I finally was able to scrounge up a copy of windows server. The tape programs plain old refused to install to anything but server. Courtesy of a dead ps3, I have a 40GB drive with server 2K8R2 on it. I'm going to shop on ebay for some new tapes to test the drives and then the dumping will commence.
I hope for some N64 related stuff like Turok Games, Extreme G, or Shadow Man and so on. Maybe even sourcecode
There is likely sourcecode plus games assets for every game Acclaims ever made. At least a few of these tapes are labelled after the game that's on them (Jupiter Strike comes to mind) so I would not be surprised if they're complete dev backups. The tapes go back to acclaims founding in 1988, so there will be everything from the early NES Simpson games all the way to the GameCube/xbox/ps2 releases. Thats assuming the tapes are still good that is. This might end up being the largest retro game treasure trove in existence. or it might end up being a pile of dead tapes. Who knows. I for one am excited about it.
Very excited to see what happens here- hopefully you have everything you need, but if not, I hope you'll ask the folks here. Good luck!
This will likely be a very major event in the preservation of old video games. Thanks for the effort Kev!
I can't hardly wait I swear I haven't been this giddy since christmas morning when I was 8 years old! If you need a tape donation just name the type and quantity needed and it is yours!
If you need any help with OS's (Microsoft stuff) I have an extensive collection sat on the shelf....!
Hi, I would recommend going with linux as there are a few programs that can natively dump the tape to a raw file. Then you can write the raw file to a new blank tape allowing you to try reading it multiple times without wearing it out. You could also use a liveCD and use your NTFS formatted disk if you dont have any spare disks. But I am sure there are windows apps that can do this too. if you dump the start of the tape you will also be able to read the media headers and learn what application backed up the tape and what method was used. Been a long time since I played with tapes but happy to provide pointers
Just would like to stop by and say that I'm still interested in digging through whatever is on these tapes (and I'm sure quite a few other people here are too). I just hope that this project isn't slowly dying because its been a few months since we have heard anything about it. I realize that it'll take a lot of time and effort to dump the data on these tapes and I'm not "pushing" for any progress, it would just be nice to hear something about it every now and then to know that its still on your to-do list
