[SWCollect] Full archives are now online
Well, that was easy -- good thing I kept the archives from the older version :-) To view the archives, visit http://list.oldskool.org/mailman/private/swcollect/ . Lots of interesting converstations over the years. Sorry, there's no search facility yet, although the Mailman developers officially have it on their To-Do list. I could easily install a search facility, but that would be yet another piece of software to maintain and frankly I'd rather wait until Mailman officially does it. However, you will need your list password to view them; to get a reminder of what your password is, visit http://list.oldskool.org/mailman/listinfo/swcollect and scroll down to the bottom of the page, where you'll see a place to enter your email and a button "Edit Options" to press after you've done that. That will take you to your own personal options for the list, which include getting a reminder of your password (and changing it, if you don't like it). I personally would like the list archives to be public. Anyone opposed to public archives? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ ___ Swcollect mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.oldskool.org/mailman/listinfo/swcollect
Re: [Swcollect] Mailing list is back in business
Lee K. Seitz wrote: I see the archives are now available directly at the list's web interface. Will you be moving the old archives to this site, or do we just start over? I will try very hard to move the older archives over. We have had 3+ years of some very neat conversations, so I have a high motivation to do this. I didn't get the spam sent to the list. At first I wondered why, but now I see my ISP's Brightmail filter caught them before any of my own filters even saw them. It also caught Stefan's reply because he quoted the whole message. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm glad they caught it, but now worried they might start catching things I don't want them to. Well, you won't be getting any more spam from this list, so maybe that's a mitigating factor? I made one more change, BTW: Postings are limited to 1MB. I am on a modem at work (don't ask) so I figured 1M was the largest size I could comfortably download. If anyone has arguments to increase or decrease this number, let me know. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ ___ Swcollect mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.oldskool.org/mailman/listinfo/swcollect
[SWCollect] Spam has been squashed
Sorry, the spam was my fault, I forgot to configure something in the new mailing list software. Since [EMAIL PROTECTED] is listed on the web, it was natural for spambots to pick up the address. So, the only people allowed to post to the list are members of the list. I made another change, that the list members were only available to other members of the list. The email addresses are still obfuscated, however. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ ___ Swcollect mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.oldskool.org/mailman/listinfo/swcollect
[Swcollect] Mailing list is back in business
After trying fruitlessly to fix the older outdated software, the entire mailing list software was ripped out and replaced with the very functional GNU Mailman software. As you'll notice at the bottom of this message, now we have a web front-end to the list. You can view a list of subscribers (emails only, and obfuscated so spambots don't pick them up), view archives, manage your subscribed email, switch to a digest format, etc. Pretty slick (although I only recommend the digest format for lurkers who don't post). If you don't have access to the web, you can control your subscription via mailing "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" with a subject of "help" to get a list of options. Along that track, subscribing to the list is done by emailing that same address but with a subject of "subscribe". THIS IS DIFFERENT THAN THE OLDER METHOD, SO PLEASE UPDATE ANY WEB PAGES YOU HAVE THAT REFER PEOPLE TO THIS LIST. If anyone has problems, please contact me. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ ___ Swcollect mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.oldskool.org/mailman/listinfo/swcollect
[SWCollect] Mailing List Maintenance
I cannot ignore the problems with the mailing list software any longer, so I will be upgrading the software starting right now. Please try to not send any email to the lists until I am done, because it will most likely disappear. I will email again when I'm done. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?
Dan Chisarick wrote: LucasArts (DOS-based) adventure games drove me crazy because the protection was written in the same interpreted code as the rest of the game (makes sense, some commercial protection schemes are based on their own VM, speaking of protection schemes repeating themselves). Anyway, I found one generic solution for all of them. I wrote something that took a snapshot of the data segment (only 64K) and wrote it to disk (using either Soft-Ice or "Undocumented DOS"). Do that twice in a row with a short pause in between before the protection screen, then do it again after the protection, using the manual, wheel or whatever to get past it. Take the three 64k snapshots, and search for a byte that was unchanged between the first two but changed from like a 0 -> 1 or 0 -> 255 between the second and third snapshot. There'd only be 5-10 such locations. One of them is a boolean flag letting the game know the protection passed and it doesn't have to display it again. Write a loader that pops the 1 or 255 in that location on load but right before startup and it'd think it already ran the protection successfully. Poof. Worked for 4-5 games I think. My parents thought I was insane for that week (80 hours in 5 days, I'll never forget that). You and everyone else who copied Sierra games (also interpreted). Impressive -- I used a specific program for this kind of thing (ran the game in a V8086 so you could stop execution and do memory compares). I guess that's cheating ;-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Home Computer Wars book
Lee K. Seitz wrote: I noticed the book doesn't have an index, so I'm trying to compile a basic one as I go for later reference. I'll publish it on the web when I'm finished. Does this seem like a useful project? Not unless you plan to publish the book itself -- it's hard to find. BTW, I just finished _Hard Drive_, about Microsoft and Bill Gates up through c. 1993. Next will probably either be _Hackers_, which I started once but didn't finish, or John Sculley's _Odyssey_. I'd like to recommend Accidental Empires by Robert X. Cringely. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Interplay (was: Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?)
Pedro Quaresma wrote: IIRC, this all started when they decided to increase console game production and reduce PC game production. Infogrames (now Atari) have announced they'll do the same, so I do not foresee a big future for them either. As much as I don't like this, the numbers support it: In 2003 there were about 5 million PC games sold -- and 50 million console games sold. Console games fuel the overwhelming majority of the 11 billion (!!) electronic entertainment industry. Unfortunately I am imagining a future in which the only games publishers will be Sierra, Microsoft and Electronic Arts. :/ Take Sierra out of the picture and you'd be right :-( -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?
Lee K. Seitz wrote: I thought the Empire Deluxe solution was good. You only had to answer this type of question when you ran the setup program, which set the resolution, sound options, etc. So, in general, you only had to do it once or twice. (You were required to run it once before playing.) Of course, if you'd been playing for months and decided to change a setting, then you had to go find the manual, which was frustrating. This is similar to Software Toolwork's stuff from the late 80's to early 90's: The diskette protection was checked only when you installed the game. They were also smart enough to take an "inventory" of the computer -- hardware, OS version, etc. -- so that if you tried to copy the installed game over to another machine, it would not work and ask to be reinstalled. I'm seeing some parallels in copy-protection here: - King's Quest II (encryption of executable and data files), 1985 -- Starforce 3 (same thing), 2004 - Pirates! (run progressively worse), 1987 -- Macrovision (same thing), 2003 - Software Toolworks games (check during install, can't be moved) 1988-ish -- Windows XP activation (same thing), 2001. Scary to see we're entering a "new era" of copy protection all over again... makes me long for the innovative days of lenslok, colored pictures on manuals, etc. If things get really bad we're going to see the resurgence of copy-protection methods that *really sucked*, because they were unreliable. One method was "weak bits" that read differently every time you read the disk -- only problem is, the original disk itself would fail the check half the time! -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?
Marco Thorek wrote: That reminds me of the original Pirates! copy protection: You had to look up at what port the "gold fleet" was in a certain month. It was more than that -- the disk was protected as well. And it was protected VERY well: Multiple checks throughout the game, and if it recognized a bad copy it would continue to let you play *but* the sea battles would get progressivly harder and harder until it was impossible to win. Sneaky! -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Huge Japanese console auction
Feldhamer, Stuart wrote: A friend sent me this link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=62054&item=8111352149 Same thing happened to me (and the friend wasn't into collecting at all). I think this auction is getting publicity because of the unrealistically high price tag. I can see $10K-$20K for this stuff, but not $100K. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?
Edward Franks wrote: He was already gone: http://www.inxile-entertainment.com/ I know, sorry if that wasn't clear. I am hoping he will do something decent with the Bard's Tale project... Him remaking Bard's Tale, and Sid Meier remaking Pirates! are two projects I'm eagerly anticipating. Anyone else know of original designers or teams remaking older games? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?
Jim Leonard wrote: Still, as "clever" as Starforce 3 is, I've seen worse. In fact, I was wondering when better protection was going to come along (copy-protection became a bit of a joke once Windows and CDROMs rolled around -- Starforce 3 is the only thing that actually provides a challenge nowadays). In fact, to respond to my own post, I just found that Starforce has two easily-found code sections, .brick and .sforce, and the ep (entry point) is 6969h -- kind-of stands out, eh? So this will be easy to crack on a per-game basis. Nothing is uncrackable. :-) Whatever one man can create, another can destroy. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?
