5 ms·

As far as I know the state of the art is reading and writing the raw magnetic flux to/from a disk with something like this: http://softpres.org/glossary:kryoflu

by ac29 7y ago

As far as I know the state of the art is reading and writing the raw magnetic flux to/from a disk with something like this: http://softpres.org/glossary:kryoflux http://softpres.org/glossary:kryoflux This method supports more or less any platform, and images can be made with copy protection in place (for emulators that support it), or copies to new disk media preserving the original copy protection.

paulgerhardt 7y ago
Kryoflux was the state of the art in 2013 (and is pretty capable for non C64 disks) but their shady legal practices asserting copyright of ripped images[1] makes their images blacklisted by the Internet Archive. In 2019 a lot of people migrated to FluxEngine [2]. Though there are plenty of alternatives [3]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/buyj9f/comment/epjwsut https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/buyj9f/co... [2] http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/index.html http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/index.html [3] https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Rescuing_Floppy_Disks https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Rescuing_Floppy_...
- amelius 7y ago
  > asserting copyright of ripped images I don't think there would be a legal basis here. If I sell a pen, I can't claim ownership of the things people write with it, no matter what EULA I make people sign. The same holds for a Xerox machine. And similarly it holds for a tool to copy bits or flux transitions.
  - paulgerhardt 7y ago
    Not quite. As I understand it, the hardware rips disks and encodes them in proprietary SPS flux image formats (.IPF, .STREAM, and .DRAFT) subject to a very weird license agreement.[1] SPS does not assert ownership of the encoded content but does assert that content encoded with their software can not be used for commercial purposes. I suspect this “bit coloring” is at the root of why the Internet Archive made the decision to no longer accept Kryoflux based images and why it is not a good candidate for archival purposes. [1] https://www.kryoflux.com/download/LICENCE.txt https://www.kryoflux.com/download/LICENCE.txt
    - snvzz 7y ago
      It's a shame they're doing this. But at least, there is hope that fully OSS+OSHW solutions will effectively replace it. What they're doing is certainly not magic. Warpers existed in the 90s already.
      - grouber 7y ago
        I suspect that will happen eventually too. Think this is quite different to a warper analogue copy though
  - Brian_K_White 7y ago
    It doesn't matter if it's legally enforceable. All that matters is that they tried.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- grouber 7y ago
  From what I can tell, very little of that is true. This anti-KryoFlux sentiment seems to come from one or two high profile people disliking the way the KryoFlux people do stuff. They are a company and it's not open source. I get it. Sounds like it's down mainly to bad PR more than anything. Misinformation from some quarters is just not helpful, and reflects badly on them IMO.

by ac29 7y ago

paulgerhardt 7y ago

Kryoflux was the state of the art in 2013 (and is pretty capable for non C64 disks) but their shady legal practices asserting copyright of ripped images[1] makes their images blacklisted by the Internet Archive. In 2019 a lot of people migrated to FluxEngine [2]. Though there are plenty of alternatives [3]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/buyj9f/comment/epjwsut https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/buyj9f/co... [2] http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/index.html http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/index.html [3] https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Rescuing_Floppy_Disks https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Rescuing_Floppy_...

amelius 7y ago
> asserting copyright of ripped images I don't think there would be a legal basis here. If I sell a pen, I can't claim ownership of the things people write with it, no matter what EULA I make people sign. The same holds for a Xerox machine. And similarly it holds for a tool to copy bits or flux transitions.
- paulgerhardt 7y ago
  Not quite. As I understand it, the hardware rips disks and encodes them in proprietary SPS flux image formats (.IPF, .STREAM, and .DRAFT) subject to a very weird license agreement.[1] SPS does not assert ownership of the encoded content but does assert that content encoded with their software can not be used for commercial purposes. I suspect this “bit coloring” is at the root of why the Internet Archive made the decision to no longer accept Kryoflux based images and why it is not a good candidate for archival purposes. [1] https://www.kryoflux.com/download/LICENCE.txt https://www.kryoflux.com/download/LICENCE.txt
  - snvzz 7y ago
    It's a shame they're doing this. But at least, there is hope that fully OSS+OSHW solutions will effectively replace it. What they're doing is certainly not magic. Warpers existed in the 90s already.
    - grouber 7y ago
      I suspect that will happen eventually too. Think this is quite different to a warper analogue copy though
- Brian_K_White 7y ago
  It doesn't matter if it's legally enforceable. All that matters is that they tried.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
grouber 7y ago
From what I can tell, very little of that is true. This anti-KryoFlux sentiment seems to come from one or two high profile people disliking the way the KryoFlux people do stuff. They are a company and it's not open source. I get it. Sounds like it's down mainly to bad PR more than anything. Misinformation from some quarters is just not helpful, and reflects badly on them IMO.