Atari Preservation Project 2003

by Freddy Offenga

The Atari Preservation Project (APP) is concerned with the preservation, description and archiving of Atari 8-bit items. These items can be software, hardware or documentation. One main goal of the APP is to create a large distributed archive of item descriptions.

The project helps collectors to describe their items in a consistent, clear and useful way. A standardized description format makes it easy to merge archives and do searches on distributed archives. The format should help developers to create tools for searching, browsing, editing and presenting item information.

The APP differentiates between software, hardware and document descriptions. Relations between these descriptions are possible. For example, a hardware item can have a hardware description with a link to a description of the enclosed user manual. Or as a second example, software which needs special hardware like a serial interface module, could have a link to a hardware description of that interface.

For each of the three description types we will need a schema. In APP these schemas are called SDS (Software Description Schema), HDS (Hardware Description Schema) and DDS (Document Description Schema). For all schemas we need support from Atari 8-bit users.

Most work is done on the SDS. The HDS needs more people interested in Atari 8-bit hardware and/or collecting it. For the DDS we refer to the core element set of Dublin Core (DCMI) since this is widely used to describe documents of all types. A lot of Atari documents (books, magazines) can already be found at the ABBUC Infothek.

Software descriptions
Software users and collectors all think about software descriptions in some way. You want to know at least the title of the software, so you know what you're loading (think about the labels on your disks). Collectors might want to note a lot more information about the things they own and/or don't own (of course, they want to get it!). These descriptions can get very detailed, like differences in box size (remember the small and large Atari boxes?), variations in the label on the cartridge (like the Miner 2049er cartridge with silver label or blue label), other packaging (cardboard or jewel case...) and things like that. The software description schema must allow entry of these details as much as possible.

It's important to note that the descriptions can be about physical items and about virtual items. A physical item is something you can hold in your hands like a release of a game. Virtual items are simply files stored somewhere (for example software which you can download from the internet).

Another point to keep in mind is that a description does not include the item itself! For physical items this is easy to understand. If you have some kind of list of original software, it doesn't mean you actually have those items.

People get confused when it's about virtual items. For example, you can have a description of a disk image and you can have the disk image itself (maybe on your hard disk or on a CD-ROM). The description gives you information about the disk image, nothing more.

File naming
All APP descriptions can have additional files like disk images, ROM dumps, executable files, pictures, audio and so on. The SDS, HDS and DDS can have links to these files which makes it important to have a good file naming convention.

The emulator users have done a lot of work in this area. A group of people at The Old School Emulation Center (TOSEC) came up with a naming scheme and are sorting out files for all kinds of old computer systems. They keep databases with the names of the files according to that naming convention.

For the APP descriptions we will name the virtual items according to the TOSEC Naming Convention (TNC) and the pictures following the TOSEC Media Naming Convention (MNC). There are some additions to these naming conventions to fully support the details required by the APP. To give an idea, here's one example of a picture filename:

Space Invaders (1981)(Atari)(cart)[mef].jpg

This means it's a JPEG picture of the "Media Front" (mef) of "Space Invaders" published by "Atari" in the year "1981".

Categories and keywords
Software can be divided into categories to make it possible to find a certain type of software. Most of the time a piece of software can be placed in one main category (for example, Pac-Man is a game). It gets more complicated when sub-categories are used (is Rescue on Fractalus a flying game or shoot-'em-up?). To avoid endless discussions keywords can be used to find more specific types of software.

Currently the following categories are defined for software:

• Archiving
• Audio
• Communication
• Cross-platform
• Development
• Education
• Entertainment
• Graphics
• Magazines
• Office
• System

Working groups
An APP Working Group (WG) is a group of people working on a certain subject in the APP domain. Currently the following working groups are active:

• SDS - Software Description Schema
  Freddy, Nir, Jindroush
• HDS - Hardware Description Schema
  Francis, Freddy
• DDS - Document Description Schema
  Looking for support! Anyone?
• Disks - Disk preservation
  Hias, Stefan, Freddy
• Carts - Cartridge preservation
  Nir, Jindroush, Freddy
• ATP - Protected disk image format
  Hias, Stefan, Freddy, Jindroush

Other working groups can be created. The rules to set up a working group are:

• The group conforms to the APP archiving rules and item descriptions.
• All members are known to the APP.

Joining the APP
General information about the APP can be found on the web site. Discussions are going on at the APP world (thanks to Kaj) using AltME and through the APP mailing list (thanks to Hias). Contact me if you would like to join a working group or take part in the discussions.

E-mail: app@nospam.de (replace "nospam" with "abbuc")

MyAtari magazine - Feature #3, July 2003