Pedro Quaresma wrote: Shadow of the Comet by Infogrames (back from the days when Infogrames was likeable -- ah that would start a whole new discussion! Anyone else following the end of Interplay?). I heard Interplay's offices were shut down for a few days because they couldn't come up with worker's comp insurance. :-( I sincerely hope Brian Fargo will be able to create a new startup... As far as difficulty goes, from what I've heard, the still uncrackable Starforce 3 (Beyond Divinity is an example) is still the worst. Nothing is uncrackable. Starforce is one of the best types of protection, though -- it directly accesses IDE CDROM drives without going through ANY system calls. (Dunzhin for IBM PC (Warriors of Ras) was one of the new early PC releases to do this and it took a colleage of mine a full month to crack it.) Starforce is also clever enough to figure out if it is running from an emulated drive such as those provided by Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120%. Still, as "clever" as Starforce 3 is, I've seen worse. In fact, I was wondering when better protection was going to come along (copy-protection became a bit of a joke once Windows and CDROMs rolled around -- Starforce 3 is the only thing that actually provides a challenge nowadays). -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] Game Music
I just found the following site: http://www.mirsoft.info/ This place is fantastic -- if a game has MIDI or MOD music, it has probably been ripped and put here. They also have ripping guides if you have a game they don't have. For all other games that use custom formats or hardware, let me know -- I have a Roland SCC1, MT-32, Adlib, CMS, IBM Music Feature, Gravis Ultrasound, Adlib Gold, and other exotic hardware :-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?
Stuart Feldhamer wrote: You made me think about the code wheel for Pool of Radiance. For some reason, on my computer, the code that came up was "Savior" about 3/4 of the time. So I copied the game for a friend of mine but didn't give him the code wheel, telling him that he should try Savior, and if that didn't work, just try again. On his computer, Savior NEVER came up! LOL this was because of the truly terrible random-number generator in POR. The game played like this too, in some sections (75% of the time you'd get the same types of encounters). This PC-specific, I don't think the others had this problem but I could be wrong. This reminds me of how a friend played Leisure Suit Larry 3: The random seed for the copy protection was # of seconds from bootup. So he launched his version of LSL3 from AUTOEXEC.BAT, right after bootup, and it would give him the same woman to identify 95% of the time. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Best copy protection?
Marco Thorek wrote: IIRC the game came with five-symbol codes printed in black on really dark brown paper. I was lucky enough to have a B&W hand scanner (remember those?) that used a red scanning beam. A bit of adjustment to the contrast, and voila -- I could reproduce those like they were black on white sheets of paper. :-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] No market for Macintosh collectables?
Sorry -- I didn't, so I am overtly harsh on it sometimes. I think it had a lot of good things going for it, but it had severe programming issues and an overall clunky presentation. Maybe it got better as you progressed? I got stuck after an hour and quit in frustration. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: HEY! I LIKED Free D.C.! :) Joe From: Jim Leonard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2004/06/11 Fri PM 07:00:19 EDT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] No market for Macintosh collectables? Awesome, thanks for the reference. Unfortunately, he was responsible for the embarrassment that was Free D.C.! as well ;-) Freddie Bingham wrote: Maybe some more light could be shed by emailing this fellow: http://www.channelzilch.com/doug/resume1.htm -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] Best copy protection?
I used to think that the best copy-protection was Rocket Ranger -- the codewheel was an integral part of moving around. Then a fellow MobyGames volunteer wrote me this: "The best copy protection ever would be the game Murder In Venice (Amiga). The game comes with over 40 clues - including ticket stubs, paper clips, pictures, even a film roll (that you have to break open to find a clue inside!!)." I agree, that's really cool. Anyone else have some good copy-protection schemes that they remember as being cool or clever? Here's a few more I can think of: - Future Wars. Copy protection showed a paint-by-numbers (outline) picture and asked you what color the section that was currently flashing was. How could you tell? The picture was in full color on the back cover of the manual. :-) - Star Control. Codewheel was just plain funny. Anyone else have fond memories? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Previously owned games resold by chains
Dan Chisarick wrote: I still troll the used item bin for the very occasional vintage goodie that shows up. Found two yesterday: LucasFilm's Tie Fighter and OOP's Perfect General II. At what store? Those are a decade old. Anyway, Tie Fighter was $3.99. Perfect General II was $14.99. WHAT? I got the helpless shrug from the guy behind the counter "that's what came up in the computer". He's right; that probably was the last recorded price when Softsell or whatever warehouse they use last stocked the game. Ten years ago that was a good price -- they obviously just haven't repriced it since then. nothing the J Leonard blow-dryer technique can't handle (I'm afraid I'll damage the box w/the heat, but I'll give it a shot anyway). I can't take credit for that technique; I believe either Tom or Chris first suggested it to me once 3+ years ago when we were out trolling for oldgames in the northern Illinois region. As for hurting the box, it's difficult to hurt the box doing that. It is easy to hurt 5.25" DISKS doing that, but I have used it to remove large ugly labels from 5.25" disks before. One box even had the original receipt in it, with the buyer's name and address. Maybe I'll drop him a post-card and ask him if he has anything else to sell. THAT technique was first suggested by Chris, no doubt about it ;-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] No market for Macintosh collectables?
Awesome, thanks for the reference. Unfortunately, he was responsible for the embarrassment that was Free D.C.! as well ;-) Freddie Bingham wrote: Maybe some more light could be shed by emailing this fellow: http://www.channelzilch.com/doug/resume1.htm -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] No market for Macintosh collectables?
Peter Olafson wrote: Primarily, yes. But King of Chicago was released for the Mac first and later ported to the Amiga. That contradicts everything I know about Cinemaware, so either you're wrong (not likely) or my knowledge is incomplete (likely). Is there a reference or person I can consult to learn more about this? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
Edward Franks wrote: What I find an interesting observation of human nature in action is the fact so many folks that download stuff illegally turn the whole business into some noble moral imperative. But that's a whole 'nother topic. Which can be quite funny sometimes, depending on the mental capacity of the individual. Or it can be very tedious, like the whole Abandonware movement, which I try to distance myself from. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] No market for Macintosh collectables?
Peter Olafson wrote: Oh, sure; there were probably dozens of games that were Mac-first (others include King of Chicago and virtually every game designed by Wait, King of Chicago, the Cinemaware game? All Cinemawares were primarily Amiga and then ported to other platforms. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] No market for Macintosh collectables?
Peter Olafson wrote: The upshot is that, without much encouragement from the top, few game publishers invested heavily in the Mac market. (To be sure, there are exceptions, like Bungie, Cassady & Greene, pre-Activision Infocom, early Cyan, and, later on, companies like GT Interactive's MacSoft). Most I seem to remember a ton of mostly-unique games that originated on Mac (or were at least very popular on the Mac and took advantage of a mouse interface) and were eventually ported to other platforms -- things like Alter Ego (might have been on other platforms first), Dark Castle, Armor Alley, and ICOM adventure games... is my memory just faulty, or weren't there any unique Mac games? (Or there *were* but they didn't sell?) The sports-game market seems to have a different ethic. In another genre, NBA Live 97 might be considered collectible; as a sports game, it's just old. I suspect sports gamers are so geared to playing with the current rosters that they don't look back as much as, say, adventure gamers. I had forgotten about the roster aspect. However, this doesn't explain non-roster games like golfing, racing, etc. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] No market for Macintosh collectables?
