I don't think there is such a place....although it would be nice to have. A site that hashes original copies of DOS games...ahhh...what a dream. I'm working on such a thing with my local copies but it takes time.

Of course having a backup available for all to have like Console/Arcade ROMS is a good idea. Too bad it's illegal.

The real reason companies don't release their older games for free or sell them anywhere:

1. They want you to buy new stuff.
2. They don't have the source code anymore.
3. The software doesn't work on modern computers and they don't want to rely on 3rd party fixes.
4. If they do have the source they can port the game in some form to a new platform....hey it screws the original customer but who cares about them? It's all about the new generation.....

The future is services like GameTap where big corporations (With contacts to other Publishers so they can have lots of games) can emulate the games on their side and you pay $$$ with some form of DRM to play the old games that you already have.....too bad I'm not interested in that future.....

It's funny. We might as well just stop buying games at all and wait until you have no choice but to buy games subscription. They way we won't be screwed over because our old games won't work.....of course we'd have to deal with all the subscription issues buy hey! We won't have to worry about our ancient non-subscription games because we wouldn't have any! YAY!

When the Software Preservation Society (formerly CAPS) focuses its attention on PC Floppies and CDs, we will have what we need. Unfortunately, it may be toom late by then.

Actually, using disk images would be a better representation 😀

Criftus wrote:

[...], and in some cases the copyright has expired too. [...]

Well, just to remind you: The first copyright to expire is that of some classic disney movie somewhen in around 30 years. Unless legislation changes and copyright is valid even further (this has happened several times). Of course, individual countries may differ (these facts are from the U.S.), but international treaties and such will probably make that not matter. If companies cease to exist, copyright is handled in various ways, so it's not safe to assume they're free then, either. (AFAIK, German law states that the copyright is transferred to the government in such a case, for example.)
So the net result is that such a project will always have to operate in a grey area of legislation. Luckily, many companies really don't care or silently support our activities, and when there's no suitor, then there's no judge, as a saying goes here.

On the subject:
I like that idea. It will not work, however, in the face of copy-protection. It's hard enough to create a copy at all, but to create a working one, one that's supported by the emulator of your choice, is really difficult. That issue aside, I agree with gulikoza: Disk images are the only way to go. Plus scanned disk labels, box (including sides), manual and other goodies, each at 300dpi. THAT may sound anal, but hey, if you want a perfect archive, that's the way to go.

For copy-protected games I think it would be acceptible to include as good a disk image as possible along with a working crack. It's probably also possible by now to duplicate and emulate some of the old floppy copy-protections.

Proper floppy drive emulation and a robust imaging standard will solve almost any disk based copy protection. The people at the Software Preservation Society have been successfully dealing with Amgia copy protected disks. Many of those disks have protection far beyond any PC Booter. Also, once we get to the DOS installables, the number copy protected disks fall dramatically. All we have to deal with then is documentation-based copy protection. In that case, simply supply the answers or a cracked executable in addition to a clean executable.

Exactly.

Also, I recall owning a lot of non-booter games with disk-based copy protection (mostly older Sierra games). I remember reading that they would usually mark a sector as "bad" on the disk and then access it in a different mode from normal sectors. DOS would skip copying the data inside if you tried to use it to copy the disk, but there were some programs out there at the time that could do it (rawcopy was one of them I think). Of course, this would be covered by the first sentence of G.H.'s post above.

There is a thread on Sierra Gamers about the copy protection on floppies that Sierra used. http://www.sierragamers.com/aspx/templates/mo … =tid&parm2=4271

Holy crap that site is slow, ugly, and somewhat broken (and it displays posts in backwards order! WTF?). Good info though.

Heh, I thought I remembered 'copyIIpc' as another copy utiltiy, but I didn't mention it because I wasn't sure.