Preservation of MIAs

Whether it's Mire Mare or a BASIC tape you found in the attic, it needs to be preserved digitally. Post here and experts can help to do so.

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Ralf
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Preservation of MIAs

Post by Ralf »

Okay, I have some MIA programs on my computer. What should I do? ;)
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R-Tape
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by R-Tape »

Is this classic era stuff of unknown permission status (wrt Spectrum Computing)?

For now could you email it to spectrumcomputing [at] outlook.com, this part of the site is in development.

Whether it can be made available yet I can't say. But for example some recent educational MIAs I tracked down have SC permission and will be on the site soon, so there is hope but we'll need to be patient :-)
richl
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by richl »

Is there an updated list of what is actually MIA still? I know several things have turned up since that other site last had any proper updates. Unfortunately, the people most closely associated with preservation don't seem to really post much on there any more so it's not clear what the current state of affairs is. Relying on the actual site owner for any useful info is a fruitless exercise, naturally. He's too busy censoring links to this site for starters! ;)
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Mike Davies
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by Mike Davies »

There are a couple of people who seem to know what's no longer on the MIA list, but not tangled in the other site nonsense. They pop up from time to time on FB groups like Sinclair for Sale. Last person I can recall is Guy Bearman.

Also might be worth posting in the Sinclair Preservation group on FB, in case someone there has a copy of a relatively recent list of still MIAs.

Of course, they might be working from out-dated lists, but anything more up-to-date than the current other site is relatively more up-to-date ;-)
Ralf
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by Ralf »

Now I'm at home and may write a longer post.
Is this classic era stuff of unknown permission status (wrt Spectrum Computing)?
Yes, in my case mostly old programs from 80s and 90s (in case of Russian software). Some collected on internet and a few dumped personally from the cassettes.

If I understand it correcly, Spectrum Computing took a more restrictive approach than old WOS, offering downloads only for software with direct permission from author while WOS added everything and removed stuff only if copyright holders asked for it.

I can understand reasons trying to be 100% legal in current, uneasy times but these means that in practice I won't be able to share these old, forgotten programs with anybody, at least here.

We can of course add them just as information and screenshots but I'll be honest, it gives me really less incetive to do such work. So for this moment I'll just wait how this site develops

As for MIA list there were 2 projects - British project run by Preservation Team and Spanish project run by SPA.

SPA hasn't been updated for years but they are alive. You can read recent news from them here:
https://spa2.speccy.org/english/whatsnew.php

People from Preservation team also have some stuff on their disks.

And at last there is also other software - Russian, Polish etc. that these teams didn't deal with.

So now we probably need some decisions what Spectrum Computing is going to do with these old programs.
ADJB
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by ADJB »

There has always been two MIA lists, the known MIA's and the unknown MIA's.

The known MIA list was / is derived from scouring all the magazines and other information sources and comparing it to preserved tapes. What was left over was the majority of the MIA list.

The unknown list is a bit harder to define in that it is by it's nature unknown. However my personal unknown MIA list has been derived by research and a large element of guesswork - I can t prove that any of the titles exist but I have a very good hunch they do. A good example of this is the packet radio software which I have good evidence for numerous versions (250+) but if these should all be classed as MIA or uMIA at all is a very different argument.

There are also examples of tapes officially on the old MIA list which have long been preserved but are distribution denied and as such have never been removed from the list. Also tapes which we have long had copies of but have been unable to preserve were still on the MIA list.
ADJB
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by ADJB »

Ralf wrote: Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:51 pm
As for MIA list there were 2 projects - British project run by Preservation Team and Spanish project run by SPA.
Sort of - There was a lot more crossover than it would appear on the surface.

People from Preservation team also have some stuff on their disks.
Personally a very large amount of material. Not all tape images, book and magazine scans, hardware items and other such gubbins as well.

And at last there is also other software - Russian, Polish etc. that these teams didn't deal with.
Not true at all - It's not that we didn't deal with these, closer is that either (a) the software was blatantly illegal or (b) it was much harder to get hold of.
Anything we did manage to find was preserved (including the illegal stuff) but obviously the dodgy stuff was never released. Anything lrgal was always released.
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4thRock
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by 4thRock »

One thing is distribution, another database indexing.
Having a good reliable database of software is the key for solving permission issues, and the right way to eventually setup a download link.

Spectrum Computing has magazines and videos, but doesn't host them. It's the ZXDB database that makes it possible to integrate with other sites.
There's no need for a single site to actually host everything locally ;)

And ZXDB is being used in other places. So all this to say that the more info on ZXDB, the better.
Ralf
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by Ralf »

Hi ADJB, nice to see you here. Hope that you'll stay for longer!

Thanks for clarifying stuff where I was inprecise. It's also good to know that you have a lot of stuff preserved.

I understand that speaking about illegal stuff you mean cracks, like the infamous Italian ones. Yes, I agree it doesn't
made sense to preserve them on old WOS and doesn't make sense here. There are actually existing websites preserving
this cracks if anyone is interesed.

But apart from cracks there were made genuine, original programs beside UK and Spain ;) I know that you
would preserve it if you got it but there is simply small possibility that you get into your hands something released
locally in Poland in 20 copies. That's where I would be able to help sometimes :)
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Andre Leao
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by Andre Leao »

I´m posting loads of MIA's (most of them portuguese) in a weekly basis. You can download it here...

https://planetasinclair.blogspot.pt/sea ... reservados
ADJB
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by ADJB »

@Ralf

I actually mean the really dodgy stuff like the Russian compilations which were just total ripoffs.

Having said that some of the rip off Russian machines are very interesting.
Ralf
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by Ralf »

I´m posting loads of MIA's (most of them portuguese) in a weekly basis. You can download it here...
Thanks for it!
When I have some free time I'll check them for sure. I also hope that at some moment we'll be able to add them to the database here. For now, they are safe and available at your website, I guess :)
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Ivanzx
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by Ivanzx »

Andre Leao, thanks for sharing all those MIAs, I saw your posts few weeks ago and your work is really appreciated ;)

By the way, in a Facebook group of Spectrum stuff, there was a guy from Romania who posted his works on the Spectrum, I will ask him again :)
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4thRock
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by 4thRock »

Andre Leao wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 3:45 pm I´m posting loads of MIA's (most of them portuguese) in a weekly basis..
Nice, very nice! Those Astor tapes do look familiar. And it's always nice to see some Timex software.
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Andre Leao
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Re: Preservation of MIAs

Post by Andre Leao »

4thRock wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 11:05 pm
Andre Leao wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 3:45 pm I´m posting loads of MIA's (most of them portuguese) in a weekly basis..
Nice, very nice! Those Astor tapes do look familiar. And it's always nice to see some Timex software.
More to come. They´ll be safe at my dropbox, but I will give you all the stuff as soon as you ask. I will post soon more portuguese stuff you´ll be familiar, like mags an articles froms newspapers... :)
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