I was just amazed by this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=51333&item=5703687968 One bid, six games in good condition, $8? I have two questions based on this occurance: 1. Is there just no market for Macintosh software collectables? Why the hell not? 2. Along those lines, how come there's no market for Sports game collectables (any platform)? Normally I'd rack up #2 as the "if it's not an adventure, it's not collectable" mentality that 95% of the software collecting scene shares, but that doesn't explain #1. I'm very confused...! -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
Edward Franks wrote: I have done this for some music -- download music illegally, listen to it, buy the CD. Nowadays I just listen to streaming radio and/or download it for later listening. The golden-goose questions are how many people download illegally/buy later and just what percentage of what they download do they buy honestly buy later? Given the packrat mentality of so many people into pirating I would be surprised if either of those figures was more than 10%. Just look at the usage figures for BitTorrent. I don't think that many people are sharing Linux ISOs. ;-) True. But at least I'm honest about it ;-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
Jim Leonard wrote: Tom of Quest Studios has a whole website on this: http://www.queststudios.com/ Forgot to mention that the MIDI files Tom has on his site were created using a very novel method: The program played the notes to what it thought was a Roland MT-32, but instead was a MIDI patch cable running to another computer with a MIDI board which RECORDED the MIDI information into a file. So even Sierra games, which used a custom format that wasn't straight MIDI, were able to be captured and reworked into normal MIDI files. Very clever indeed. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Understand that 'Roland Files' are actually plain, old MIDI files, played on a special sound card called the Roland Sound Canvas, or SCC1 or Roland RAP 10. In most cases, the music was composed on this type of card, because it had the best samples of it's day. Actually, "roland files" were typically composed on an MT-32, which was a MIDI module but not general MIDI. The Sound Canvas/SCC1 was the first General MIDI board, and it did sound awesome, but it didn't arrive until 1992. All the Roland MIDI stuff from 1988 to 1992 was MT-32 custom patches, and does not sound right if you simply play the file. Tom of Quest Studios has a whole website on this: http://www.queststudios.com/ -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
Stephen S. Lee wrote: OK, I didn't know that DOSBox could do that. I'll look into that! Remember, the emulation is about 95%. It sounds good, although the Adlib emulation gets a couple of volumes wrong for some reason. So if it doesn't quite sound "the way you remember it", don't blame your memory. What would a "high-quality" cable be, for one thing? (I don't know; I'd like to specifically know so I can buy one at Radio Shack or wherever.) Any Monster cable (Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.) will do fine. > Also, what program would you recommend for this? It'd be nice to be able to edit things like the silence at the beginning of each *.WAV file. Goldwave is shareware and pretty good. Audacity is free and also pretty good, although the interface is not intuitive and may take some tweaking (for example, you load your files, process them in full 32-bit floating point bit depth, then RENDER them to a new file -- not exactly the Windows metaphor for working with files). If you're willing to pay, Sound Forge is the best single-track (mono or stereo) editor for the price. There are more expensive solutions, and less, but price-to-performance Sound Forge is the best. Adobe bought CoolEdit and turned it into Adobe Audition -- haven't tried it, but a lot of people used to swear by CoolEdit. What I was wondering was if there's a shortcut that would enable me to take a game, extract all the Roland sound files from it, and convert them directly into *.WAV files, but from what you say and from what I've read, this isn't possible. Not by a longshot. But a Rolant MT-32 emulator is currently being worked on, so who knows, maybe in a few years... -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
Edward Franks wrote: On a personal level, I've met few people that would actually copy something illegally and then pay for a legit copy when it was available. YMMV I have done this for some music -- download music illegally, listen to it, buy the CD. Nowadays I just listen to streaming radio and/or download it for later listening. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
Tomas Buteler wrote: Ouch! That hurt... :) As a third-world resident, allow me to clear a couple of issues: I should have explicitly mentioned Asia, since that was what I was thinking about -- sorry! -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
Stephen S. Lee wrote: Actually, where can I find a collection of such extractions? I was I wasn't aware of a collection, hence my desire to someday make a radio station for it :-) planning to do this myself for a bunch of older games (Might & Magic III-V, Civilization I, Lands of Lore I, etc.) I was planning to extract all the music from each game; is there a faster way of doing this than just getting the game to play each tune and recording it? There are three main ways of doing (IBM PC) music: 1. Extract the files and try to get them to play in a player. Works best for MOD, MIDI, and some other formats like .ROL/.CMF (Adlib/Soundblaster). When playing MIDI you *might* be able to improve quality by playing it on a modern sound card under Windows, but it depends on the wavetable quality of your card and/or whether or not the MIDI is General MIDI (fixed instrument patches) or had custom instruments/instrument mappings. As for Redbook (CD) audio, just rip the tracks. For ripping, I recommend EAC (Exact Audio Copy), as it has special processes for dealing with scratched CDs to produce the least errors, and besides it's free. Most online databases like CDDB and FreeDB will *not* have the individual tracks named, so just rip everything as Track01, Track02, etc. and sift through it later. 2. Emulation. DOSBox (dosbox.sourceforge.net) does a 95% job of emulating PC Speaker, Sound Blaster, Adlib, and Tandy/PCjr *and* you can record the output to a mono .WAV file. If emulating anything OTHER than PC Speaker, you need to change the output rate from 22KHz to 44.1KHz or else it may sound muted (not as "bright"). For PC Speaker, 22KHz is perfect. 3. Record the actual games themselves with a sound card (play game on one machine, run a cable to another machine, record). Use high-quality cables and recording settings (at *least* 32KHz, 16-bit) for the best results. If you're lucky, you can "cheat" a little by having cards that do things digitally -- on an AWE32, you can use the digital out connection to record Adlib, and on a Pro Media Spectrum 3D card (one of the last cards Media Vision put out before they died) you can play and record on the same card. I believe SB Live! cards can do this as well (you select the "what I hear" source for recording) but it is hard to get SB Live! and newer cards to actually *play sound* from older games. Regardless of how you get the sound, if you're going to preserve it properly in MP3 format, use LAME with "--preset standard" if you want to ensure nearly transparent quality without unnecessarily wasting space. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Time to blend topics
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By the way, with the help of some Australian friends, I was able to actually extract the speech from the FM-Towns Ultima 6--a 3 year quest for me (AND a few others in this forum!) Geez, you should have asked me. I have been screwing around with PC audio for two decades and probably could have done it for you in an afternoon. I've decompressed, extracted, and converted audio from RealSound games back in the late 1980s, for example. For that matter, anyone who wants any audio out of a game, music or otherwise, talk to me first. I also have a 386 with a Sound Blaster and MT-32 hooked up dedicated to recording older game sound/music. According to the law, if a sample runs less than 30 seconds, it is legal to 'lift', and even use in your own work, WITHOUT the permission of the creator, or copyright holder (we've seen this in rap music for years). I don't know where you got that impression, but that's not the law and even a 2-second sample can get you sued. The first highly-public case of this was Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock with their album "It Takes Two" in 1988. (They sampled Maze for the song "Joy and Pain" and got sued.) Another case in 1987 was Pump Up The Volume by M/A/R/R/S (although the money from that settlement went to a children's charity). This is why, when I remastered the audio for Mindcandy, I removed the rap vocal in one of the music pieces. Would posting the sound samples on the Internet be a violation of copyright law? Not if your usage is covered under the Fair Use clause of the copyright act. Are they there for educational, historical, or reference purposes? I'd say yes, so you seem to be fine. Also, you aren't costing anyone any money and aren't misrepresenting the trademarks, which is the type of thing that would get a lawyer interested. I have been accused in many forums of 'weilding my morality like a club'. I patiently await Jim's response--and anyone else's views...are my previous comments on this topic now hypocritical? :) Not at all. I freely admit that I used to pirate stuff in the 1980s, but since I never would have paid for it, and I never contributed to anyone else getting out of paying money for it, I don't feel I did anything wrong. Back then, there was no such thing as a "demo" for a game -- you either bought the game or you didn't. Nowadays there are demos for practically anything you want to buy, so software piracy is a lot harder to justify. I still pirate older software, but for the purposes of documenting it in MobyGames. I download a game I don't own, document it on MobyGames, and delete my copy when I'm done; I can always grab it again from some source if I need it later. Since I do so to facilitate historical and educational documentation, it is covered under Fair Use. Besides, I'm not preventing companies from getting revenue, which is the real thing you have to worry about. So yes, I'm a pirate, but it's not like I'm trafficing Madden 2005 into China or anything (which *IS* a real concern, third-world countries are responsible for actual revenue loss in the software industry). As for your own morality, I don't have a problem with it :-) It's good to have some morals in today's society as long as they're reasonable and logical. If someone's morals force them to, oh, say, murder abortion doctors, well then those aren't good morals :-) . The fact that you are examining your actions and our current laws shows intelligence and freethinking. Bottom line: If you have snippets of music/speech online because you are documenting the game and the game's experience for historical reasons, you have nothing to worry about. (If you had the ENTIRE speech online and were SELLING it, well then that would be a problem.) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Another one?!
Edward Franks wrote: I just want to point out you used a couple of bad examples. ;-) I was going for expensive/old :-) Okay, replace Starcross with Michael Berlyn's "Cyborg" ($150+ last I checked). Anyway, I'm sure people got the idea. Also, in the US, the First Sale Doctrine establishes that once you sell something (as the maker) that's all the money you're going to get. A maker has no right to get more money on the sale of used items. That's like saying it would be wrong to buy a used or out of print book because the author wouldn't get any money. Agreed, but some people don't understand this. When I pirate a 20+ year old game to try it out, people sometimes tell me that I'm short-changing the author -- what, like buying a 2nd-hand copy on ebay gives the author money? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Fm Towns Origin Stuff
Freddie Bingham wrote: Some Fm Towns are 486 machines. Cool, I had no idea. We added FM Towns to MobyGames a few months ago -- Since FM Towns is just a 386 or 486 with a CDROM and enhanced graphics and sound, I just added "FM Towns" under graphics options for DOS games and "FM Towns" again as a sound option for DOS games. Any other differences I should know about? Do FM Towns machines themselves crop up on ebay or are otherwise available? Emulators? I would love to document some of the FM Towns-specific versions for MobyGames... -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Fm Towns Origin Stuff
Does the Wing Commander have full speech, both in the cutscenes of the Tiger's Claw and in-game fighting? I ask because the only port I know of to have that is Sega CD (which I find hard to believe, maybe 3do has it too?) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: YES, Freddie! Although I have U6, and the Wing Commander one, I do *NOT* have the Strike Commander. Give me a price--I'll buy all of the Origin ones (If noone else wants them) Joe From: "Freddie Bingham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2004/06/08 Tue PM 02:04:44 EDT To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [SWCollect] Fm Towns Origin Stuff Anyone interested in any of the items pictured in the attachment? Let me know ASAP if you are. Thanks Freddie Lucasarts Museum - http://lucasarts.vintagegaming.org <http://lucasarts.vintagegaming.org/> Anyone interested in any of the items pictured in the attachment? Let me know ASAP if you are. Thanks Freddie Lucasarts Museum - http://lucasarts.vintagegaming.org <http://lucasarts.vintagegaming.org/> -------- -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Fm Towns Origin Stuff
Strike Commander runs on FM Towns? I thought the last FM Towns machine was a 386. No 386 I know can run Strike Commander effectively... Freddie Bingham wrote: Hi Joe I do not have these but I can get them. Of course I have to arrange a price with the seller for to pay for them and that is based on what I can then turn them around for. I can always sell the UVI and the Wing Commander on eBay. Make me an offer for the Strike Commander (or all three) so I know the ballpark on what you are willing to pay. Thanks Freddie Lucasarts Museum - http://lucasarts.vintagegaming.org -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 12:33 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] Fm Towns Origin Stuff YES, Freddie! Although I have U6, and the Wing Commander one, I do *NOT* have the Strike Commander. Give me a price--I'll buy all of the Origin ones (If noone else wants them) Joe From: "Freddie Bingham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2004/06/08 Tue PM 02:04:44 EDT To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [SWCollect] Fm Towns Origin Stuff Anyone interested in any of the items pictured in the attachment? Let me know ASAP if you are. Thanks Freddie Lucasarts Museum - http://lucasarts.vintagegaming.org <http://lucasarts.vintagegaming.org/> -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Another one?!
