[game_preservation] Archivist's Burden

[Andrew Armstrong]

I don't think the Software Preservation Society has looked at CDs, but I 
wonder what their standards might be (any members want to comment?).

A automated solution would be key, yeah. A linux script would be good 
since there are few windows ISO/CD tools in any case, and none provide 
reliable logs (or don't simply crash when encountering bad data) from 
what I've found.

Looking up the dd command it looks pretty simple to get an ISO of a 
complete CD and it seems to be able to log enough information - 
especially useful for those glaringly obvious read problems some CDs 
have (from being poor quality to scratches to mess on them - so the 
noerror might even want to be omitted so you can check out any read 
errors so the ISO isn't broken).

One thing on the error sections, it doesn't seem to have a "repeatedly 
try reading data" option - odd, but I presume it does try more then once.

The only site I know that has ISO's (or CD contents more accurately) is 
Textfiles, Jason Scott might have an automated solution he's willing to 
share, might be worth asking.

Oh, for audio too, yeah, FLAC would be the preferable one in my opinion 
next to the raw files themselves if you want to save space. FLAC is 
open, so it's a pretty good one for standards for getting to read it 
back later, lots of tools that read and write them.

Andrew

Mike Melanson wrote:

> So I was thinking recently about how I didn't have enough to do with 

> my life (that's sarcasm at work) and I came up with yet another project:

>

> I have a 750 GB RAID-1 storage device (i.e., mirrored 750 GB drives 

> for redundancy) that recently freed up. I have somewhere around 800 

> games on CD-ROM (of which a fair number consist of multiple discs). So 

> how about archiving the discs? I guess it's sort of a duty when I am 

> sitting on this kind of collection. Who else knows more about 

> forgotten educational games and licensed Barbie titles?

>

> The question becomes "how to archive?"

>

> My first impulse: Write a Python script that automatically copies the 

> data track from a CD-ROM ('dd' Unix command). Additionally, for any 

> audio tracks, automatically rip them and compress them losslessly 

> using either FLAC or ALAC (Apple Lossless).

>

> Comments?

>