elianda wrote:

So wouldn't it be more of a common sense to allow software to be archived at a certain age instead of insisting on copyright limitations for 70? years?
After 70 years it is guaranteed that everything is lost.

Thats what most abandonware sites already done.

Most of abandonware sites will rejects submited games/apps/programs if: its newer than 5 years,
or its still in sale/maintained/supported by active corporations/owner.

That SimFarm for example, i buy it in 1996, since it got price cut of being DOS game in new Windows era.

But now for almost than 2 decades, its no longer in sale,
the copyright owner seems to distrust GoG so GOG couldn't sell it, yet.

Almost impossible to get it legally, since you can never know if someone who sell it doesn't have it installed in their computers (or devices since its can be emulated).
And its not available for downloads legally either.

If you sticks to copyright laws 100%, its gone.

Joey_sw wrote:

its gone.

ebay

sliderider wrote:

It doesn't have to be wholly or even caused by piracy. If it goes up even one penny to cover the cost of piracy, then it is still an increase in cost that we all have to bear.

First, you said it doesn't have to be wholly or even caused by piracy. And then you said 'if it goes up one penny to cover the cost of piracy'. Well then, if it goes up one penny to cover the cost of piracy, then it is caused by piracy. Are you trying to contradict yourself here?

sliderider wrote:

If we had the power to do something about it, like turning in the owners of warez sites, then we all benefit from lower prices whether those are a lot lower or just a little bit lower.

"We"? What "we"?

Gimme a break. Are you so naively assuming software price will go down after "we" kill all warez and abandonware sites? Once those sites are gone, what makes you think that the software publishers will happily give the extra profit back to the consumers?

Even if we insist to blame piracy for the raise of software prices, it is still the height of naïveté to blindly assume that we, the consumers, will benefit from the power given to us to close down abandonware sites.

It is also interesting to note that you previously said "abandonware sites", and now you suddenly say "warez sites". Are you trying to make fallacious generalization that all abandonware are warez?

sliderider wrote:

And my reason stated above that it causes society to have less buying power when they shop for software is just as harmful as any drug dealer.

Opinion based on no evidence whatsoever. Since when does software piracy cause people to grief over their loved ones becoming a junkie? Since when does software piracy put people in rehab? Since when does software piracy cause people to die of overdose?

Yes, content piracy is still crime, but it rings like RIAA propaganda to insist that content piracy is as harmful to the society as drug dealers. Gimme a break.

leileilol wrote:

someone should split this yetanotherabandonwarediscussion

My vote is aye. While this thread is already derailed enough, it's always annoys me when someone insists that what's good for the big brothers is also good for us the consumers.

Looking through some old coverdiscs I found this and thought it may be rare

CREATIVE LABS 3D BLASTER PCI GAME DEMOS + PATCHES
=================================================

What's on this CD ?

ASoccer - Details of how to upgrade your copy of Gremlin's Actua Soccer to the latest
edition, if you don't already have it, (details of how to tell which version
you have are included in the documentation) and a patch to add 3D Blaster
support to the latest version.

Bios - The latest BIOS for the 3D Blaster card. Please read the help files carefully
before installing this.

Direct X - (Version 3.0a)
Direct X is the name for Microsoft's Game SDK. Many native Windows '95
games require this to be installed. So, if you don't have this installed,
then please run the dxsetup.exe program in the DirectX directory.
Once you have installed this, you may need to re-install your sound and video
drivers to make sure you are using the latest drivers. In the Drivers directory
of this CD you will find the very latest drivers for the 3D Blaster PCI, and
also for the SB16, SB 32, AWE 32, AWE 64 and AWE 64 GOLD. Please refer to the
appropriate help files for details on how to do this.

Drivers - Our latest drivers for the 3D Blaster PCI and for our range of Sound Blasters.