Peter Olafson wrote: But I do think it's worth exploring the "fair use" question and, failing that, whether there's an Internet equivalent of the RIAA (which someone else mentioned) that could address issues relating to Internet radio broadcast of CDs. Perhaps it's a simple affair. Nothing is in place currently, however the RIAA prosecutes anyone found streaming video it did not pay them a license for. So I don't think I'll have a problem streaming video/computer game music. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Tom Snyder Productions
Feldhamer, Stuart wrote: I believe that #1 is true, although he's not the same Tom Snyder from late night TV. :) Now THAT was a hilarious picture you painted: "It's a comic book that ah, that you can ah, branch all over the damn place to get more insight. See this? See this? I animated the scenes using crude vector graphics! Ah huah huah huah ha ha ha ha!" People not familiar with TV's Tom Snyder can ignore the above :) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Another one?!
Feldhamer, Stuart wrote: On another note, I don't know if sharing the MP3 files with Jim is necessarily illegal. It may be covered under "fair use" laws, like making a copy of a tape for a friend. It's only covered under Fair Use if you make a backup copy for *yourself*. If you give that copy to a friend, then you'd have to make a really strong argument that the copy was "off-site storage for disaster recovery" or else it doesn't hold up. Dan C. and other former pirates^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsoftware reverse-engineer hobbyists will agree with me that current/former software pirates know the most about copyright and intellectual property laws without actually being lawyers. :-D -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Another one?!
Peter Olafson wrote:
I confess I'm unfamiliar with the mechanics of streaming, but do you
really need EA's permission to do so? (Origin no longer exists even in
UO server-farm form.) Wouldn't this considered a "permitted use" of the
media?
Just because the founding copyright holder no longer exists doesn't mean that
*somebody* doesn't own the copyright. In fact, I think it's obvious that
Electronic Arts owns all of Origin's Ultima and Wing Commander intellectual
properties. I'm sure that if I wrote a Wing Commander-like game, with WC
properties ("Kilrathi", "Tiger's Claw", etc.) and used the string "Wing
Commander" somewhere in the title, that I would get sued even if I wasn't
selling the thing.
--
Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/
A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/
Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/
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[SWCollect] Tom Snyder Productions
Some questions for John, et al: 1. Tom Snyder Productions (responsible for Infocomics, American Challenge, other early games) -- is he also the Tom Snyder responsible for "squigglevision" (Dr. Katz) animation and other animation projects? 2. If #1 is true, then is he invited to the Apple get-together? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Another one?!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I believe that this is as illegal as copying *ANY* music file. Why doesn't Jim just bid on it, and then he can do what he wants with the music? Because it wouldn't be any more legal that way (I have no explicit permission from Origin to stream the music). In all honesty, I just want to hear it. I have no intention of collecting it. I'm not a fan of the music per se, I just want to hear how it turned out. I can see a morality issue coming, so I'm going to head it off: For older games that you are curious about, do you download a copy to try, or do you spend $150 or more to collect a copy you can open and play? For example, I have never played Starcross and would like to give it a try. Should I spend crazy amounts of money for a Starcross collectable, knowing that any money I spend will never get back to the people who made it (and the collectable itself will go down in value when I open it to get at the disk), or should I just download a copy and try it out? Hopefully you agree the latter is the more practical choice. Before anyone accuses me of being a pirate, I own 600+ new and collectable games. I also own 100+ music CDs and 100+ DVDs. I do buy things, you know :-) I just don't feel I need to collect something just to give it a shot. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Another one?!
Pedro Quaresma wrote: Would this be legal? :) If so I have no problem of trying to rip .mp3 files from it and ftp-ing them to you. No, not legal at all, so if you want to decline on that basis I completely understand. I'm just gathering up files for a "game music" streaming radio station I'd like to run someday (plus I'd like to hear the music on the disc -- I wonder if they remastered it in any way, or if it's just MT-32 output from the games themselves). MP3 is totally fine (I prefer "lame --preset standard" or other similar VBR, but CBR 192K or higher is okay). If you're willing to do this, email me for FTP site upload to make it easy for you. And thanks :) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Kids and Classic Gaming
Stuart Feldhamer wrote: Of course, back then I didn't know what Montezuma's Revenge really was, hence why Panama Joe (or whatever his name was) was running so fast : ) OMG... I just *now* got the joke, after playing the game for 15+ years! -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Another one?!
For anyone who already has this: Is anyone willing to make a copy of this for me? I am working on a streaming radio station of game music, and I would like to have selections from this be a part of it, but I would rather avoid spending $120 just to get the music (I am not an Origin collector). Pedro Quaresma wrote: Yes these are particularly rare. Or were at least :) These are the "fabled" Origin Soundtrack Vol. 1 we talked about a month ago. -- Pedro R. Quaresma Salvador Caetano IMVT Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes / Lotus Notes Administration and Development [EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492) Toyota Prius '01, Aqua Ice Opalescent, 40K km., "Esperanza" 'People don't quit playing because they grow old. They grow old because they quit playing.' - Oliver Wendell Holmes Para: [EMAIL PROTECTED] A/C: Ref: cc: (bcc: Pedro Quaresma/SCAETANO) Assunto: Re: [SWCollect] Another one?! *Jim Leonard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>* 03-06-2004 16:53 Solicita-se resposta a swcollect Are these particularly rare? I wouldn't imagine this fetching a lot, but then again I'm not an Origin devotee so I wouldn't know. I bought the Rocket Ranger comic book (an item in a similar vein) for $2, for example... Pedro Quaresma wrote: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8108709630&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1 > > > Surely this seller must've found the motherlode of Origin Soundtracks? :) > > -- > Pedro R. Quaresma > Salvador Caetano IMVT > Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division > Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes / > Lotus Notes Administration and Development > [EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492) > > Toyota Prius '01, Aqua Ice Opalescent, 40K km., "Esperanza" > > 'People don't quit playing because they grow old. They grow old because > they quit playing.' - Oliver Wendell Holmes > > > > > > ToyotaShopping - A sua Loja Toyota Online > http://www.toyota.pt -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ToyotaShopping - A sua Loja Toyota Online http://www.toyota.pt -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] June 22, 1979
Peter Olafson wrote: I could be wrong, but I doubt anyone remains at Activision from the Infocom days to remind them. True, but they were all gone when Activision published those Infocom compilations, so I thought there was some small hope. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Kids and Classic Gaming
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 06/03/2004 11:08:52 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: They are *much worse* at the classic games in terms of skill, but they still *enjoy playing them*. And to hear them laugh when they play Boxing against each other is to die for. THAT is having fun. That is what games are all about. Gosh I used to play that one against my brother Jim (he usually kicked my butt, he's 10 years younger). Simple graphics, white and black boxers (racially correct or just so you'd know who is who? ;)). But still fun and challenging. Hey you got them playing 2600 Adventure yet (tell them the story behind the "hidden dot"), also fun to try to get EVERY object in one room. Montezuma's Revenge sweet 2600 game too. My brother used to go ape over Montezuma's Revenge for PC. We had a pirated copy and he could beat every difficulty. Another quest that nearly consumed him was Airball, and also King's Quest 2. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] June 22, 1979
Feldhamer, Stuart wrote: LOL! That's a good one, Jim! I wasn't joking :-( Oh, well... -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] June 22, 1979
Stephen Emond wrote: This year IS the 25th Anniversary of Akalabeth (and by extension, Ultima). However I believe June 22, 1979 was the date Infocom was formed. Correct. Is Activision planning any sort of special celebration? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Kids and Classic Gaming
As someone who has a 4.5-yr-old and a 7-yr-old, who play both modern and classic games (at my insistcnce), I too LOL'd at some of the comments. But the whole thing was a bit depressing, too: The kids in the article weren't aware that you can still challenge yourself and have fun with older games. Some of the games my kids like to play: - Luigi's Mansion (a truly horrible game in terms of gameplay) - Super Mario Sunshine - Super Smash Brothers Melee - Sonic Heroes - Sonic Adventure (both) ..etc. In other words, typical Nintendo and Sega licensee crap (although I like the Sonic games). However, they *also* enjoy the following: - Pac Man (emulated) - Sonic The Hedgehog (original Genesis, 1990, on a real Genesis) - Marble Madness (emulated) - Rampage (we have emulated, gameboy, lynx versions :-) - Donkey Kong (Colecovision port, on a real Colecovision) - Super Mario Bros. (NES emulated) - Boxing (Activision, Atari 2600, on a real 2600) They are *much worse* at the classic games in terms of skill, but they still *enjoy playing them*. And to hear them laugh when they play Boxing against each other is to die for. THAT is having fun. That is what games are all about. (Along those lines, I have no problem cheating in games if they are starting to frustrate me. I tried to get past the final boss in Luigi's Mansion for 3 solid hours before I just went and got an Action Reply to get past the thing. Games aren't fun if they're unfair.) Dan Chisarick wrote: Well, this answers a lot of questions about the current state of video games... I LOL at a couple of the comments, most of them from "Donkey Kong". On May 31, 2004, at 3:20 PM, C.E. Forman wrote: I saw this too. Hilarious! I loved the fact that they were over-thinking, over-analyzing everything, believing the different colors on the blocks in Tetris meant something, wondering if you can do stuff with the umbrella and purse in DK, rapid-fire in Space Invaders, etc. - Original Message - *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Sent:* Monday, May 31, 2004 8:54 AM *Subject:* [SWCollect] Kids and Classic Gaming "Cute" ;) http://www.egmmag.com/article2/0,2053,1487038,00.asp -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] June 22, 1979
Marco Thorek wrote: The 25th anniversary is coming up :-) For the informal collectors on this list, care to expand on what that date means? I can imagine people thinking it's related to either: - Zork - Adventure - Akalabeth -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Another one?!
