[SWCollect] Preserving software on multiple platforms

[Pedro Quaresma]

Still on the Ishar 3 topic...

I had read before that the "Elite Team Disk" that could be acquired for the game was extremely rare, maybe even more than the hintbooks themselves. I read somewhere that some UK releases included the Disk for free, or that some CD versions included it, but I can't be sure at the moment.

Either way, I recently managed to acquire an Ishar 3 with not one but two extra disks. They read:

a) "Siegfried Team Disk for PC and ST"

b) "Special Team Disk for Amiga"

I'm very interested in preserving this software, but not sure where to start. My ST knowledge is null and I have no idea how a disk could be compatible with both PC and ST. And I guess I could XCopy or Disk2ADF the Amiga one, but not sure that's the right way to do it either.

Suggestions welcome!

Thanks in advance!

Pedro

[Christian Bartsch | softpres.org]

Hi Pedro,

to my knowledge the only format that would support multiple formats with all quirks and flaws (intentional = copy protection) is IPF. But I am not sure if the free impementation (Keir's Disk Utilities) will support this. We'll be happy to help, but you'd need to send a KryoFlux raw stream dump to us for conversion. Apart from this, a lot of emulators directly support our raw data format, so you could load the dump in e.g. WinUAE without any further conversion.

Here's a little more info: http://www.softpres.org/news:2010-06-08

In general dual/triple format disks work by taking a format that is readable by all of them (in this case MFM), and then having decoder code that will do the dirty work on the target platform. The most delicate part is the triple format boot code which uses tricks, where a certain pattern will shift data and make it disappear from the hardware decoding devices (hardware floppy controller: ST and PC), but the Amiga would see it. The magic is to produce an auto boot that will do what it's intended to do just be inserting the disk.

Best,

Christian Bartsch
The Software Preservation Society
http://www.softpres.org

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[Pedro Quaresma]

Thanks Christian! So my first step would be to create this "raw stream" of both disks?

[Christian Bartsch | softpres.org]

Yes,

this creates an 1:1 representation of what's on the disk in regard to flux reversals. Everything else can be created from this data.

Cheers,
Chris

[Pedro Q.]

Great! How do I go about creating this raw stream then? :)

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From: Christian Bartsch | softpres.org
Sent: ‎24/‎01/‎2016 13:48
To: swco...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [SWcollect] Re: Preserving software on multiple platforms

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[Christian Bartsch | softpres.org]

Hi Pedro,

sorry for the late reply. May I assume you got a KryoFlux? With it you can capture the raw stream...

Cheers

Christian Bartsch
The Software Preservation Society
http://www.softpres.org