Caprice32 with IPF Support

[Interceptor]

Hi,

just wanted to let you guys know that a version of Caprice32 for windows has been released with support for SPS' IPF format.

the emulator page is here:

http://sites.google.com/site/caprice32emulator/

IPF dll can be downloaded from here:

http://www.softpres.org/download

[robcfg]

Great news!


As KryoFlux hardware is now released (I bought one, hehe) it was only a matter of time that we could use this superior format for preservation.


Thanks for telling us!

[Interceptor]

thanks.

its worth noting that CPC images only work with V4 of the library or above.

we could really do with some CPC dumps, so far around 75% the ones we've had the disks have been modified since original, meaningmany of the DSK files floating about may work but the games themselves arent really preserved yet.

[robcfg]

I'll be trying tomorrow to dump some cpc disks.


Yesterday I tried Amiga disks and it worked flawlessly. 

[Gryzor]

From the SPS page:

IPF (Interchangeable Preservation Format)

IPF stands for Interchangeable Preservation Format, and is the file format we use to preserve content, that is, (currently Amiga) floppy disk images. It's naming is quite abstract for very good reasons:

It is not meant just for the Commodore Amiga: The image format was designed to be used for anything, and as such, it is possible for any platform to have its media supported. In fact, some of the track formats used for Amiga Copy Protection are actually PC/Atari format anyway.
It is not just for disks: Any type of digital media can be contained by the format. Currently it is used for disk images and ROM files, but in the future it may possibly be used for CDROMs and information contained in hardware "dongle" protections.
The underlying file format has many similarities to the IFF (Interchangeable File Format) standard on the Amiga, which was a very forward-thinking format. The same techniques are used today in other file formats such as PNG.
File extensions are meant to be used to indicate the file type. Though it could be argued that the Amiga's way of handling files is superior (by file contents, not just name), having an extension is now an accepted norm. Therefore, we use an extension that indicates file type, not what it is mostly used for. It is certainly not appropriate to incorporate the word Amiga or Disk into the name, since it may not have anything to do with either of those things.

[Devilmarkus]

Would be cool to have some IPF-CPC images, too, here.
Also the Caprice32 source code could be helpful for some emu-coders here...

Edit: + Sources for IPF libraries would be neat for example to translate them to other coding languages like Java...

[Cholo]

Indeed, quite interesting. Kinda lost my ability to hook up a 3" drive to my pc, as my latest Vista 64bit one dont support it. But with a KryoFlux that uses usb it would be no problem, especially if it can properly read and write back. Being able to dump all my old original disc games in a easy way (without being a technical genius and needing to know all the different protection schemes) would be quite usefull too.

[Gryzor]

Indeed, quite interesting. Kinda lost my ability to hook up a 3" drive to my pc, as my latest Vista 64bit one dont support it.

Have you tried a VM? Under Win7 I've found that Virtual WinXP can handle hardware that 7 cannot...

[robcfg]

I tried with a 3" drive hooked to the KryoFlux and it worked also.


Thing is, it generates raw files of the tracks and I don't know how to convert the tracks to IPF format, any ideas?

[Interceptor]

IPF files are made by SPS using a specialist analyser to make them, they are not fully automated, many formats are reverse engineered and checked for integrity.
so you upload the stream (raw) files to us and we make IPFs of them.

[Interceptor]

Also the Caprice32 source code could be helpful for some emu-coders here...

tried asking? you may get it. i dont think its secret or anything.