Are these particularly rare? I wouldn't imagine this fetching a lot, but then again I'm not an Origin devotee so I wouldn't know. I bought the Rocket Ranger comic book (an item in a similar vein) for $2, for example... Pedro Quaresma wrote: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8108709630&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1 Surely this seller must've found the motherlode of Origin Soundtracks? :) -- Pedro R. Quaresma Salvador Caetano IMVT Div. Sistemas de Informação / Systems and Information Division Administração e Desenvolvimento Lotus Notes / Lotus Notes Administration and Development [EMAIL PROTECTED] // +351 22 7867000 (ext. 3492) Toyota Prius '01, Aqua Ice Opalescent, 40K km., "Esperanza" 'People don't quit playing because they grow old. They grow old because they quit playing.' - Oliver Wendell Holmes ToyotaShopping - A sua Loja Toyota Online http://www.toyota.pt -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Sierra cover artists (was: Drash...)
Jukka Eronen wrote: BTW does anyone here own original game art? Cover art or ingame? Nope, but I wish I did of a few titles (I would love the Starflight cover, for example). The closest thing I have would be my Rocket Ranger comic book. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > (and Jim, if you want to banish me for my statements, I'll go quietly..*sniff!* No banishment necesary. :) The funny thing is, while I certainly wasn't advocating forgery, I wasn't making a joke either. I'm very serious when I ask: How could you tell it was a forgery? Personally, I can't see how you could. The Akalabeth label was so crude to begin with that it most likely could be forged effortlessly, unlike most "professional" games. And that is both intriguing and a wee bit ominous at the same time. I posed the same question to a guy I met this weekend at Midwest Gaming Classic who owned a TON of Atari prototypes and loaner/beta carts, and his answer was a bit more reassuring (over half he got directly from the programmer, the rest have little identifying marks, etc.) But for the few that he could not verify, I asked if he could tell, honestly, if they were authentic (and he had paid as much as $800 for some). He admitted that, no, he couldn't, and if it was proven they were forgeries he didn't want to know :) I would hope that the response to such paranoia, if I'm instilling that in people, is better validity, background, and "pedigree" controls. I would hate to see a hoarding, secretive underground society response instead, where the only way to see a game cover was to travel to the guy's house, or view a JPG that is so obscured by watermarks that you can't make out the text or artwork. Sorry to wax this way -- The con I just came back from had some people paying for tables out of their own pocket *just to show off their collection*, they weren't even selling anything. And one guy, who owned every single Lynx game (in multiples necessary to play multiplayer, even), had them all out for public playing, including 8 Lynx units! It was very refreshing to see that kind of mentality for a change. So there's my $0.02. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: *Putting an original akalabeth sticker on a 'non-original' disk is a forgery. *Putting an original sticker on a disk that has the data copied from an original Akalabeth is a forgery. But how could you tell? I'm *NOT ADVOCATING THIS*, just posing the question. Also, Garriot has done this himself -- he has taken some of the original labels, put them on disks, put the program on it, and given them to friends and those have sold for $300 or more. It's an interesting problem. How could you tell it was a forgery? The value of an Akalabeth made your way is exactly ZERO. See above. Garriot has done this and the value wasn't zero. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest
Nope, I've never attached a bumper sticker to any car I own :-) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 05/21/2004 1:58:14 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Honestly, I just don't like unattached stickers :) but of course I don't want to diminish the "worth" by attaching it. Eh heh, you got bumper stickers on your car Jim? If so I hope they say "Go White Sox" Tom -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Display yes, if JUST collection purposes no. Heck I've got an original on the backing Akalabeth disk label, I plan on keeping it like that, rarer than the game ;) Hm... Now see, I would probably take a blank disk, write Akalabeth to it, and put the sticker on -- wouldn't that be worth just a tiny bit more? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 05/20/2004 10:59:24 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'd keep it as it is Jim, you can always attach it in the future if you want, no going back. Just curious, why would you want to attach it unless you were going to sell it? Even then probably best to give buyer the choice? Honestly, I just don't like unattached stickers :) but of course I don't want to diminish the "worth" by attaching it. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest
LOL !!! God I needed that! I've had one hell of a horrible day today :) I like this logic, btw. I'm still curious to hear opinions, but I think I'll leave the sticker off. Stephen Emond wrote: And that my friends is the exact reason you will never be able to buy a loaf of toast ;) Steve -Original Message- From: Stuart Feldhamer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 9:11 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest Let me apply some Talmudic logic here: The general rule is, whensoever A can be converted into B, but B cannot be converted into A, A must be worth at least as much as, if not more than, B. : ) Stuart -Original Message- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 12:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest Even with my superior powers of anality, I am unable to answer the following question: Which Wing Commander III filmcan is "worth" more: With the front circular sticker attached, or not attached (pristine, still on its wax backing, inside the can)? I have the latter, and I'm debating whether or not to attach the sticker to the can (like I found it on my first one). Advice? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] Nit-picking at its finest
Even with my superior powers of anality, I am unable to answer the following question: Which Wing Commander III filmcan is "worth" more: With the front circular sticker attached, or not attached (pristine, still on its wax backing, inside the can)? I have the latter, and I'm debating whether or not to attach the sticker to the can (like I found it on my first one). Advice? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] So obviously Mt. Drash is no longer rare....
John Romero wrote: Actually, we had a NeoGeo at id back at the start of 1991 You're correct, my dates are off. Still, $650 for a console? And looking on ebay, we see... $550? Sheesh. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] So obviously Mt. Drash is no longer rare....
Josh Lulewicz wrote: So there was a game released for the Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System (Home Console) that people claim there are only 3 or 4 of. That console never ceases to amaze me. When it first came out in the mid 1990s, it retailed for $650 for the console and each game was between $190 and $250. (The high cost of the games were because they were often 32, 48, or even 64 megaBYTES of ROM. The high cost of the console, I have no idea, since it was only marginally more powerful than other 16-bit consoles of the era.) So, ten years later, you would expect prices for an older console and games to go down, right? WRONG, they are the same and even higher! I went to a Neo Geo booth at CGExpo2K3 when I wasn't working my own booth and was amazed to see prices of $300, $500, even $900 for Neo Geo game carts. Madness, I tell you. Madness! I have played most Neo Geo games via emulation, and while some are pretty good, they're not THAT good. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Mailing list work
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ***Jim Leonard wrote:* "(The motivation behind this is part of my Master Plan(tm) for softwarecollecting.org, which is to become a big helpful source of software collecting for people new to the hobby: a FAQ, an illustrated list of MobyScale grades..." ** Gee whiz Jim, I hope I didn't create any work for you with my suggestion... ;) Not at all -- if you check the registration date for that domain, you'll see it predates your suggestions by a few years :) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] Mailing list work
Just a quick note that the swcollect mailing list software is still a bit broken -- currently there is no way to subscribe or unsubscribe. I am still working on the problem and plan to have it fixed this weekend. Along those lines, I have the ability to create a threaded index of the list archives, maybe even have it searchable. For doing the most good and being the most useful, I was planning on having this searchable threaded archive be available to the public and search engines. What I would like to hear are any arguments against that so that I don't anger anyone on the list. For example: email addresses public/not public, mean words about a buyer/seller, etc. *WITH* these arguments I would like a proposed solution. Keep in mind that a public searchable threaded archive of the list is *already available* here: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ but it only goes back four months. (The motivation behind this is part of my Master Plan(tm) for softwarecollecting.org, which is to become a big helpful source of software collecting for people new to the hobby: a FAQ, an illustrated list of MobyScale grades, photos of various shrinkwraps and how to tell which is real/fake, etc.) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] So obviously Mt. Drash is no longer rare....
