9 ms·

Tangentially related, I have a dozen or so of my favorite games from the mid 90's through early 00's on CD-ROM that I would like to preserve. Unfortunately they

Tangentially related, I have a dozen or so of my favorite games from the mid 90's through early 00's on CD-ROM that I would like to preserve. Unfortunately they seem to almost all have some DRM that prevents me ripping an image from them, but I'd much rather keep a few hundred meg ISOs on my media server than a stack of jewel cases in my closet. Has anyone else solved this issue?

groundlogic 7y ago
I guess, if all else fails, mail them to the Internet Archive Physical Archive in Richmond California: https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360017876312-How-do-I-make-a-physical-donation-to-the-Internet-Archive- https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360017876312-How-... It should be a matter of time until someone figures out the DRM, and this is the right place for these historical artefacts to be. (And if you do manage to rip them yourself, please upload the images to their cdrom collection (https://archive.org/details/cd-roms https://archive.org/details/cd-roms)!)
- Aeolun 7y ago
  Scrolling through the CD-ROM collection is such a hit of nostalgia.
rincebrain 7y ago
Without knowing the games, I can't say for certain, but I would strongly suspect most of the games that got commercially pressed at any scale in that timeframe have had their DRM circumvented effectively by now. If I were the one doing this, I'd go look up NFO files for piracy scene rips of said games and see what image formats they provided, and then look into the software to produce those formats, since there were once a horde of different optical media ripping tools which boasted the ability to effectively produce more complicated image formats than ISOs which would permit exact replication of the media (or software emulation thereof). A less effort-intensive way of doing this might be preserving an unsophisticated copy of the disc contents along with whatever modifications might be required to circumvent the DRM.
voltagex_ 7y ago
You don't have any contact details listed in your profile so I'll ask here: what games are they?
rasz 7y ago
DOS games used security by volume, counting on users not having enough HDD to rip whole games. Pinnacle of DOS era copyright was check if game data comes from a Network redirector - Mscdex is a TSR network redirector, there were easy to bypass by writing your own redirector, or using one of many available like CDEMU2/0CD/fakecd. Dosbox emulates cdrom out of the box. Most DOS era games will work with file level copy rips. If you are heavily into DOS games you might want to download 'Total DOS Collection' or eXoDOS. There is also Win3xO for 16bit win games.

groundlogic 7y ago

I guess, if all else fails, mail them to the Internet Archive Physical Archive in Richmond California: https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360017876312-How-do-I-make-a-physical-donation-to-the-Internet-Archive- https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360017876312-How-... It should be a matter of time until someone figures out the DRM, and this is the right place for these historical artefacts to be. (And if you do manage to rip them yourself, please upload the images to their cdrom collection (https://archive.org/details/cd-roms https://archive.org/details/cd-roms)!)

Aeolun 7y ago
Scrolling through the CD-ROM collection is such a hit of nostalgia.

rincebrain 7y ago

Without knowing the games, I can't say for certain, but I would strongly suspect most of the games that got commercially pressed at any scale in that timeframe have had their DRM circumvented effectively by now. If I were the one doing this, I'd go look up NFO files for piracy scene rips of said games and see what image formats they provided, and then look into the software to produce those formats, since there were once a horde of different optical media ripping tools which boasted the ability to effectively produce more complicated image formats than ISOs which would permit exact replication of the media (or software emulation thereof). A less effort-intensive way of doing this might be preserving an unsophisticated copy of the disc contents along with whatever modifications might be required to circumvent the DRM.

voltagex_ 7y ago

You don't have any contact details listed in your profile so I'll ask here: what games are they?

rasz 7y ago

DOS games used security by volume, counting on users not having enough HDD to rip whole games. Pinnacle of DOS era copyright was check if game data comes from a Network redirector - Mscdex is a TSR network redirector, there were easy to bypass by writing your own redirector, or using one of many available like CDEMU2/0CD/fakecd. Dosbox emulates cdrom out of the box. Most DOS era games will work with file level copy rips. If you are heavily into DOS games you might want to download 'Total DOS Collection' or eXoDOS. There is also Win3xO for 16bit win games.