[game_preservation] Kotaku: Videogame History MuseumKickstartershort on funds

[Andre Lahmann]

hi, i just joined the list recently and am mainly trying to catch on,
hoping to be able to contribute in the future to this project somehow...

anyway, as far as i got an idea of the softpres-project, i absolutely
have to agree that the way you define the task of preservation is most
close to what preservation ought to be. if the task is to keep some sort
of artefact in its original condition as long available as possible,
applied to amiga-games, the way those games are physically present on
the disk is the form in which those games need to be preserved.
back in the days when i tried with a friend to copy some amiga-games
with his hardware-copier i didn't understand why it wasn't working - i
was only thrilled sitting with him in front of his a500 waiting more
than half an hour until a disk got copied just to find out, that it
wouldn't work. the only effect i got from that was being disappointed :)
now, after reading some of the information you are providing on
softpres.org (especially the info on copyprotections) i can almost adore
the cleverness with which those guys (successfully) tried to stop us
from copying their games. and although this kind of fascination (copying
games without success) is probably not the intention of preserving the
way data was stored physically on disks, this information will be of
tremendous value for future research.
when you refer to the context of videogames (packaging, manual, adverts,
gaming-community etc.) the copy-protection is part of the context too -
it's a result of how the gamer-community was structured, which technical
limitation were present and represents creativity and inventiveness of
programmers/disk-machine-programmers in their own right.
so it definitely needs to be preserved for future generations, if future
generations access to amiga-games is the concern and which other concern
motivates preservation?

therefore, seriously meant preservation, understanding itself as the
equivalent to preservation of more traditional cultural goods
(paintings, books etc.), necessarily demands methods as you have
developed - imaging, rawdumps etc. come in handy if the interest is in
the game-application itself (although this is a more or less arbitrarily
distinction, as the de/encryption during runtime [as in case of
copylock, as far as i have learned yesterday ;)] is as much part of the
game-algorithms as the colors of gianas hair) - it works for
home-entertainment-emulation pretty well. but that's it, as soon as one
wants to do more than actually play the game the most accurate (i.e. the
way the game was produced/manufactured originally onto the disk)
reproduction is the only way to go.

this is no objection to other methods of preservation, like disk2fdi - i
have not sufficient knowledge on the technical differences and
specifics. neither am i just trying to be kryoflux-fanboyish ;)
no, the reason why i'm so enthusiastic about your preservation-concept
is that i want to help getting computer games into libraries, not museums.
(looking at disks like scripture, that's how i see it and how i
understood christians approach: "The only alternative is reading and
preserving disks at the bit-level, taking note of everything, describing
(scripting) it and making sure it will be interpreted correctly.")

best,
andré


Am 24.08.2011 17:26, schrieb István Fábián:

> Originally (10+ years ago by now!) we could have used simple raw disk

> dumps, like all other tools and projects used and still use apart from

> SPS.

> In fact, we had a prototype system working within a few weeks

> including using the raw images under emulation.

> It was fairly tempting as people could just use the images straight

> away without an analysation process involved, but we (at the time

> Kieron and I mostly) were aware that it wouldn't do much good for real

> world preservation, especially since I had some idea how disks were

> duplicated in the first place having worked on commercial games before.

> It was actually a difficult decision not to go with the raw dumps and

> to develop our first toolchain instead, which meant a very

> intense, initial 2 years development cycle, but I think it paid off at

> the end.

> Right now our tools have 10 years worth of R&D in them.

>

>     ----- Original Message -----

>     *From:* Devin Monnens <mailto:dmonnens at gmail.com>

>     *To:* IGDA Game Preservation SIG <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>

>     *Cc:* IGDA Game Preservation SIG <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>

>     *Sent:* Wednesday, August 24, 2011 3:36 PM

>     *Subject:* Re: [game_preservation] Kotaku: Videogame History

>     MuseumKickstartershort on funds

>

>     One lesson that I think is good to learn and easy to find out if

>     you learn as you go is the equivalent of measure twice, cut once:

>     do it right the first time so you don have to do it again later.

>     This has happened to me with everything from CD backup (using MP3

>     rather than lossless, so I had to do it again this past year),

>     scanning, and audio recording. So I learned the hard way to do

>     lots of tests and verification before making backups :-) and of

>     course wish I'd known all this in the first place...

>

>     As a result, I can seriously appreciate all the research that has

>     gone into these tools. 

>

>     The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

>     On Aug 24, 2011, at 6:03 AM, "Christian Bartsch | softpres.org

>     <http://softpres.org>" <cb at softpres.org <mailto:cb at softpres.org>>

>     wrote:

>

>>

>>     On 24 Aug 2011, at 00:41, Vincent Joguin wrote:

>>

>>>     http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi

>>>     Has been available for almost a decade and has been used for

>>>     over 5 years for professional preservation of floppy disks. The

>>>     associated FDI format is able to accurately store all

>>>     information from a floppy, and is supported by a number of

>>>     emulators.

>>>

>>

>>

>>     I would like quote a post by you made to the Software Collectors

>>     list (SWcollect on Google) on the 4th of August 2011 ("Re:

>>     [SWcollect] So, "that" Akalabeth..."):

>>

>>

>>>     Unfortunately, no analysis tool exists for FDI files, and this

>>>     is indeed the strong point of the CAPS/SPS solution, although

>>>     more information can be derived from an FDI.

>>

>>     I always look at things from two perspectives: data ingestion and

>>     preservation. I can accept people doing this for their own

>>     private collection, but not analysing data ingested and checking

>>     for authenticity and integrity to me feels grossly negligent in a

>>     professional environment meant to deal with preservation. If you

>>     don't know an asset is good, what will you do when you find out

>>     two decades later?

>>

>>     Again, I can understand that casual user going after disk2fdi for

>>     budgetary reasons, but I feel preservation needs to be done

>>     right. This would - to my understanding - include storing data as

>>     it was meant to be written (which only can be done after

>>     analysation). Otherwise you can't write it back to a disk (to

>>     e.g. create a clone for use in an exhibition) or simulate the

>>     effects certain protections have in emulation.

>>

>>     I would like to add that this is nothing personal, and also not

>>     meant as an attack on your tech. I just feel the word

>>     "preservation" is being used inflationary recently.

>>

>>

>>     --

>>     Christian Bartsch

>>     The Software Preservation Society

>>     http://www.softpres.org

>>     _______________________________________________

>>     game_preservation mailing list

>>     game_preservation at igda.org <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>

>>     http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>

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