Brume's dumps

[dlfrsilver]

Things are never good when someone or some group, institution claim exclusive rights about something. And that is what I see with SPS.
Above explanation of dlfrsilver makes no sense, but that's not "created" by him. For instance, legally it is not on "collector" to decide about sharing images of his originals. Could continue with arguments, but for sure nobody at SPS will not care. I had some mailing with Istvan Fabian (*in his mother language), and that was not pleasant. It is just ridiculous how they thread people - like judging validity of some image or converted image is some extra high science. I think that Atari community can get over it, and thanks to people working on diverse tools we will not need at all their "services".

You are entitled to have your own opinion. My explanation is the one you can find on the SPS website, nothing more, nothing less.

[AtariZoll]

...
You are entitled to have your own opinion. My explanation is the one you can find on the SPS website, nothing more, nothing less.

That's what I said. They have right to do it as they think. I have right to think that what they do is pretty much useless for me

[dlfrsilver]

Things are never good when someone or some group, institution claim exclusive rights about something. And that is what I see with SPS.

Nobody claims exclusive rights, i don't know what makes you think that, but it's plain wrong and erroneous thinking.

Above explanation of dlfrsilver makes no sense, but that's not "created" by him.

I'm part of the team, and i can process the dumps for people submitting them. I am an IPF creator, so of course it's created by me !

Not by the pope or anybody else !

For instance, legally it is not on "collector" to decide about sharing images of his originals.

It was the way to go since day one, you're won't rewrite the history.

As an organization, SPS cannot got side track with the law. Or else the preservation would then stop. And sorry to say it : copies are not preservation, your cracks are not preservation, hacks are not preservation.

Preservation means the exact untouched data lifted up from the original. Everything else is bullshit.

Could continue with arguments, but for sure nobody at SPS will not care.

Of course, we're not accountable to you for anything, so yes, frankly : "don't care !"

I had some mailing with Istvan Fabian (*in his mother language), and that was not pleasant.

I know your ability to be pleasant, and it's not funny. At all. So i'm not wondering about Istvan reaction. It's like in real life, if you play the jerk with people that don't owe you a thing, you'll get kicked, end of the story.

It is just ridiculous how they threa"T" people - like judging validity of some image or converted image is some extra high science.

What i see is that their work is 100% good, with no defect. They have processed the datas in the most professional and possible way of doing so.

You're not the only guy with knowledge on this earth, some are better than you are and don't feel the need to brag out as much as they can.

You really need to learn about humility, this will give us a change for a while.

I think that Atari community can get over it, and thanks to people working on diverse tools we will not need at all their "services".

[/quote]

I think the Atari community will be satistified with your crack and packs, IPF making is our business and not yours, so continue what you're doing, and meanwhile let us do what we have to do and everything will be fine.

[Steven Seagal]

I had some mailing with Istvan Fabian (*in his mother language), and that was not pleasant.

I know your ability to be pleasant, and it's not funny. At all. So i'm not wondering about Istvan reaction. It's like in real life, if you play the jerk with people that don't owe you a thing, you'll get kicked, end of the story.

A lot of jerks on the retro scene, including me!

[AtariZoll]

drfrsilver not wonders about Istvan reaction - that's typical - talking about something he doesn't know at all. There was no reaction. Whole conversation was bad, useless, arrogant. And that's enough about it.

When I said that it is good that we have people working on Atari preservation related things, I had in mind people like DrCoolZic, Ijor, Steven Seagal, Hatari team ... Sorry for those not mentioned. Open projects like SPC are in my opinion much more efficient in cases like this, simply because it is task for several people. But SPS wants only that people buy their device and send them images. Huge difference. Additionally, I don't care for some copyright holder, former publisher, even programmer who now wants copy of his release. Saw many sites, official sites, where they hosted pirate copies - that's almost absurd, after all talk about harming industry and like. Many of them just cared for profit. Why they did not keep sources, masters ? That's not real preservation for me. Preservation should serve people, users.
Can we now buy some old SW legally ? We all know answer - barely. While for instance you can get almost any popular old movie, TV serial online for few bucks, or prescription.
SPS will be pretty much useless if they not start with making it publicly available - free or not free.