Euro '96 - Patch to add 3D Blaster support for Gremlin's Euro '96

Teracide - One level playable demo of Eidos' Terracide. This game requires Windows '95
and Direct X 3 to run. Please install Direct X (included on this CD) if you do
not have this installed already. Also, to get the best performance from the
game, please ensure you have our latest drivers installed (also available on
this CD).

Check out our web site for more information about new 3D Blaster enhanced products :-

WWW.CREAF.COM

ps: since people here do like their midi found the following
yamaha software synths

Yamaha Soft Synthesizer S-YG20
Yamaha XG Soft Synthesizer S-YXG50 Ver2.0
XGE Edit 95
Yamaha cyber studio

for german speaking fellows this interview might be quite interesting regarding the situation in Germany.
http://www.irights.info/index.php?q=node/2205 … egorie=Homepage

Davros wrote:

Looking through some old coverdiscs I found this and thought it may be rare […]
Show full quote

Looking through some old coverdiscs I found this and thought it may be rare

CREATIVE LABS 3D BLASTER PCI GAME DEMOS + PATCHES
=================================================

What's on this CD ?

ASoccer - Details of how to upgrade your copy of Gremlin's Actua Soccer to the latest
edition, if you don't already have it, (details of how to tell which version
you have are included in the documentation) and a patch to add 3D Blaster
support to the latest version.

That is the rendition patch for the retail version of Actua Soccer / VR Soccer. I don't think that exists on the internet anymore.... Please post those files here 😀 This is pretty rare

EDIT: I think the patch for Euro 96 is also not on the internet. The patch that is released just fixes some issues with the teams. No mention of a Euro 96 3D blaster PCI (rendition v1000) patch.

here ya go :

Hahahaha oh dear...

http://archive.org/search.php?query=classic%2 … %3Acdbbsarchive

60+ CDs chock full of cracked registered version games from a Russian scene group.

Just.....wow.

ah, classic fond... 🤣

Davros wrote:

here ya go :

Cheers 😀 Just too bad the Actua Soccer patch only works with the original 3D blaster release which I don't think is easy to get hold of. It says in the readme that you have to send in your copy of Actua Soccer if you have the normal retail one to get a new copy back. I guess this is going to be very obscure as I've never seen any of the 3D blaster versions anywhere.

The Euro 96 patch seems to work on all versions, but I can't test as I don't have the game.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jason Scott in person. He is VERY passionate about what he does. He means no harm, and going by this thread, it seems that the project has saved some obscure/rare/forgotten stuff from vanishing forever. Which is precisely why he is doing this.

That's unusual. Jason uploaded the Rune CD to archive.org. The full game of Rune. No way does that belong on a "shareware archive"

Yeah, this is getting warezy, so i'm removing all my links.

What I really miss is some search function that indexes files.bbs files and filenames and other descriptive file types. file_id.diz, decript.ion a.s.o. maybe even textfiles within archives as readme.txt.

This seems to be a big problem since it is nearly impossible to find a specific software you remember f.e.
So archiving all the stuff is a bit pointless if you have to look through insane amounts of images by manual searching. For cd.textfiles.com basically google did a fine job, but this is really missing for archive.org.

I wouldn't even mind if they start a collaborative project with f.e. google to gain some better accessibility to the archives.

leileilol wrote:

That's unusual. Jason uploaded the Rune CD to archive.org. The full game of Rune. No way does that belong on a "shareware archive"

Yeah, this is getting warezy, so i'm removing all my links.

The archive.org search only shows...
"Rune Demo - Human Head Studios"
"The Games Machine CD - Rune"
...didn't DL to check them.

The one seems clearly labeled a demo, and the other is a magazine pack in disc. Is one the full version? Or is there a pre-web listing section I'm not seeing.

kolano wrote:

Is one the full version? Or is there a pre-web listing section I'm not seeing.

I'm pretty sure the Rune demo isn't 650 megabytes.

that cd image is from an italian magazine that gave the full game as a gift to readers

I've been downloading alot of the demo collections from there so you'll be seeing alot more demos on my compatibility list soon.