Why we still missing some Atari ST games online, faithful copies of them ?

[Petari]

 I dealt in last couple years with looking for more games which are good, quality ones, to make hard disk adaptations of them, and if there is no good floppy image available ST floppy image(s) too - without usual cracker self praising and other craps, or just good image, without errors.

 In last couple months I encountered some really sad cases, examples of bad behavior of some crews, people.

 Son Shu Shi : I was asking on Atari forums for good image of this game before more than 10 years, and nothing happened until 2022 . But I spotted it this year, on Atarilegend site.
 So, they have Replicants crack of this game, what works well, and is complete. But did not send STX (SCP. Kryo...) images to Atarimania. No such image at Atarilegend too. All they want and care about is to spread they 'crack', full with self praising and some really silly comments (even me is mentioned there :-) ) .
 Here to add that they contacted original game authors, who made some corrections in game. So, not same source as what was published some 36 years ago.

 Olympus: no original image available, just one crack, and same stays for it as for above one.
Self centered, childish self praising in 'we are the best' style. And in this case it was done really overcomplicated, with triple depacking of main file - just because added all that stoopid blah what has nothing with game. I needed some time to clean up all it and make decent adaptation. Game is done btw. in STOS, but no mentioning of it on start screens.

Case of original game with really poor loading system:  Around the World
 It used RWABS (Bios #4 function) for floppy loads. What was used not properly, and maybe there are some bugs in TOS (I tested with 1.04 and 1.02) with it. Normally XBIOS 8 function is used for it, and it works reliable, at price of just little longer code - what still fits well in boot sector. Because of messy work of RWABS with floppies packed main exec (STOS prg.) uses more disk space than unpacked one :-)  Not to mention slow depacking and waiting. Just plain stoopid - btw. done by his majesty MugUK :-)  And another one where they do not mention STOS ...

 There are diverse sites where they selling original game floppies, usually marked as 'new' - what would mean not used, case not opened. Well, if 35-38 years old floppy disk is new ...
 There are big chances that it will not work well, that some data is now just to weak .
But to make copy of it, and make available on Internet - no, that is wasting of time, and we know what is time ... Here to add that there is no practically any copyright for those, over 3 decades old games now. Actually, in many cases authors are happy that anyone is still interested for them.
  Doing copy, image some 20 or more years ago would be the right thing for community and preservation. And that would result in testing of it, so we would have opinions about game, possible error reports ...  But who cares about such things, more important is to praise self.
 When I wrote at DBug forum about error in their Potsworth and Co. crack they called it 'trolling' :-)  Sure, that's trolling, writing blatant lies about my disk SW is good think - because what they do is always good, pardon best !  And stoopid Atari forums support them ...
 Things are really not good with all it ...

 

[Ronald J. Hall]

I certainly appreciate the software you release without the added on comments and things.

Although I do really like the scanned in covers of the game boxes at the start of the games that you do. That's pretty cool. 

[Petari]

 And here is one nice example of how some people took care and put floppy image files + other material online - in case of really rare Atari ST games.
 They are Murray and Me and Mom and Me by Antic SW, from 1985.
Unearthed

[Ronald J. Hall]

That's Josh Renaud. Really great guy. He's "kirkman" on the BBS's and stops by them occasionally. He's done a lot of work on various Atari projects like the online Atari ST game, "The Thieves Guild". He's also currently doing a series on IGS (Instant Graphics and Sound) which is really, really cool.

https://breakintochat.com/blog/category/instant-graphics-and-sound/?order=asc

https://breakintochat.com/blog/2020/09/15/thieves-guild-memories/