This is thread about floppy preservation - what is not my direct interest. I'm over it for many years - preserved everything I have. But I'm very interested for that because images are welcome to make some adaptations - like for hard disks, then some spiced floppy versions. Point is not in cracking this years. For instance it was easy to make much faster loading Dungeon Master from floppy - everything was online - less packed main file, actually same as original by content. Only that FTL used 2 stage packing to make it fit on single sided floppy. Now that's really not necessary.
That was another example of what is possible with shared work online.
I'm creative computer user - creating several DL links every day

I think that it is very good that we have people dealing with it in different ways, approach. Some are oriented in emulator development, some in floppy related things - like Pasti, SCP, general floppy knowledge. Some (actually, and sadly at moment only me) for mass storage adaptations, some do game improvements or even complete new games, still some demos, supporting utilities, and probably more ...
But we help each other, using others work. I don't think that anyone of those creative and working hardly, who is more less regular here, and for sure majority of contributing people ever claimed that what he does is something higher than what others do.

[dlfrsilver]

I had some mailing with Istvan Fabian (*in his mother language), and that was not pleasant.

I know your ability to be pleasant, and it's not funny. At all. So i'm not wondering about Istvan reaction. It's like in real life, if you play the jerk with people that don't owe you a thing, you'll get kicked, end of the story.

A lot of jerks on the retro scene, including me!

Well, you did a great job with Steem, i think no one can complain or say anything on that matter you've bring it far higher than it was, and it's very good

[Steven Seagal]

I know your ability to be pleasant, and it's not funny. At all. So i'm not wondering about Istvan reaction. It's like in real life, if you play the jerk with people that don't owe you a thing, you'll get kicked, end of the story.

A lot of jerks on the retro scene, including me!

Well, you did a great job with Steem, i think no one can complain or say anything on that matter you've bring it far higher than it was, and it's very good

Notice that it is not incompatible, for me or those other jerks.

[Steven Seagal]

For instance it was easy to make much faster loading Dungeon Master from floppy - everything was online - less packed main file, actually same as original by content. Only that FTL used 2 stage packing to make it fit on single sided floppy. Now that's really not necessary.

It sure helps to have a faster version, but the slowness is part of what made Dungeon Master. You had time to make some coffee.

The SPS's goal is not to serve the Atari community, but to preserve floppy disk software. I can understand that point of view, I guess it's open for discussion, and there seems to be some discussion on various computer forums.
The real reproach I would have is that they seem to be so slow.

Fortunately, other "original-grade" formats like STX and SCP [EDIT: and CTR] are useful for the Atari community as well, and conversion is possible. So we don't have a real problem.

[AtariZoll]

Yes, I heard it many times - like slowness is part of feeling, including noise and similar. But I'm sure that they in FTL were not happy with it, just made some compromise. Since DM is pretty hard, I needed to make really plenty of coffees until finished it

If someone wants to make everything self, it will be slower than co-working with others. They have their view about preservation, and act like it is something best, only legal one and like. I think that IPF file is good idea, but they should keep only Amiga floppies for self, and give rights and literature, SW (sources) to communities of other popular platforms. Just because they will never know Atari SW as good as someone involved in it for many years + time factor. But, as time goes, all it will be irrelevant probably. Nobody will complain against size of some 15 rev SCP dump.
OK, I stop ranting, just gimme finally that image of Son Shu Shi, so I can use my skills in something hmmm - what will allow me to brag

[npomarede]

Hi

just my 2 cents, not wanting to fuel an endless debate, but although I understand people can be frustrated by the time it may take to have their KF dumps converted to IPF, don't forget that the kryoflux board allows to create CT Raw dumps (.CTR files) and thoses files will work perfectly under emulator (Hatari and also Steem), as well as under HxC I think.

