[game_preservation] Article about proper SNES emulation
Henry Lowood
lowood at stanford.edu
Mon Aug 15 13:45:47 EDT 2011
Istvan,
The Cabrinety Collection at Stanford is a bit unusual, in that most of
the copies in our collection were acquired in shrink-wrap. We are
already considering a proposal to make the computer game part of the
collection available to a forensic lab in the US for imaging. Is it
possible that access to our collection would be helpful in the case of
ROM cartridges (home console games)? If so, we should consider working
together; I believe that our only condition would be some way to cover
expenses of preparing and registering the items, maybe shipping, and
then deposit of the images in our digital repository (non-exclusive
license). If there is interest, I would then have to speak with
colleagues here, so for now, I'm just asking if there is interest in
pursuing this.
Henry
On 8/15/2011 8:53 AM, István Fábián wrote:
> Yes, we are going to address the Japanese systems soon and Joseph
> leads those efforts.
> The minimum number for verifying authenticity for most titles is
> luckily 1 - as long as it was professionally duplicated.
> For anything else made with non-commercial solutions (i.e. copied on
> the same computer platform etc.) ideally, 3 - but naturally it's never
> 100% certainty for those. It could be just a popular "version" of such
> disk that got widespread due to rampant piracy...
> Unfortunately, it seems that most of the Japanese titles fall into the
> non-commercial duplication category (with the notable exception of a
> few Western titles such as Wings of Fury on the x68000), so it will
> require quite some effort to find copies that we'd have a high enough
> confidence in for being authentic.
> The good news is that the majority of the titles for popular platforms
> outside Japan were all duplicated and that includes pretty much all 8
> and 16 bit formats.
> For duplicated disks, it is possible to find inconsistencies in the
> recording that are not present as long as the disk is not modified (or
> not written with a home grade equipment, i.e. copy program), that's
> why it is possible to have an authentic image from a single copy only.
> Actually, many copy-protection methods look for various signs of
> non-commercial duplication in similar ways, but obviously working with
> higher level data than our tools do.
> We'd have to see how well that works for e.g. C64 though, but it is
> certainly possible to tell about the first 18 tracks of a C64 disk
> already if it was written on a 1541 drive or a Trace machine, thanks
> to a mistake in the official Trace scripts supplied for that platform.
> This can only be verified with flux transition level dumping, e.g. a
> device like KryoFlux that is capable of measuring individual flux
> transitions.
> For tracks above 18 we can still look for recording inconsistencies,
> like we do with platforms using generic MFM controllers (PC, ST,
> Spectrum, CPC etc) and the same is possible for FM controllers
> used for Atari 8-bit, as they use the same principle for recording,
> just encoding itself is different.
> Again, verifying authenticity from a single copy is only a possibility
> with sophisticated analyser technology and low level dumps from disks.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Devin Monnens <mailto:dmonnens at gmail.com>
> *To:* IGDA Game Preservation SIG <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, August 15, 2011 3:14 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [game_preservation] Article about proper SNES emulation
>
> Istvan,
>
> Thank you for clearing that up. To this list, I would also add
> something else: making a catalogue of what is available for that
> platform, including version numbers and variations.
>
> Approximately what percentage of the different platforms have
> already been archived? I also know there is a group in Japan
> working on disk-based games lead by Joseph Redon.
>
> it takes a lot of time of processing the disks afterwards to
> check the authenticity and integrity of the content.
> Hoping that every disk image made is correct is just wishful
> thinking considering the age of the media and how common it is
> to find modified content.
>
>
> What is the minimum number of disks to have to verify for
> authenticity and integrity? Do you need at least two copies to
> make sure there were no errors? I didn't see any mention of this
> on the knowledgebase of your site.
>
> So far we've spent 7 digit amounts to preserve about 3600
> titles and to develop the necessary technology - and about 10
> years.
> It is however not something that we can really afford to do
> far longer...
>
>
> 7 digits in Euros? That would be more than twice the amount in
> USD! Is Kryoflux helping to solve this problem by distributing the
> work to collectors and libraries? Have you run into any cases
> where someone has the game but doesn't have access to a Kryoflux
> device? If that's the case, it might be possible to purchase one
> and then mail it from place to place.
>
> --
> Devin Monnens
> www.deserthat.com <http://www.deserthat.com>
>
> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
>
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--
Henry Lowood
Curator, History of Science& Technology Collections;
Film& Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood
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