You don't like to be flamed, I understand, but then don't flame others projects and don't talk about what you don't know.
I've just reported the results of my own tests, nothing more
There is no reason why most, if not all, STX files couldn't be written back to disk. You just need the right software, which is not easy to implement, but certainly not impossible. And even with a partial implementation, many copy protected images should be quite easy to write back. I don't know what software you used for the conversion.
the STX format is basically like the Extended ADF format available on Amiga, plus some more protections supported (weak bits, etc).
Or like the eDSK format for amstrad CPC with more features.
The only tool allowing to pass the STX files in another format is the tool provided with the HxC. It allows numbers of different formats.
That's what i've used. And it worked only on 1% of the titles i picked. It worked well with Navy Moves 2 disks release, but didn't worked with any title using a longtrack or a shorttrack protection, (i didn't tried with RNC and Weak bits or Fuzzy bits disk images as it was sure to fail from the start).
May be, may be not. But it is not very professional, and certainly very unfriendly (and I'm intentionally avoiding stronger words used in this thread), to judge and be critic to a competing device. You are not helping your cause acting like this.
The quality of the SCP images is bad because the disks used for imaging were mostly dirty. This means cleaning the disks !
That's what i've said above
I, of course, like to preserve copy protections. It's very interesting, challenging, fun, almost fascinating. I always liked it and it is one of my specialties. But I admit that Pera has a point here. There is no absolute, universal meaning to the original state of the software.
Those softwares have been patented with a protection most of the time. And as i said, no rights holder would want to have his program preserved in the form of a deprotected version of his software.
While deprotected versions are easy to transfer and also more pratical, if we got only unprotected versions, it would have refrained the emulation of the ST hardware, in the very same way it did for the Amstrad CPC.
That's a common point (again) between the two machines, the CPC also had people saying "we don't care about original software, because we have cracked releases ! And when i started to brought up copy protected original versions, the emulators just showed how crap they were.
Only able to run cracked software, and as such unfaithfull to the original hardware.
Providing original copy protected versions allowed as Nick Pomarede said has pushed onward the emulation, for the good of everybody
As i said too to the CPC communauty (i also belong there), many people are viewing the CPC like the ST, as machines with cracked softwares.
So i have done my best to change that, and providing copy protected versions of the softwares so that both of these machines got a change in the way people can look at them : "ok there are cracked softwares, but the originals have been saved and preserved, it's not just machines with cracked collections".
There is no direct relation between protected or hacked, with legal or pirate. That's simply not true. You could have a legal hacked copy (or even original). And you can have a copy protected but pirated illegal copy.
the software laws basically forbids the hacking of any original software. It's written since 30 years inside the games manuals.
If you reverse a software in order to hack it, it's against the law. It's not me, it's the law
A copy protected but pirated illegal copy is basically nothing else than an analogic copy made with a copier and a cart (or a cart).
What's empirically called an original software is most of the time duplicated on a trace machine. the flux signal is not the same as the one written by a standard computer.
In painting, i would call that an excellent fake reproduction of la Joconda from Leonardo Da Vinci
It looks like the original, but it's not the original, it's a fake
And it is also not exact that always the creator of the software applied the protection. In many cases the developer released a completely unprotected version. And it was the publisher the one who protected the software.[:quote]
That's exact
Most of the time it's the publisher. Sometimes the programmer
or even the Game Project Manager.
So which one is the original? The published protected version? Or the developer's unprotected version? Once again, I do like to preserve copy protections. But I don't say that this is the only valid, or legal, or fair, or whatever, way. It is just one way, the way I like it, that's all. I respect others.
The only legal (i mean patended version) is the final one. The one sold in box. Next, if the developer at a given moment is giving publicly like these days an unprotected master, that's another story.
But basically, the version picked for preservation will be the one commercially released.
This said, i've never try to stop or refrain people who wanted to make more portable versions, or even corrected/patched versions of the said softwares. But for preservation, as softwares are law protected, for preservation any conservator will tell you that they would never preserve a book, software or anything else if it's not the original version.
Or basically we would have fakes and copies all along in musem or libraries. And that's not something we want.
Now SPS France representative since the 19th of June 2014. Proud to be an SPS member !
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