This is what capslib 5.1 was meant to : to support CTR files the same way IPF files are supported and to provide an equivalent level of compatibilty.
Having working on this with Istvan (lots of test on my own STF/STE to check some undocumented timings/features, and by the way Istvan was absolutely not clueless or arrogant IMO, on the contrary I think we worked efficiently to improve the FDC's emulation and to allow CTR files to work "just as is"), so I'm pretty sure CTR files works very well, assuming you use 5 rev for example (in this regard, CTR is not very different from the SCP files).

So, no one force anyone to use IPF files ; just dump your disk with KF board in CTR format and share those files if you like, you don't have to wait for an SPS answer to do this.
You can even use Aufit by Dr Coolzic or the HxC soft to check the state of the dump and ensure the surface was not dirty for example.

Please, let's stop those useless flaming of SPS, IPF or whatever. There're plenty alternatives to dump/store ST floppies (and KF CTR format is one of them), you don't need necessary SPS to take part of this process, so let's speak of something else

Nicolas

[AtariZoll]

There is lot of nonsense, lack of logic in what dlfrsilver says - that's why I wrote what wrote. There is no flaming, just writing own experiences.
For instance: "Preservation means the exact untouched data lifted up from the original. Everything else is bullshit." - by this, IPF is bullshit too. Because only RAW images are (near to) exact untouched data. What is difference between some repacked release and original ? Nothing in fact, because data is not touched. Only container of data is changed. Same can be said for some hard disk adaptation - at the end all bytes used by SW, game will be exactly same. IPF is not exact image of original, only presentation of it. Furthermore, an image is not exact untouched data. Only accurate physical copy of floppy is exact data - here mean all fluxes, protection tricks and so on. Every image is just close to original.
All in all, we discuss in fact what way of closing to original is best. And that's actually matter of taste, experience, and no thanx SPS, you will not tell me what is preservation, because you are one sided. Plus, serious organization would never engage someone without basic knowledge, like our drfr ...
Preservation is to faithfully keep user content of some SW, game. Protections are not it. Of course, if someone wants to preserve copy protections, it is his right. Normal people will not care about it, and certainly in future will not judge some SW by how it was copyprotected, but how well it is playable and such things. In other words, preserving copy protection is preservation of specific release, not SW self.
I have 2 originals of Carrier Command - first release is not copyprotected, just manual protection. Other is with Copylock. But that's 100% same game. I could be now unfair, as some here used to, and say that KryoFlux is bullshit, because can not copy manuals, so is not good for copy protected SW - and manual is part of release. All in all, good is what is good for end users.

[npomarede]

Well, I have to disagree with you, I think protection scheme is part of the original game. It might not add any value to it, but if you consider preservation is similar to a museum where objects are collected and stored to reflect a specific epoch and which technologies were used at that time, then protection should be part of it.
Protection is also very valuable if you want to build an emulator or an FPGA version of an old discontinued machine ; for example when developping Hatari, many accuracy issues were detected when trying to run the protected version of the game (while the cracked / MSA version would often work correctly) and those were not always FDC issues.

As CTR and SPC formats allow to read a floppy, store it to a file, then write the file and you get an undistinguishable floppy from the one you first read, then I consider this is accurate preservation.

I think you're spreading some kind of FUD about SPS/IPF, you might not like them or had some strong differences of point of view with them, but other people might think the opposite.
Your definition of preservation seems to be different from the one other people might have, but constantly bringing back the discussion to IPF seems a little tiring to me and counter productive for people reading atari-forum and just trying to copy/preserve/archive (pick your word) as many games as possible with their SPC or KF board.
Your goal of doing HD adaptation of games is very interesting, but I think it's just a different subject from this thread about dump disks with SPC/KF.

Nicolas

[dlfrsilver]

The SPS's goal is not to serve the Atari community, but to preserve floppy disk software.