Marco Thorek wrote: Is there actually a game out there of which only one single copy exists? Sure, give me an hour and I'll whip one up. I'll be happy to sell you the absolutely positively only copy of said game for the low low price of $800 :-) *One* copy? One published copy, or one remaining? For the former, no. For the latter, who can ever know? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Dan Chisarick wrote: Ok, generally I keep out of the grading discussions because I toss shrinkwrap on games like I would on sandwiches (in contrast to the death-threat below). Question: How do you handle funk? Basement funk (game stored in a damp cellar), smoker's house, cat used the space 10" away as a litterbox, etc. All of these categorize a few boxes of games I own (and all from the same seller). They're in fine condition, but they'll curl your nose. You can't possibly say that something could be visually immaculate but conjure images of the corner bar could be graded near mint, etc. They didn't come from the factory this way... That's a new one. How about NM (funk: ED) ;-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is anyone interested in doing something like this? If we each took a certain grade, we could accomplish a lot: Yes, this was the main reason I registered www.softwarecollecting.org -- to create an illustrated FAQ of all this stuff, and also a FAQ derived from the mailing list over the past three years -- you know, resources for people who want to get into software collecting. I'm hella busy right now, but it's definitely on my todo list. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Freddie Bingham wrote: Again .. I still disagree for the simple fact that a game can re-shrinkwrapped and one can obtain the same quality of wrap that most games That is not true at all -- I can identify with greater than 99% accuracy whether or not something has been re-wrapped. And although Chris has never worked in a software store, I'll bet he can easily hit 95%-99% as well. were shipped in (the softer, more pliable wrap). Take a hole punch to it .. > A LOT more re-wrapping went on at Babbage's though as we had pretty low How do you hole-punch something that has already been wrapped? Having worked at Babbage's, you know how the process works -- on heating, the wrap contracts, so you couldn't punch it beforehand (it would expand and distort). And if you know of a way to hole-punch wrap after it has been wrapped, please explain it to me :-) Finally, the feel of store rewraps is much crisper and more brittle than factory, so it's really almost impossible to do this properly. I think I need to work on that illustrated FAQ idea... How do you guys use this scale anyway? I've had games quoted to me a few times based on this, and in my experience, the grades are always over-blown unless it is something from Chris' store. Do not blame the grading scale for that, blame dishonest people! Personally, I don't grade games as my perspective will be different than yours so I just send pictures. I would rather have both a picture and a grade, because unless you're going to take well-lit pictures with a 3MP or higher camera from multiple angles, it isn't going to represent the item properly. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch and I Don't Like This threads
Stuart Feldhamer wrote: At the most superficial level, both of these are signs that the hobby is on its way to becoming more commercialized. A bit of a stretch, but I see your point. Maybe commercialization is a necessary step toward getting our hobby more recognized? More recognition means more participants, and more participants means more items that get shaken loose... -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch and I Don't Like This threads
Stuart Feldhamer wrote: Hmmm... If I had to summarize: Most people are unhappy that the prices are going ridiculously high. There is a big argument about whether it should be MS or M(S). Nobody sees the connection between these two threads? I don't, actually...? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Freddie Bingham wrote: I still maintain the guide is confusing since you have one situation where a grade and modifier can not be used together. Taken at face value, yes, I can see how this might be confusing. However, if someone understands the motivation behind software collecting and the terms used, then it becomes clear why Mint always needs Sealed. Maybe there is confusion over why the term Mint was chosen? Because "mint condition" implies, in numismatics anyway, "freshly minted" or "in the same condition as it was created in the mint". The pinnacle of condition in most grading scales implies Mint condition, and since a wrapped package is the only condition that can be considered "factory perfect", the Sealed part was added quite intentionally. It seems to me that the biggest problem is that the scale deviates from other, much more established grading scales in use in other fields of collecting. I can not find any scales that define a near mint rating as actually being mint and this is the biggest problem I have with this list. I don't see how having shrink-wrap, means that we need a scale that deviates from other scales. It is precisely *because* our hobby has different indications of quality that the MobyScale was created. Sealed items are worth more than unsealed items, so the fact that it is sealed is a gradiation of quality, and should be noted. When researching hobbies and grading scales in creating the MobyScale, I couldn't find any particular one that was a good match; most of them didn't apply to a hobby where factory authenticity can be verified (wrapped, sealed, etc.), and the ones that did mention it didn't regard it highly. I would be interested to learn of other hobbies that value shrinkwrapped/sealed items to be of higher quality, and also what grading systems they use. I know it won't be changed but I just want to it to be known that there are others who disagree with it. Duly noted, and I (and others) value your input. The goal of the Scale was to avoid confusion; if you use your own scale, just make sure it can be referenced -- on a web page, in a listing, etc. -- so that further confusion can be avoided. It's no secret that the primary motivation of myself (and others who contributed to it) was purchsing things online labeled as "Mint" when it was received opened, or seeing items described as "Very Fine ++" and "Good Near Fine" and wondering what the hell that meant :-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Alexander Zöller wrote: Good idea! I've never seen that usage before, but "(wrap: G)" makes perfect sense and is valid. If you agree, I can add it to the FAQ section of the MobyScale -- let me know. That would be nice! It would really help for the few cases in which one may want to also describe the condition of the wrap in the abbreviated form. Excellent. I've added it to the MobyScale, which now inches up to revision 1.03. The full permanent location of the MobyScale, as always, is "http://www.mobygames.com/info/MobyScale";. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Holger Bachert wrote: To me, "mint" means simply no blemishes or defects in the packaging or media. especially when every dodo can reshrink whatever he wants (and that happens all the time). Yes, which is why I am working (slowly) on a FAQ/web page of how to determine what wrap is original and which is reshrunk. It is my hope to put that, and other informational documents regarding to software collecting, at www.softwarecollecting.org (empty at the moment). just my 2 ct of course. Which you are perfectly entitled to :-) and is always welcome. My personal opinion lies in the middle: Mint Sealed items are obviously worth more than Near Mint items, but as to *how much more* is completely open to debate (and in some cases, not very much more at all). -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Peter Olafson wrote: To me, "mint" means simply no blemishes or defects in the packaging or media. That has been a traditional definition in many hobbies, yes. However, most examples of that usage in other hobbies were for hobbies for which there was no shrinkwrap. In numismatics (coin collecting) for example, most collectable coins do not come shrinkwrapped because they were minted before shrinkwrap existed. In fact, I'd argue that a shrinked game can't be verified as "mint" because you can't inspect the contents without breaking the shrinkwrap, and hence can't know whether (for example) the slider on one of the disk sliders has lost its spring or the CD case has a broken hinge. And this does occasionally happen even with factory-fresh titles. This is true; in fact, I own a 7th Guest that did NOT have the videotape in it even though it was advertised on the box. (And I bought and opened it specifically for the tape.) But this is rare, and also a risk in any sealed collectable. Some people on this list (myself included) have no problem "cracking the wrap" to play the game, or just see what's inside. This obviously changes a game from MS to Near Mint. There is *nothing wrong* with a Near Mint item; it is simply a fraction lower on the Scale than MS. In fact, it should be pointed out that the MobyScale grades are NOT LINEAR (I'm not shouting, just emphasising). I say again, they are NOT equally seperated from each other. From the Scale's FAQ: "We deliberately created granular grades for the best conditions and coarse grades (only two) for poor conditions. This was done to best serve the needs of collectors without overwhelming them." For my part, I'd prefer that sellers avoid such labels and instead use detailed, specific descriptions of games and their contents. That way, there is no possibility for confusion. This is very true. For those who use the MobyScale, they want a consistent scale in shorthand because they deal in large volumes of software in both their personal collections and/or business. But there is nothing that says they have to use the MobyScale, or any scale for that matter, as long as everything is properly described. