[game_preservation] Article about proper SNES emulation
Henry Lowood
lowood at stanford.edu
Tue Aug 16 23:25:29 EDT 2011
Thanks, Frank. I have enormous respect for SPS (still thought of as
CAPS) and the work they have done. I'm hoping we can do this.
Henry
On 8/16/2011 10:45 AM, Frank Cifaldi wrote:
> I'm not exaggerating when I say that the proper bit-for-bit
> preservation of Cabrinety's untouched games might be one of the most
> important immediate initiatives this group should focus on, I am
> willing to bet that many pieces in that collection represent the only
> "untouched" copies of those games. I'm really glad to hear you guys
> are communicating, Henry let me know if you need any volunteer manual
> labor or anything to make this happen.
>
> On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 1:42 PM, István Fábián <if at caps-project.org
> <mailto:if at caps-project.org>> wrote:
>
> The short answer is yes, I am about to send a longer email to your
> address.
> István
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Henry Lowood <mailto:lowood at stanford.edu>
> *To:* IGDA Game Preservation SIG
> <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>
> *Cc:* István Fábián <mailto:if at caps-project.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, August 15, 2011 6:45 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [game_preservation] Article about proper SNES
> emulation
>
> 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.
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> _______________________________________________
>> game_preservation mailing list
>> game_preservation at igda.org
>> <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> game_preservation mailing list
>> game_preservation at igda.org <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
> --
> Henry Lowood
> Curator, History of Science& Technology Collections;
> Film& Media Collections
> HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
> 650-723-4602 <tel:650-723-4602>;lowood at stanford.edu <mailto:lowood at stanford.edu>
> http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood <http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>
--
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/attachments/20110816/674b65ab/attachment.htm>
More information about the game_preservation
mailing list