Nobody at SPS ever said that Steven. I have been choosen because i have submitted tons of original games (more than +2.000 to this day) for preservation.

And this due to my knowledge. Next, i have promised to help them by checking and processing all the dumps sent to me.

To this day, i've done it for people from the CPC communauty, ST communauty, Amiga Communinauty (and a bit for PC collectors too).

I can understand that point of view, I guess it's open for discussion, and there seems to be some discussion on various computer forums.
The real reproach I would have is that they seem to be so slow.

I'm fast, but if nobody contact me, things won't go faster

I have sent to Kodak80 quite a big amount of temporary IPFs thanks to the games he allowed me to check.

Fortunately, other "original-grade" formats like STX and SCP are useful for the Atari community as well, and conversion is possible. So we don't have a real problem.

Indeed, the STX format is great for emulation, but unusable for write back if some people want to write on disk. I did myself some tests and convert back the STX files to Kfraw format in order to write back on disk with the kryoflux board.

It works only with not protected titles. As soon as you try to write a protected disk converted from STX, it fails.

About the SCP images, in all the images i have looked so far, quite a big amount of them have errors, because most disks are dirty or moulded.

The SCP system allows easier and quick-to-do disk imaging, but there is no way to avoid errors. The kryoflux system offers a visual safe guard on that matter.

When you image a disk, if the user interface shows an error, the ending dump is faulty and you can't ignore it.

The IPF system is the only actually which offers the most compact files and 100 % free of errors real preserved disk images right from the start.

On my part, i should add that Brume badly reacted when i told him that his Toki original dump was not clean enough to pass in IPF (i have used Aufit and discovered that the disk was indeed mouldy/dirty and needed cleaning).

Fortunately, Kodak80 upped a good Toki dump, and i have been finally able to make a good IPF out of it

This problem is the same on every platform : CPC, Amiga or ST/PC. The disks are more and more having shits on them, and for this reason, the collectors need to open the disks and use cotton eyes cleaners with isopropyl alcohol to clean those. But i fear that many of them don't know how to proceed, so maybe i have to do something here to help (like making a video or a tutorial showing exactly how to do).

[troed]

This problem is the same on every platform : CPC, Amiga or ST/PC. The disks are more and more having shits on them, and for this reason, the collectors need to open the disks and use cotton eyes cleaners with isopropyl alcohol to clean those. But i fear that many of them don't know how to proceed, so maybe i have to do something here to help (like making a video or a tutorial showing exactly how to do).

Yes, please. That'd be most welcome.

[dlfrsilver]

There is lot of nonsense, lack of logic in what dlfrsilver says - that's why I wrote what wrote. There is no flaming, just writing own experiences.

I'm paid in IT for my logic precisely. And I have been in the past directing more than 40 engineers in a big bank. Engineers way more competant than you actually are Guys paid 6-7000 euros per month

And i was respected by them. So you're so called experience has a name : "bullshit !".

You're basically an individual specialised in cracking and patching, but also an expert at quarrelling other people, i'd even say better than some women ahaha

So please, do us a favor, keep the good work on your cracks and patchs, and for the remaining, just shut the *uc* up !

For instance: "Preservation means the exact untouched data lifted up from the original. Everything else is bullshit." - by this, IPF is bullshit too.

The IPF is the exact representation of what was on an original disk. You say i know nothing ? "YOU know notin' Jon Snow !"

That's the first reason why you'll never be a part of SPS, never and ever. We don't need idiots like you with us, better shot a bullet in our own leg !

Because only RAW images are (near to) exact untouched data. What is difference between some repacked release and original ? Nothing in fact, because data is not touched.

We are only preserving ORIGINAL disks, we don't preserve cracks, copies, disk images and so on !

The explanation is simple : in regard of the law, pirated softwares (read deprotected, filed, trained and so on), just can't be used for preservation.

Do the Louvres Museum stores a fake copy of the joconda painting and calls it preservation ? NOPE.