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Alexander Zöller wrote: I presume you are saying VG (S) is also wrong because as per the scale, the game would grade MS regardless of how dirty the wrap is, No, that is not what I am saying. VG (S) means a box that has a few defects (usually crushing, a dent, etc.) but still has the shrinkwrap. I think the confusion comes from S being both part of the abbreviation for "Mint" and being a modifier. The "Sealed" part was added because Mint software is always sealed, so it was made part of Mint to avoid confusion for people new to the hobby. I guess in retrospect, having "Mint Sealed" can confuse some people, but it was *more* confusing to have someone sell you something described as "mint" and then getting an open box. as long as it's binding? This is where I have some concerns. Worst case: an unopened game in a dirty, smeared wrap could be passed off as MS and sold as such. "It was in the factory wrap after all." Not if they were using the MobyScale properly it couldn't. For example, I own a few ED(S) games -- they have been totally crushed, but still have binding wrap on them. Mind you, these games probably won't stay in my collection for long ;-) but they do exist. Yes, I'm aware this is nitpicking what I do ;) But I try to accurately grade my games and I don't think it's justified to grade a shrinked game MS even when the wrap looks and is dirty. And I'm also hesitant to use G (S) instead in such a case as the box and contents are, after all, mint. Well, G (S) to describe the WRAP would be incorrect usage of the Scale. As for an MS game with non-perfect wrap, you can always use actual words to clarify in those cases, such as "Wrap is slightly yellowed and brittle due to age and/or poor quality of the wrap used at the factory" -- surely you don't have that many... And don't worry about nitpicking -- hell, that was the reason for the MobyScale in the first place! :-D All collectors are inherently nitpicky, I think, to many degrees. Yes, silly mistake there. Try that again: MS (wrap: G). Something like that! Good idea! I've never seen that usage before, but "(wrap: G)" makes perfect sense and is valid. If you agree, I can add it to the FAQ section of the MobyScale -- let me know. But I think the way a shrinked game is stored will have a noticable effect on how its wrap will age. Stored in the dark or always displayed in bright sunlight, etc. 20 years down the road we will have games with the wrap nearly falling apart (still 'binding' though :-)) and others which even wrap-wise still look as if they came out of the factory yesterday. Indeed, which will most likely lead to a few smacks-upside-the-head :-) I can picture it now: "Dufus! You proudly displayed your complete Mt. Drash in your apartment window for a week for bragging rights?" Of course this would probably yellow the BOX and not the wrap ;) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
BL wrote: Jim, we've been over this a few times before. Say I have 2 wrapped boxes, and rip the wrap off one, then rip the wrap off the other a year later - the first one's box is still in Near Mint, while you are telling me that the one I just ripped the wrap off is should be considered the same, since Mint is only possible with S? Yes, that is exactly what I (and most other people on this list) are saying. Mint = as it arrives out of the factory; without the wrap, it is no longer as it arrives out of the factory. As I wrote earlier, you can use whatever method of grading you like -- everyone is a free person :) and can do whatever they want to. But for the purpose of being consistant and avoiding confusion like this, many (if not most) of us here on the list use the MobyScale, because we invented it and came to a consensus. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Alexander Zöller wrote: Right. So would you agree that both box and wrap need to be immaculate to score a MS rating? IMO the MobyScale doesn't imply this though: "No noticable defects *and* sealed in original factory or store shrinkwrap or sticker." You are correct. Not immaculate, just still wrapped. Sounds to me as if the box needs to be perfect, while the wrap needs to be the factory type, regardless of condition. Please correct me if I'm wrong. You are not wrong. Wrap, of any binding nature, implies that the contents of the box are complete and intact. If you have wrap but it is not binding (ie falling off and you can open the box around it) then it can't be considered MS because the contents may be incomplete. M (S) for a sealed, perfect game in a dirty, discolored wrap goes against the MobyScale scale and therefore should not be used. I could use VG (S) Wrong; see above explanation. Strictly IMHO, the grades are associated with the box, not the wrap. They are. We have a modifier for a wrap that is torn (T), but none for the wrap's general condition. Maybe that is something which could be added? I am open to debate on this issue. Personally I don't see the need to grade the wrap, but if anyone has any opinions, I'm open to hearing them. E.g.: M (S,G) for a perfect box in the original factory wrap, which is only in good condition, but has no tears. M must be S or else you can't use M. So hopefully you meant something like VG (S,G). This may appear overly accurate to some of you, but it may become important by the time factory shrinkwrap will start to deteriorate because of its age -- mostly turning a yellow color and becoming brittle, that is. Old/yellow/brittle wrap is not something I would consider meaningful to collecting, because unless you artifically age the process (store your games in direct sunlight, etc.) every single shrinked game, regardless of condition of the box, will have the same wrap. All 30-yr-old games will have brittle wrap, all 5-yr-old games will have common perfect wrap, etc. But I am only one person, of course; any other opinions out there? And Jim, once opened, it can no longer be mint. No question about that. Just making sure :-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
BL wrote: Oh no, not the M/S conversation again.. hehe, I've learned to just drop this one - yes, there's an anomoly in the scale, and no it won't be corrected. :) Mint means "as it comes from the factory". I don't think this fact is in dispute. Since coming from the factory also means factory shrinkwrapped, how can something that is open be considered Mint? Debate on this issue is welcome, because I want to hear other people's opinion. It won't change the Scale, though, since we talked about that for months to get it right (and in fact was the primary purpose of this mailing list). You can use whatever scale you like, but make sure you clarify it as your own and publish it somewhere where we can reference it. Most people here use the MobyScale system for grading the condition of software (because we all created and agreed on it), so if you use your own you need to clarify that. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] I don't like this at all...
BL wrote: In any case though, I propose we start an investigation, and over time, formulate a ever-growing list of these people and "black list" them so That's a bad idea. Many of them simply collect this way, or do so intentionally so that they can raise money to buy the software they've always wanted for their collection. There are many very respectful veterans of this hobby on this list and I wouldn't want any of them blacklisted just because they have or had practiced this a few times. someone is paying for it, which makes me wonder - is something worth what it's "supposed to be" worth, or is it worth what even 1 person is willing to pay, even if it's a lot more than that? Things are "worth" whatever someone is willing to pay for them. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Wiz I've got Wiz 2 shrinked, not only that a rare "demo" copy :) It is Demo copies are considered rarer than typical releases? I guess that's technically true, but I hadn't encountered that mentality before. Having worked in both a Babbage's and Egghead Software in my youth, I can tell you that most demo copies of software have "DEMO / NOT FOR RESALE" stickers all over everything, and what we had in the store was always beat up real bad (NOT always from employee handling, they arrived that way). The only DEMO software I still have in my collection is Stunt Driver from Spectrum Holobyte, and I would like to replace it with a full retail copy one of these days. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] I don't like this at all...
Per-Olof Karlsson wrote: I agree. There are already quite a few people on eBay who sweep up as many bargains as they can, only to list them a week or two later for a much higher price. Kind of destroys the hobby, methinks. There will always be people who want to make some money; I don't have a problem with that at all. Most hobbies have support business on the side, (scrapbooking, coin collection, comics, etc.) so this is to be expected with our hobby as well as it gets larger. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Ouch
Alexander Zöller wrote: Would MS indicate not only the box and contents, but also the wrap is in flawless condition? For me M(S) means the box is perfect and shrinked, while it does leave some variability for the condition of the wrap, which even if free of tears may be in lesser shape at times (store stickers, grime that has settled into the wrap, age discoloration, etc.). If it has been opened, it cannot be considered Mint any more. That's what Near Mint (NM) is for. For complete details, consult http://www.mobygames.com/info/MobyScale Hugh: What official URL should I list in the MobyScale for your CURIOUS site? -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] I don't like this at all...
BL wrote: Why would you hope it fades back to normal? I think it's great - if I thought that 50 years from now all the games I've collected were going to be worth the same amount of money, I wouldn't feel any urgency to collect. I have never collected purely as an investment. I collect titles that mean a lot to me personally, or titles that I respect very highly due to what they did/meant to the industry. But never for money; it's too volatile. There are people out there who just want to play the games and think downloading Abandonware is "collecting", for example -- there will always be people like that, so the industry will shift all the time. Until we get to be a bigger industry, we won't have the same common-sense "protection" that, for example, the comic book industry has against reprints being considered as worth a lot. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] Mailing list update
I am in the process of upgrading the mailing list software that powers this mailing list. It is possible that the list will cease to function while I do this. If it does, please hang tight while I fix it. I expect to be done upgrading by the weekend. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] OT: Your real life adventures?
