> > Evil countdown? I loved the countdown! :) Is this some immense faux-par in the
> > emulation world?
>
> This was my interpretation of the general view when the countdown showed up on
> your page.

Oh well, you live and learn. :)

> I *loved* the countdown, because I knew it was something worth waiting for...
> not some silly web page re-design, or release of an unstable and nearly useless
> *commercial* emulator...

How did you know? ;)

> Yes, there is some bitterness associated with countdowns, and I think you got
> caught up in the bad vibe.

Yes, I guess those poor countdowns have been abused over the years.

> I don't think it's personal. I think this site has some good news posters, but

I would hope it is not personal. I don't think we know any of them!

> it's mostly sporadic posting. Understandable: they have lives; they don't get
> paid for this; they do it because they want to; and they generally end up
> posting what interests them.

Of course... I wouldn't have mentioned it if you hadn't. ;)

> Perhaps they have no appreciation for the Amiga,

Yes, I believe it is because they are not Amiga people. And you certainly are an Amiga person if you ever owned one! Apart from the occasional WinUAE news, I never see any Amiga news on Retrogames at all. Well catweasel stuff gets posted, but that is because of the Linux tool. ;)

> or perhaps they just keep missing the news and by the time they get it, it's
> *really old* news.

It was 2 days old when I posted it. I posted on the day, but either my post got removed (unlikely), or I forgot to hit the confirm button. I usually try to post on the day.

But either way, I have got used to it. I don't bother mailing them personally anymore since I know it won't be posted. It's a shame because when it is posted on Retrogames, we get usually double site traffic, and lots more people willing to help - which is what really counts.

If there is something really important (like something this weekend) I think I will try really hard to get them to post. Maybe I will have better luck on IRC or something...

Don't get excited by above btw, it is nothing major, just some very important feedback we want to get from as many people as possible.

Please don't speculate on what. :) We'll try and do it today or tomorrow.

> You do have a following regardless of the front page support.

That is nice to hear. Indeed, the amount of quality mail we recieve does seem to indicate this. We have also been very lucky in that we only seem to have attracted people who are obviously intelligent, generally interested in what we do, and want to help.

We have have had *very* few mails that I would call undesirable (other than spam of course).

> > Until then, people will have to use WINE on Linux unfortunately. :(
>
> Understood. TkChris is the least sporadic of the posters, but he usually sticks
> with open-source Linux-compatible news. Windows-only solutions seem to get his
> penguin feathers ruffled ;)

Reminds me of myslef and talking to ST/PC users a few years ago. ;)

But I don't blame him, but unfortunately, this is completely out of our control. Once WinUAE is retro-ported back to a gcc environment, we will be far less limited with the platforms we can support. We have very little time after CAPS, otherwise we would probably do it ourselves.

The only other path is the mastering solution, but unfortuntely, we have some other things to finish up first.

> Are there any special requirements for the drive? Controllable speed...
> density... who knows what else? Or can a stock Amiga drive do the job? I'm
> thinking not, but who knows what the A1010 & built-in A4000 floppy drives are
> capable of...

Oh no, nothing special needed... We should put this in the FAQ, it seems many people think this is the case??

The initial thought that the founder of CAPS started with was, "If the games themselves can read the data needed to pass their protection checks, it *must* be possible."

Unfortuneately for him, it turned out very complicated (it was expected though), because it is all very well for a game to get data that is knows how to read, but doing this in a generic way for any data is a different kettle of fish. But the technical solution was finished over one and a half years ago now, so we have been able to get on with the actual dumping and analysing of those dumps ever since.

Basically, the trick is this. The Amiga is able to *read* data written at different speeds, if you know what you are doing and it is written within certain limits (this goes for the games that want to read it just the same). But it cannot *write* at anything other than the normal speed. Hence copy protection taking advantage of this was a good choice.

Density protection is just one kind of protection though, there are numous (and inventive!) ways that the developers/publishers/duplicators/security firms used to protect their games / games for their clients.

Your built-in A4000 drive will work fine. As will any Amiga drive, just as long as they stand up to our "quality dump assurance" tests. But most drives are usually in good working order.

> Centralized control is a good thing. Keeps the quality high, but the backlog
> must be *huge*.

Your not kidding!

We are looking to see what we can do about that... See above.