They store the original painting. Nothing else.

For softwares, it's the same. No legal holders would agree that pirated, transformed or trained versions of the assets can be called preservation !

Preservation means original software coming from original disks, with original copy protections, untampered, this up to the flux signal form !

Only container of data is changed. Same can be said for some hard disk adaptation - at the end all bytes used by SW, game will be exactly same. IPF is not exact image of original, only presentation of it. Furthermore, an image is not exact untouched data. Only accurate physical copy of floppy is exact data - here mean all fluxes, protection tricks and so on. Every image is just close to original.

Once again you just didn't apprehend or understood what preservation is.

you are extracting the datas from the disk, changing the number of sectors for storage, you modify heavily the programs, in order to patch.

That's no more the original program like it has been trademarked and law protected. The name is known, it's pirated copies.

Nothing more, nothing else.

All in all, we discuss in fact what way of closing to original is best.

We know already what it is and we don't need your babbling to determine what, how and where things must be done.

And that's actually matter of taste, experience, and no thanx SPS, you will not tell me what is preservation, because you are one sided.

Preservation in term of conservation has only one definition, and it's ours, not yours.

Plus, serious organization would never engage someone without basic knowledge, like our drfr ...

Third point for which you will never be part of SPS : I have of course the basic knowledge, and more.

There's no need to be a programmer (even worse : a moronic pirate ) to be able to preserve softwares.

The proof : i'm processing a lot of IPFs for our contributors WITHOUT having any need to ask you babbling like you do usually !

Oh my godddd. And the worse : the IPFs i'm creating are perfectly working. Please don't fall down nor do an heart attack please ahaha

Preservation is to faithfully keep user content of some SW, game.

Ok, so tomorrow i go painting a fake Joconda, and i go to the louvres museum claiming that's preservation, because that's the joconda.

Stop being silly and empty-minded like that. You perfectly know that you're wrong at best.

Protections are not it. Of course, if someone wants to preserve copy protections, it is his right. Normal people will not care about it, and certainly in future will not judge some SW by how it was copyprotected, but how well it is playable and such things. In other words, preserving copy protection is preservation of specific release, not SW self.

The protections have been applied by the legal owner of the concerned software. Without the protection, the software is then tampered, and cannot be anymore preserved, because that's not how it was intended by his creator(s).

Having a copy of a software is simply : pratical AND easy to transfer. But things stops here.

I have 2 originals of Carrier Command - first release is not copyprotected, just manual protection. Other is with Copylock. But that's 100% same game.

Yes and what is the problem then ? You own 2 differents revisions of this software, what is the actual problem ?

I could be now unfair, as some here used to, and say that KryoFlux is bullshit, because can not copy manuals, so is not good for copy protected SW - and manual is part of release. All in all, good is what is good for end users.

Oh my god, stop drinking Vodka or any strong alcohol passing nearby your hands, the carrier command manual is already available on the net !

There are many websites for that, you don't know how to use google ?

[dlfrsilver]

This problem is the same on every platform : CPC, Amiga or ST/PC. The disks are more and more having shits on them, and for this reason, the collectors need to open the disks and use cotton eyes cleaners with isopropyl alcohol to clean those. But i fear that many of them don't know how to proceed, so maybe i have to do something here to help (like making a video or a tutorial showing exactly how to do).

Yes, please. That'd be most welcome.

Ok, i will ask to my wife to cam me while i do the job

[keops]

I'm paid in IT for my logic precisely. And I have been in the past directing more than 40 engineers in a big bank. Engineers way more competant than you actually are Guys paid 6-7000 euros per month

And i was respected by them.

That was until they realized you were a loudmouth and a fraud, right?

[dlfrsilver]

Well, I have to disagree with you, I think protection scheme is part of the original game. It might not add any value to it, but if you consider preservation is similar to a museum where objects are collected and stored to reflect a specific epoch and which technologies were used at that time, then protection should be part of it.

