, books and magazines, but that would be incredibly labor-intensive to scan.

Out of curiosity, what magazines do you have?

 

BTW... What's the deal with the VAPI and a new image format? Why not stick to .PRO images and enable that with emulators?

That one's for Jorge :)

 

Zektor800, we appeciate your help again. I just uploaded the game.

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

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VAPI allows for emulating copy protection for use with a special version of Atari800Win, .PRO emulates it for a real machine via APE cable.

 

Yeah, I got that part. But why not use the PRO format in the emulator??? Both are able to store in a PC file the normal data plus copy-protection info - I'd prefer to use only one format.

 

-Fujur.

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Yeah, I got that part. But why not use the PRO format in the emulator??? Both are able to store in a PC file the normal data plus copy-protection info - I'd prefer to use only one format.
I believe that would be a question for Steve Tucker, who developed APE and the ProSystem and invented the .PRO format. I've been using APE/ProSystem for years, and I too would love to see emulator support for the .PRO format. I don't want to be bothered with VAPI because, from what I can tell, the images are too difficult to create (I don't have a Happy-enabled 1050 laying around).
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VAPI allows for emulating copy protection for use with a special version of Atari800Win, .PRO emulates it for a real machine via APE cable.

 

VAPI images can also be run under real hardware. There is a small SIO2PC utility available, and APE support for VAPI is already in beta. We also have Linux support almost ready (all my fault that it wasn't still released).

 

But the main goal of VAPI is preservation. What exactly you can do with the images is just a secondary effect of the preservation.

 

I don't want to be bothered with VAPI because, from what I can tell, the images are too difficult to create (I don't have a Happy-enabled 1050 laying around).

 

This is precisely because we stress in the preservation. It is only with low level tools (Happy, or even better, Catweasel and Discovery Cartridge), that we can verify the images. We don't want just an image that works. We want to verify that the image is 100% accurate, undamaged and unmodified.

 

Verifying an image is not simple at all, and is only possible when dumped with low level hardware. Depending on the imaging hardware and on the duplicated technology used by the publisher, it could be done with a single dump or several.

 

It doesn't matter too much if you can't personally create the images because you lack the necessary hardware. You can use images made by somebody else.

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This is precisely because we stress in the preservation. It is only with low level tools (Happy, or even better, Catweasel and Discovery Cartridge), that we can verify the images. We don't want just an image that works. We want to verify that the image is 100% accurate, undamaged and unmodified.

 

Verifying an image is not simple at all, and is only possible when dumped with low level hardware. Depending on the imaging hardware and on the duplicated technology used by the publisher, it could be done with a single dump or several.

 

It doesn't matter too much if you can't personally create the images because you lack the necessary hardware. You can use images made by somebody else.

 

Now that's a real challenge. When I converted a bunch of diskettes to images some years back I ran into a couple of problems, one of them was that I could not really tell apart copy protection from bit rot. So if a disk is degrading I couldn't possible tell it apart from the protection. Of course copy-protection on the last track was a classic, and easily spotted, but that's about all I could spot.

 

The other problem I ran into was 1050s failing with use. I had probably 2 or 3 1050s fail (read all error sectors) after doing some 300 disk images. The PRO images were particularly stresful, reading things over and over.

 

We (or, say I) can ask Steven Tucker about the PRO format - He is nice enough. Is there some way in which VAPI is superior in the information that it stores? I mean, we can low-level all we want, but if at the end of the day we get the same data back, there was no point.

 

BTW, "Ijor", you wouldn't be "Iljor" the cracker from Argentina, would you?

 

-Fujur.

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Now that's a real challenge. When I converted a bunch of diskettes to images some years back I ran into a couple of problems, one of them was that I could not really tell apart copy protection from bit rot.

 

Yes, but detecting if the disk data is authentic as it comes from factory or modified, it is even more challenging.

 

We (or, say I) can ask Steven Tucker about the PRO format - He is nice enough. Is there some way in which VAPI is superior in the information that it stores?

 

The VAPI format probably has a more detailed description. Not for anything in particular, but because it was designed for a more accurate imaging using more powerful hardware. But I really don't know that.

 

The truth is that now I have a very good relation with Steven. May be we can come up with something. Not sure if we could merge both formats, but we might be able to provide a converter. Don't know, we'll see.

 

BTW, "Ijor", you wouldn't be "Iljor" the cracker from Argentina, would you?

 

I do. What I can say, we all sinned when we were young :)

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Yes, but detecting if the disk data is authentic as it comes from factory or modified, it is even more challenging.

 

Yeah. We might need more than one image from more than one source to determine that we're getting it "right"

 

 

The VAPI format probably has a more detailed description. Not for anything in particular, but because it was designed for a more accurate imaging using more powerful hardware. But I really don't know that.

 

The truth is that now I have a very good relation with Steven. May be we can come up with something. Not sure if we could merge both formats, but we might be able to provide a converter. Don't know, we'll see.

 

 

That probably makes some sense; especially if both have the same data.

 

I do. What I can say, we all sinned when we were young :)

 

LOL - Too funny. I knew you in person... See my PM. Wow.. 20 years flew right by.

 

-Fujur.

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Great! Hopefully you find some. I would say the chances with 3000 or more disks are VERY high. I had two boxes of disks comprising about 400, and was able to contribute quite a few titles out of that alone :)

 

Speaking of, here is "Ship Of Stars" from the MIA list. I dumped it a few days ago, but did not test it yet. Hopefully it works fine.

zektor800, thanks for the Ship Of Stars, I hope you retrieve more of this rare stuff. I dumped this game to my site library. Fujur, I hope you too will have time for dumping those disks sometime.

 

Good day

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