I could, but my question was really about disk labels and how to make them. I might get an FDD emulator in the future but I thought it would be neat to have some nice, labeled SFC floppies around.
I've been meaning to ask, how did you guys found about those Game Doctor backup devices and what was your first experience with them?
Ah! Finally another copier users! For my floppy disks, I also have really nice labels for them. Here's what you can do to make some yourself. 1. Purchase a pack of Avery floppy disk labels. Note the product code for the package. 2. You should be able to go to the website, use the product code, and download a template file specifically for your label type. 3. Import the template into your word processor. You will see little boxes that represent where the labels actually are printed. 4. Copy and paste the title screen of your game into those little boxes. You can also add a small line of text at the top where the label folds over, if you want end labeling. 5. Print out your completed sheet, peel back the stickers, and apply them to your disks! Enjoy!
Wow, this is spot on, thanks for the reply! You say the title screen? Think you could share a picture of some of your disks? I'd appreciate it! With title screens that have the options on them, like here: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3Ch3wNkVVuo/maxresdefault.jpg here: http://66.90.91.26/album_images/1763-0-02-ganbare-goemon-title-screen-japan-.jpg and worst of all here: http://www.classicplastic.net/sailormoon/sailorgames/sfc-sms-fight00.gif Are the title screen options bothersome? Or does it not matter? I wouldn't know how they'd look haha. P.S. Where do you purchase your labels? eBay? I also see a view variants of the Avery labels. I think only the permanent wrap around the disk?
Check out any local thrift stores, I see the Avery ones in my local ones when I'm digging for stationary, real cheap too.
You could try loading them up in an emulator and disabling different layers to see if you can remove the menus.
Re: art, maybe look into where emulation frontends like EmulationStation pull their game images from. Might be some nice fanart there. At the very least it should be an easy way to get cover art.
Update: used ZSnes to take screenshots and went into Gimp to remove the options. Not bad looking, excellent suggestion!
Just so you know, you can turn off certain layers on Zsnes by using the number keys on your keyboard. 1 - 5 toggle different layers. 6 resets all layers to default. That will help you with capturing the perfect image for your floppies.
That's what I did, but the options and title were the same layer so I had to overlay part of the background layer over the options to have just the title. GIMP 2 is a great tool. The disk labels aren't square like the images, but they are close enough so that it doesn't look bad when you need to stretch it a little vertically. Now I just need to figure out end labeling, dimension-wise, or if I even want to bother with that at all.
I think the first I heard about any "backup devices" might have been seeing N64 ones advertised in print and on the early internet. I wanted to get one of the N64 backup units, the Mr Backup Z64. One reason why was because we had a Zip Drive for our PC at the time. I didn't have the money for it but later on in the early days of ebay I got a Super Famicom bundled with the Game Doctor SFIII for cheap. So I didn't have one of these devices during the console's lifespan but I did have it prior to all the nice modern flash carts. The Game Doctor SFIII I got came with 16 megabits of DRAM. So when I first started using it I was loading up smaller games or earlier titles like Super Castlevania IV but some later ones like Mega Man VII which was 16 megabits. I was able to find a place online to buy the 16 megabit expansion board and quickly upgraded it to 16 megabits. I had a couple of Diskette Caddy boxes with all kinds of games on them. Whenever I'd sit down to play and didn't have anything particular in mind I would just flip through the disks to find something. Then later on after having trouble with the copier likely due to the floppy drive itself I ended up getting a Game Doctor SF VII because it featured a Parallel Port. See with larger games particularly I was having issues where the game would load but all sorts off oddness would occur due to read errors from the disks which if I recall may have been related to the power supply design in regards to the copier and the floppy drive. Or it could have been just the floppy drive that was in it. But I knew of the newer models with the Parallel Port and that you could upload ROMs directly from your PC. It was quite a nice upgrade. Both faster and more reliable but with the SF7 I probably could have kept using floppy disks. Anyway, I would have absolutely loved to have owned one of these backup devices back during the early 90s. Or even one of the N64 ones in the late 90s.
@FinalStarman: Sorry about the delay, but I was kind of busy recently. Here is an example of how my disks look like. They are aspect ratio correct on the disks so that's why there is a white border around them. Also, it was sized correctly so that I could have end labels at the top of the disk, so you don't need to go flipping over each disk for something. Hopefully you can use this for your own inspiration!
End labels on floppies, what blasphemy is this?! You have to have to flip through them to find anything! @LeHaM: Where can we get those 25ct SD cards? I'm interested (never hurts to have tiny, cheap storage to give out at events or w/ever), but can't find anything lower than 50x128MB at $1.54/piece, $1.76/p for 256MB.
Those are some sexy labels! makes me wish I'd bought one earlier when i had the chance. Btw, what's that save state floppy disc you have does exactly? Does it REALLY save state your progress by anyways or is it just backup game saves storage type program?
How much did these backup systems cost at the time of their release? I'm just now learning about them and feel like i really missed out as a kid. It's weird how they flew completely under my radar because I remember using emulators as early as 1998.