That's correct what else to say ?

Protection is also very valuable if you want to build an emulator or an FPGA version of an old discontinued machine ; for example when developping Hatari, many accuracy issues were detected when trying to run the protected version of the game (while the cracked / MSA version would often work correctly) and those were not always FDC issues.

Especially on computers like the Amstrad CPC and the Atari ST/E where the FDC is a sort of black box.

Like you Nick, i've met all sorts of problem with the CPC exactly for the same reasons as yours : On ST, you have mainly cracked releases of the softwares/games with no protections.

Problem : this is a stop for emulating what the real hardware is. On CPC, thanks to the original dumps i did, and IPF as well, some emulator authors have been able to correct FDC bugs, triggered due to the specific and unorthodox protection methods used on the original disks.

The Atari ST like any other computer deserve to have a real preservation of its softwares, and not keep an image of a "piracy dedicated machine".

I've say the same on a CPC forum, because some peeps were saying that "we have cracks that's good enough".

I just can't agree with that. the originals must not be lost, and preserved at any cost.

As CTR and SCP formats allow to read a floppy, store it to a file, then write the file and you get an undistinguishable floppy from the one you first read, then I consider this is accurate preservation.

I agree.

I think you're spreading some kind of FUD about SPS/IPF, you might not like them or had some strong differences of point of view with them, but other people might think the opposite.

He just doesn't realize the consequences of his "Take-that-it's-free-i'm-bad-mouthing-all-over". He is causing a prejudice.

Your definition of preservation seems to be different from the one other people might have, but constantly bringing back the discussion to IPF seems a little tiring to me and counter productive for people reading atari-forum and just trying to copy/preserve/archive (pick your word) as many games as possible with their SPC or KF board.

It's useless indeed. To everybody. It's just free ranting for free ranting.

Your goal of doing HD adaptation of games is very interesting, but I think it's just a different subject from this thread about dump disks with SPC/KF.

That's exactly what i told him. You do adaptations, patch and cracks ? Keep up the good work, and leave us alone with our own one !

I'm (and we're) not coming to explain to people how they must do things, so this useless ranting has to stop.

[dlfrsilver]

I'm paid in IT for my logic precisely. And I have been in the past directing more than 40 engineers in a big bank. Engineers way more competant than you actually are Guys paid 6-7000 euros per month

And i was respected by them.

That was until they realized you were a loudmouth and a fraud, right?

Nope. You can't be a loudmouth, because there are always stronger people than you are. (ex : the older man i was directing was 55 years old, and he was directing a team of 15 engineers, specialized in UNIX. If i was only a loudmouth, i would have been terminated, and forced to leave).

Being a fraud ? In a Bank ? Ahaha you have the sense of humor !

You can't be a fraud in such a job. Banks are paying you a good pay but there is a lot of stress, and you must show all the time you're good. And i was damn good

In such high paid jobs, there's no room in such workplace for incompetant people. You can only survive in this kind of job by showing you did it princely. Otherwise you're fired, end of the story.

I always did what i said, and i always fullfilled my goals. I had millions of euros in responsability, so failing, frauding, loudmouthing was forbidden and meant : you're fired.

I'll stop here

[ijor]

Indeed, the STX format is great for emulation, but unusable for write back if some people want to write on disk. I did myself some tests and convert back the STX files to Kfraw format in order to write back on disk with the kryoflux board.
It works only with not protected titles. As soon as you try to write a protected disk converted from STX, it fails.

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.

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.

About the SCP images, in all the images i have looked so far, ... The SCP system allows easier and quick-to-do disk imaging, but there is no way to avoid errors...

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 explanation is simple : in regard of the law, pirated softwares (read deprotected, filed, trained and so on), just can't be used for preservation ...
The protections have been applied by the legal owner of the concerned software. Without the protection, the software is then tampered, and cannot be anymore preserved, because that's not how it was intended by his creator(s).

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.

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.