It was a great story, I enjoyed it. :) I wish I had something similar to voice, although the only trouble I ever got in was travelling cross-country coming back from NAID'96 (a 1996 demoparty in Quebec). My friend and I were having so much fun discussing video games, demos, etc. that I wasn't watching the gas indicator and we ran out of gas. Utterly by coincidence, we drifted to a stop about one mile from an overpass in the middle of nowhere; we walked to the overpass, climbed over a barbed-wire fence, and found ourselves staring at a 24-hour gas station. I believe I had a +10 Luck modifier that day ;-) To anyone who has *programmed* a game, this might be entertaining: Recently I had some compression questions and I started to participate in comp.compression. I discovered that there is usually one or two people every few months who crop up claiming to have come up with an algorithm to losslessly compress *any* data by at least one bit. (Of course this completely violates the Counting Argument and is impossible, because otherwise you could use such an algorithm recursively to compress terabytes into one bit, which is obviously silly.) There was one such person recently who honestly thought his algorithm worked, and was ignorant to explanations on how it could not possibly function. All of his posts reminded me of the period in my life when I could have sworn I could perceive patterns in all random data. Honestly trying to help him, I posted the following: ---begin--- When I was young and experimenting with graphics programming, I created a simple program that plotted random dots on the screen. I noticed that they formed on the screen in a "grid" that moved in a counter-clockwise pattern, listing slowly downward and to the left. I then thought the random-number generator was broken, so I tried it in a completely different language on a completely different computer -- same thing. Tried a third language -- same thing. I chalked it up to an effect of trying to produce analog systems on computers and forgot about it. Later, when I was about 14, I was sitting in the front seat of a parked car and it started to rain. To my utter amazement, the drops started falling on the windshield in the same grid-like counter-clockwise pattern! For almost 7 years, if you asked me, I would have sworn on heaven and earth that I could see a pattern in all random things. It wasn't until I was 21 and starting to experiment with digital video, specifically informal research into the human visual system, that I realized how foolish I'd been. The grid-like arrangement and slowly-drifting counter-clockwise motion that I had perceived was simply my brain attempting to make sense of random data, as human brains are prone to do. Today, whenever I witness random data forming, I still "recognize" the "pattern" and chuckle to myself, but I no longer believe that there is a pattern in randomness, or that random data lacks entropy. end So, for anyone who has coded "plot random pixels all over the screen" as their first graphics program, you now know what kind of madness it can lead to ;-) The moral of the story: "When one is postulating correlations or causations extent in reality, one should always remember that the human brain is mainly a pattern recognition engine. And it is such a persistent pattern recognition engine that it often perceives patterns where none exist." -- Jeff Walther, Usenet, 1999 Jukka Eronen wrote: John Romero wrote: Um, I thought maybe at the end you would have found an old Akalabeth or copy of Stuart Smith's >"Fracas" in the cabin... SOMETHING collection-related! J Well, we've had off-topic conversations before :) (but put OT on title now) Ok, how's this for a real life adventure?-) (or arcade in this case). http://www.pacmanhattan.com/about.php Quite the coincidence I actually just had thought were there actually any games brought to life (like the topic at hand could also be interpreted) and just happened to see that link (without searching). Any similar links? Well role-playing and such are are a bit similar too, but any other based on games? - Jukka -- http://koti.mbnet.fi/psychic/eng_index.html - Synchronic Web: Sierra/Lucas/Tolkien/Ultima/AD&D/SSI collecting and beyond! -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.olds
Re: [SWCollect] Even marginally ethical?
Stephane Racle wrote: That is, a lot of white-collar criminals only get a "slap on the wrist". Sad to say, that is true. :-( -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Even marginally ethical?
Stephane Racle wrote: And it goes on every day in a number of industries. :-) Yes, but that doesn't mean it has to go on in ours. This mailing list has several prominent people of the software collecting movement as members, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that, if we all acted in unison, we could strongly influence the state of software collecting today. So, (slaps Dan on the wrist again) BTW, if it sounds like I'm mad or harboring something, I'm not. I'm just presenting one side of the debate. Belive me, I have a lot of software that goes for $5 today and would have gone for $40 4-5 years ago... price fixing would help me earn some cash. But I'm not willing to trade my morals and ethics for it :) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Even marginally ethical?
Dan Chisarick wrote: Not quite. The idea is that no outsider bids on the item. Doesn't matter -- it's still deception to raise the price of an item. Just because *that one auction* doesn't sell at the higher price doesn't mean that others won't. It's artificial price fixing. (slaps Dan on wrist) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Even marginally ethical?
Dan Chisarick wrote: Evil? Immoral? Risky? All of the above. It's called "shilling" on ebay, and gets you booted'n'banned. Not in favor of it. :) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] New Article from The Origin Museum
Vincent Joguin wrote: If it's <1 sec. in the emulator, then it's a bad emulator ;-) For those who didn't get the joke, Vincent has written several emulators. :-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] New Article from The Origin Museum
C.E. Forman wrote: So just collect two of everything ;-) AND the original hardware to play it on, right Jim? If you want the full experience, you can't settle for < 1 second load time on an emulator when you could have 45 seconds on the original Apple. B-) Hey, 45 seconds only added to the anticipation and gave you time to think. I liked the pacing. So yes, I do believe that, and that's why I have X machines crammed into my crawlspace (don't tell my wife!) :-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] New Article from The Origin Museum
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have complete confidence that the data will survive--I'll leave that aspect to the collector-types that dig THAT aspect of collecting (Jim, Dan, etc.--VERY capable hands!) I prefer to distinguish what WE do as 'preservation'. It shows respect for the MEDIUM, as well as the MEDIA--and with that, a fuller respect for the hobby as a whole. If I can add to this: I believe that the MEDIUM you write about isn't complete without the actual gameplay experience: Loading the game, looking at the title screen with anticipation, gameplay mechanics, looking at maps, consulting add-ins/feelies. I feel that it is imperative that the game be experienced before it can be considered truly preserved. So just collect two of everything ;-) -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Retro PC game collecting officially became big business
The economy has been picking up. I am trying to find a new IT position and things aren't so bleak any more, so I would imagine this translates to software collecting bidding/selling. Hugh Falk wrote: I was waiting for things to die down a bit before bringing this topic up, but the last few weeks have brought an extraordinary amount of activity on eBay…both in the number of good, old PC games for sale and the prices being paid. My watch list has never been so full. In fact, I’d say my watch list over the last few weeks was as long as the previous six months (maybe a year). At least 3 individual sellers had lots to offer: -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] Lost my email
I just accidentally deleted all of my inbox, which was about 80 messages of "things to do for other people". If you are/were waiting on me for a favor or something, please email me again so that it doesn't get lost to the ether. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Computist
Jim Leonard wrote: Dan Chisarick wrote: JPEG: I guess I was lazy because the scanner supports JPEG, TIFF, PCT and PSD as native outputs. I can scan each page w/its own settings (color vs B&W pretty much) in TIFF format and post-process the scans into PNG. One more thing I wanted to add: Don't be afraid of B&W Lineart. For a full page of B&W text/code with no photos, it really is the best option. Try a scan of Computist at 600 DPI at your scanner's Line Art setting (NO dithering) for a text page as a test. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Computist
Dan Chisarick wrote: JPEG: I guess I was lazy because the scanner supports JPEG, TIFF, PCT and PSD as native outputs. I can scan each page w/its own settings (color vs B&W pretty much) in TIFF format and post-process the scans into PNG. JPEG is fantastic if there are any full-page ads or photos or something -- you scan those at 300 DPI with some sort of descreening option turned on and it turns out great, then JPEG turns it into a managable size. But for just B&W text, it's the last thing you want to use. PDF: I was going for the 'book binding' wrapper rather than having a ZIP of loose pages, but when I look at even my original scans... they're only 17MB for the individual pages, but the resulting PDF is 43! I'm willing to bet that there is some optimization I can do to make the PDF files smaller w/o compromising the quality, but that's my last priority. I was also thinking annotations, the 'searchable image' option, etc. If you're going to use PDF, you should OCR the images to turn stuff into usuable text. Adobe Acrobat's Capture has a checkbox'd option to do OCR but *leave* the image in place so that any bad OCR won't mangle the displayed results (but the text will still be hidden and searchable). That is probably the only reason to use PDF. Otherwise, as you found out, it's better to just archive a series of image files, properly numbered. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
Re: [SWCollect] Computist
Dan Chisarick wrote: Any feedback appreciated before I make 93+ more mistakes... (remaining issues). While I'd like to say you should run it through OCR, I can see from the content (which kicks f**king ass, btw) that OCR would most likely murder it. But 43MB per issue is nuts. So, my suggestions are: - Don't use JPEG for 8-bit B&W text. JPEG was architected for continuous-tone images, not harshly-contrasting edges (like text). Use something lossless (preferably PNG) for text. Don't believe me? As proof, I used Acrobat on your PDF to extract the source JPGs for page 10 (there are two that make up the page) and I combined them in Photoshop, then saved out to a grayscale (8-bit) PNG. Total size of source JPGs was 781K, but the PNG as saved from Photoshop was 465K. For extra crunching, I let PNGGauntlet chew on that file for about 10 minutes and it got it down to 316K. (Since PNGGauntlet can batch files overnight, making the time it takes a non-issue, I usually include it in all of my processes.) - Scan at 600 DPI halftone (that's 2-color B&W) for text-only pages without color. Not only will you completely eliminate "bleed" from the other side of the page, but it will compress better than anything else. You're archiving text; at that high a resolution (600 DPI), you don't need anti-aliased edges. Again, as an example, I scanned a text-only page without color or photos as 600 DPI and the resulting PNG saved out of Photoshop was 363K. Running through PNGGauntlet for 12 minutes shaved it down to 270K. That's four times your previous scanning resolution at 1/3rd the filesize (and it's perfectly clean and readable). - Don't deliver the images in a PDF wrapper. I love PDF, but it's meant for text mixed with images, not just images. Try just a .zip (with no compression of course) with all the images. BTW, if you would like the exact images I scanned, I still have them on the hard drive -- I'm not just making numbers up, you can see the test files for yourself. Just tell me where to email them. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED])http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
[SWCollect] Esoteric Question #274
In your opinion, which is worth more? Consider three nearly identical items in terms of content and quality, except: #1 has a registration card #2 has a registration card but it is filled out with the previous owners details (he just never sent it in) #3 has no registration card (BTW, there's no need to take this seriously. :) But still, you have to wonder, eh? I ranked the above in what I consider most to least worth, but I'm curious if anyone disagrees. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) World's largest electronic gaming project:http://www.MobyGames.com/ A delicious slice of the demoscene:http://www.MindCandyDVD.com/ Various oldskool PC rants and ramblings: http://www.oldskool.org/ -- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
