CAPS user library available for linux (ppc and i686)

[fiath]

(evilrich: Sorry, we should have waited

I just like to point out a few things:

CAPS *only* distributes games to those people that contributed them, and the games authors if we are in contact. It is up to those people what happens to them after that. We have no control over that.

I do not for one moment believe there are CD's out these with all the CAPS releases on. As far as I can tell, there are a significant amount of the releases floating about, but I doubt all.

Please let us know what auctions you can buy these things. The license specifically forbids any financial gain, and we will actively go after anybody trying to profit from the work of all those games developers.

On a lighter note, there seems to be a lot of good knowledge out there about us now, thanks for that. As people here have said: we are here just to preserve what otherwise would be lost. We are not happy about that happening, some of us were games developers at the time!

About sumbitting your games. There are good reasons for that, please read these three articles:

http://www.caps-project.org/articles.php?id=a_integrity
http://www.caps-project.org/faq.php?question=describing
http://www.caps-project.org/faq.php?question=rawipf


The CAPS Team

[fiath]

It seems to me you are assuming that all disk image files are cracks, which is a plain bogus assumption.

Copy protection is not the only problem. There are a *huge* amount of games out there which have been altered (by hiscore, save game, virus, user, etc.) since the original mastering. Fortunately, we can see when that happens - and so can guarantee that the games are authentic (we do not use modified versions).

So making an ADF of a game, even if it has no copy protection, is not preserving it - because you cannot ensure authenticity.

Another point of course is that how do you know a game has copy protection? There are quite a few games out there that seem to copy fine, and even work in some cases, just you cannot complete the game/becomes much harder/you die always at a particular point/or the early levels "wrap".

It is not black and white

[fiath]

anyway i have every single disk backed up with personal backup systems (mfm , raw and so on) but the only downside is that 1, i cant boot them , 2. its only for backup ..

Well, unfortunately, this is next to useless for preservation purposes.

1) Many types of copy protection (on countless games) cannot be backed up this way.

2) You cannot tell what disks are now corrupted or have otherwise suffered bitrot - not uncommon! Fortunately our technology has proven to be very good at being able to read disks that even the games themselves do not. Note this is reading problems (common) not actual errors. The two are usually confused.

3) You do not know if they are modified. This (as well as 2) is a case of good or bad for you. But collectively, we can find the *good* versions. It just may take many copies to find them.

Believe me when I say that every games developer we have spoken to is 100% behind us on this. We are even working with at least 3 different ones getting their games legally public.

I hope you will change your mind about your games since otherwise they will just rot (floppy disks have an "official" 10-30 year lifespan - we estimate about 18 judging by all the 85/86 games that are beginning to loose their magnetism), and then of course everybody looses.

If you change your mind, please email us. It sounds like you have a very nice collection indeed.

Note, CAPS owns something in the region of 5000 games. However, there are duplicates, and many are error'ed/broken/modified.

[fiath]

Of course, I forgot to mention a very important point. If a contributor submits a dump which is bad (for whatever reason, they will recieve a fully working, 100% checked and unmodified image back when it is released.

As I said, everybody benefits!