CAPS user library available for linux (ppc and i686)

[sbeehre]

Air Bucks ECS
Impressions 1992
Strategy / Crack / ADF, Commercial

notice where is says crack! Id just like to be able to legally get original game disks to use the whdload, and not have them not work because they are cracked games.

[Acill]

All I see from this project is one more excuse to pirate Amiga games and call it a potection of the classics sceme again. Its one thing if your only getting games you own, but they post all these all over the pirate news groups.

[cgutjahr]

@kolla:

Pardon?

Please answer my question - what benefits are there over disk images (ADF)?

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

Please point out exactly which cracked games you have downloaded from back2roots.  

Watch your attitude please, I'm just trying to be helpful.

Cracked games on BTTR: Most (formerly) commercial games on BTTR that are available as an ADF image are cracks, check Banshee, Battle Command, Battle Squadron, Battle Tech... (and that's just the games starting with "B").

I did not claim that *all* ADF images are cracks, but all *copyprotected* games can only be ADF'ed after they have been cracked.

[cgutjahr]

@sbeehre:

so how do you go about downloading the images?? I looked at the game database site and couldnt figure it out.

The games are still copyrighted and it's illegal to distribute them unless you have the permission from the copyright owner.

IIRC, CAPS and BTTR are planning to offer IPF images in the future, but don't quote me on that.

@AxE:

bizarrly you can only get these legal images through illegal channels...  

These images are not "legal", distributing them is still forbidden. You are allowed to own/create such images if you own the original game, but that's about it.

@sbeehre:

So what the hell is the point of this project if nobody can get hold of the image's legally?? It seems pretty stupid to me....  

I guess the aim is to backup the original disks as long as they're still readable. Many of these disks are 15 years old.

@Acill:

All I see from this project is one more excuse to pirate Amiga games and call it a potection of the classics sceme again. Its one thing if your only getting games you own, but they post all these all over the pirate news groups.  

I don't think anybody needs an excuse to offer pirated games on the net. All games available as IPF images are already available elsewehere (in cracked form) and get distributed through newsgroups in various intervalls ("TOSEC floods").

The CAPS guys have invested a lot of time and effort to re-engineer various copy protection methods. That demonstrates a lot of dedication and love for the platform and those old games, IMHO.

[Paul_Gadd]

All I see from this project is one more excuse to pirate Amiga games

The year is 2004 you know? no company is being harmed by these games, why not whine about the latest Amiga piracy than ancient software.

[lempkee]

tosec holds later stuff and thats HARMING! the companys thats still selling games + creating for amiga , currently APC-TCP is beeing harmed by it and so is EPIC marketing,verkosoft and i am sure others aswell, i only know this because i talk to apc-tcp about this from time to time.

tosec is bad for the community and so is c.a.p.s as just look what happened in this thread, people started to whine why and questioned C.a.p.s reason for dooing this when the images aint FREE for all to download..

ah well yet another reason why i wont IPF image all my 2000+ orginals.

[evilrich]

ah well yet another reason why i wont IPF image all my 2000+ orginals.

This seems an incredibly silly attitude to me. CAPS is giving you the technology to make back-ups of your disks - disks that are deteriorating all the time - and you refuse to use this technology because it can also be used for piracy?

Do you also refuse to use recordable CDs and the Internet (clearly not the latter), because they are both means via which pirated software can be distributed?

To anwser the original question, yes, my version of UAE will support CAPS images. I had hoped to release a new version last weekend with CAPS support, but I have had several delays. Expect a release very shortly . . .

Cheers,
Rich

[lempkee]

evilrich: well put it like this , to support c.a.p.s you must generate an image and THEN send it to C.A.P.S so they can edit it , and what will happen then? .

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 ..

anyway i am a whdload supporter and i do support them and i am fully aware of everyone selling this on ebay etc and seriously it pisses me of but since i only gradually support them (1 by 1 instead of 2000 in one go) means that atleast the price on the orginals aint falling that much atm.

i have no problems with personal use etc, anyone who ask nice enough can have one of the few extremly rare games for sure but once i start handing em out, then the value will fall and since i am a collector value is important..

to your question, Yes infact i dont like internet as it is today, i am a big fan of the old internet style (the one we had before the stupidity of commercialism) which ended (got mixed into) around 1995*/6.

as for recordable cds, i use that for private use and i am the kind of guy who get really upset when i go into a store and buy a new game just to find out that the damn shop is a pirat and just sold me a game for 40 quid on a damn CDR.

(Epic UK , ALIVE and Amigagames.co.uk to name a few!)


for the caps support , well i support that but i dont support the way its done atm , it takes about 5 minutes after you sent your orginal to you got it back fixed but then it takes about 5 minutes more before its spread onto ftp's and websites , i dont know and i dont want to accuse anyone for slipping out the files but clearly someone must do it or else why is there allready caps cds around on auction sites (and they are complete according to my sources) ..

[lionstorm]

CAPS IPF are not available from the CAPS site so they can not be held responsible for spreading them. AFAIK, people sending IPF will get them back and fixed and nothing else.

@ Rich : I am glad you had CAPS support on your uae port. Is it for all ports or only a few of them ? I am interested in the amigaos and warpos ports (and a little bit on linuxppc port). Are they working better/faster now ?
Regards
Lio

[evilrich]

I am glad you had CAPS support on your uae port. Is it for all ports or only a few of them ?

Linux x86 and PPC and (m68k) AmigaOS will be supported initially. Actually, in theory it'll currently work on any Unix that supports the dlopen() call, but the CAPS plug-in isn't available for any other platforms yet. Supporting other platforms at my end is easy - I just have to work out how to dynamically load libraries on the target platform. It's up to the CAPS guys themselves to decide whether they want to support other platforms with the plug-in and, if so, which ones . . .

I am interested in the amigaos and warpos ports (and a little bit on linuxppc port). Are they working better/faster now ?

I've made no progress on the WarpOS port. My first attempt was an unmitigated failure :-( and I haven't had the time to do any work on it. It's hard work debugging when you can't test the executable yourself. I do intend to go back to this later . . .
The Linux/PPC (in fact PPC generally) versions should be a little faster with the next release.

Cheers,
Rich

[Ilwrath]

i have no problems with personal use etc, anyone who ask nice enough can have one of the few extremly rare games for sure but once i start handing em out, then the value will fall and since i am a collector value is important..

This is where I think you've flawed.  Actual collectors want originals.  Therefore, originals will always bring top dollar.  

Take baseball cards, comics, whatever.  The originals can sell for thousands of dollars.  Exact copies printed on similiar material (reproductions) sell for little more than the cost of the paper and ink.  

Well, those aren't functional items, you say.  You can't really DO anything with a baseball card, except look at it...  Software serves function, as well as art.

So, how about cars?  A classic original Shelby 427 Cobra will bring a princely sum.  A gorgeous reproduction Cobra (complete with Ford 427ci engine) brings only a few thousand dollars more than the cost of the parts.  

There's nothing like an original.  Unfortunatly, magnetic mediums decay quickly.  The DATA on those originals needs to be preserved.  CAPS seems like the best way to do it.

[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!