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. 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.

[ijor]

..., but although I understand people can be frustrated by the time it may take to have their KF dumps converted to IPF ... So, no one force anyone to use IPF files.

I agree Nicolas. But look back at this thread, the start of this "debate" wasn't about the IPF production time. It started with some legal, nonsense IMHO.

You can be either very strict about copyright law, or not too much. But you should be consistent and coherent. And above all, the community expects you to be honest and sincere. Do you think it is honest to come here and say that downloads are illegal but uploads are ok? We all know the answer, you don't have to be a lawyer to know it.

Please, let's stop those useless flaming of SPS, IPF or whatever ... I think you're spreading some kind of FUD about SPS/IPF, you might not like them or had some strong differences of point of view with them, but other people might think the opposite.

Once again I agree with you. He is flaming and spreading some kind of FUD, and he should not. BUT, please Nicolas, check some older threads. I think SPS people spread way much more FUD about others (including me and Pasti). Furthermore, I think I am being honest if I describe as they (not dlfrsilver, just to be clear and precise) were even almost insulting towards me a few years ago.

So if you want to be fair, you should stand against all flaming.

[AtariZoll]

I think that there is no real flaming, but certainly we spoil this thread. So best would be to continue ... - actually, best would be to stop right here, but some claims said really need answer. So, I will say here just one thing, and will open new thread in this, preservation section for more related.
My intention was not to FUD (whatever that abbrev means) anyone. But others already talked about some problems wits SPS. I believe that real reason why DrCoolZic did not get IPF files from them is that he wrote some posts here and at Kryoflux forum, where talked about spreading images freely. They did very good job in technical part, including lot of tests on real HW with 1772 - I know that, because Istvan self wrote longer about in e-mail. But thee is other people which did same thing, just not with exactly same goal, approach. IPF format is good idea - it is basically special image, with support for popular protections, where no need to keep exact flux snapshot of specific part, instead it there is some descriptor - simply said. Surely, file sizes were more important some 10 years ago, not it is not so crucial. Bad side of all it is their approach and keeping exclusiveness for all platforms - what causes slow processing and at end less contributed images. Finally, if someone talks about it as something perfect, always 100% flawless, I can not take him seriously. Especially in case of IPF format - you need to update it periodically with new protections found.

[DrCoolZic]

Even though I have expressed some disagreements with the way SPS operates, we must recognize that they are doing a remarkable job in the area of old floppy disk preservation. As expressed above, I do not fully agree with the way SPS manage IPF files but this is their decision and I respect that. In the technical area they have very knowledgeable and talented people. We all know (or should know) that communication with passionate people that have a strong personality can sometimes be challenging and requires patience and diplomacy!

SPS has made IPF code public under an atypical license agreement. As they have not described the file format, I have written a document based on reverse engineering and source code analysis that provides most information required to understand IPF files. Note that this documentation is not validated by SPS (contrary to my KF raw file documentation that was published on their site). There are several tools for Atari and Amiga that deals directly (not using CAPS Lib) with IPF files but none of them are approved by SPS and file generated are not “certified”.

I have acquired a reasonable knowledge of CTA and Atari FD’s protections and therefore I think I can generate perfect IPF files (of course as long as source image is good enough) but I have no problem if they do not want to endorse the IPF files I generate (like the one in viewtopic.php?f=95&t=21669). If Aufit generates IPF files in future I certainly don’t expect that they will be certified by SPS.

[Brume]

On my part, i should add that Brume badly reacted when i told him that his Toki original dump was not clean enough to pass in IPF (i have used Aufit and discovered that the disk was indeed mouldy/dirty and needed cleaning).

I really don't remember having badly reacted. Can you tell me when and post the source of the message?

[DrCoolZic]

I told him that his Toki original dump was not clean enough to pass in IPF (i have used Aufit and discovered that the disk was indeed mouldy/dirty and needed cleaning).

Glad you use Aufit to look at quality of disks