posted by tdijital on Jun 25, 2017:
Hey,
So I recently met someone that had a bunch of disks and cd's with source code and development tools from Sega. He said he got them at a IRS liquidation sale of a company in the Bay Area after the web bubble burst. Anyways I finally met up with him and took a look at the files.
There was a ton of stuff but a lot of it was Sega Saturn stuff so I'm posting here.
There was a ton of 1.44mb floppy discs with source code of various Sega games. Also a lot of developer tools. I will get to those in a bit. There were 4 cd's and they all have some interesting stuff.
Sega Developer Tools November 1995 (32X and Saturn) (README - http://pastebin.com/WeZLzA7J )
Sega Dev Machine Archive (Top level directories are BRIEF FOO PUB STRIKE VECEDIT VISTA)
Sega Channel (Top level directories SIERRA and P__)
The floppies had Spiderman source code. They are all archived using CP Backup though I haven't been able to extract them yet I tried using Dosbox and an old version of PC Tools but I said screw it and I'm installing Windows with bootcamp right now (I'm on OSX).
You may have noticed I said there were 4 cd's and I only listed 3. The 4th was an unreleased PSX game called Razor Wing. Unfortunately I couldn't copy the files. The CD was in great condition but for some reason hung at 21mb every time.
Other interesting things
Sega CD Sound Drivers
MacDDT_Sega
3D0 Animator
Source Code for some game called Gray Convert
Junk Mini Game source code. Note sure what it is. It's PSX related though.
Game called Spidey -- It was just labeled with a post-it ( I can't run it I need erx68k )
A bunch of id software stuff. Original art files it looks like from doom. It's all .map files.
It would be awesome to actually figure out what all this stuff is. Also what company it may have come from.
Also one last thing. The guy swears that when he opened up the files on a PC many years ago he saw a ton of Panzer Dragoon Saga art files and what looked like code. I couldn't find anything. He said that he could only see them when browsing on a PC. I could see that happening back in the day but OSX should be able to read any Windows file formats right? Either way like I said I'm installing Windows now and I'm going to go check the discs out again later in the week. That would be amazing if there was anything related to Panzer Dragoon Saga on the discs.
Any software suggestions or even hardware for reading the floppies? I bought a Sebrant external Floppy Drive but it started to crap out on me towards the end. I was just copying the files off the disks, should I have been making images of the disks probably? I've been reading around the site and this place is amazing! If anyone has any pro-tips that would be cool.
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
posted by fate6 on Apr 4, 2016:
No idea on Saturn stuff but yes you should image the disks using any software of choice, I personally use IMGBurn.
I know you can image floppies as well but no idea on the details for that one and remember to always back up everything in triplicate in as many locations as you can when it comes to these types of things.
No idea on Saturn stuff but yes you should image the disks using any software of choice, I personally use IMGBurn.
I know you can image floppies as well but no idea on the details for that one and remember to always back up everything in triplicate in as many locations as you can when it comes to these types of things.
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
posted by rso on Apr 4, 2016:
Great find
Regarding floppy imaging - try WinImage on Windows or 'dd' on Linux/Mac. The top tier solution would be a KryoFlux device, maybe you can find somebody that owns one and can dump the disks for you?
Great find
Regarding floppy imaging - try WinImage on Windows or 'dd' on Linux/Mac. The top tier solution would be a KryoFlux device, maybe you can find somebody that owns one and can dump the disks for you?
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
posted by drx on Apr 4, 2016:
Cool find. You should definitely try to image the entire disks, there might be some hidden/deleted files. It's much better to try to recover stuff from the images than directly from the floppies themselves, as you risk overwriting stuff.
Also, if you do use dd on a Mac, like rso suggested, be careful, as the wrong dd invocation can easily blank the entire disk.
Cool find. You should definitely try to image the entire disks, there might be some hidden/deleted files. It's much better to try to recover stuff from the images than directly from the floppies themselves, as you risk overwriting stuff.
Also, if you do use dd on a Mac, like rso suggested, be careful, as the wrong dd invocation can easily blank the entire disk.
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
posted by tdijital on Apr 6, 2016:
Thanks everyone for all the responses! I'm tempted to get the KryoFlux. I'm just not sure about dishing out 120.00 for it + 80.00 more or so for the drive... That said I've made more extravagant accidental drunk Amazon purchases before, so lets get some beers in me
So I'm going to follow up this weekend with the owner of the disks and see if he can meet up again. I wish Kryo Flux had rush delivery...
If anyone lives in the Bay Area and has a KryoFlux feel free to message me! If anyone has anymore insights or wants more details about the files I have also let me know. Thanks again!
Thanks everyone for all the responses! I'm tempted to get the KryoFlux. I'm just not sure about dishing out 120.00 for it + 80.00 more or so for the drive... That said I've made more extravagant accidental drunk Amazon purchases before, so lets get some beers in me
So I'm going to follow up this weekend with the owner of the disks and see if he can meet up again. I wish Kryo Flux had rush delivery...
If anyone lives in the Bay Area and has a KryoFlux feel free to message me! If anyone has anymore insights or wants more details about the files I have also let me know. Thanks again!
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
posted by rso on Apr 7, 2016:
a kf is great for copy protected or damaged disks, or if you're a perfectionist. most of the time a normal drive should be sufficient, unless you run into read errors.
drx makes a good point about accidental overwriting though - thankfully floppies have that write protect switch thingy.
a kf is great for copy protected or damaged disks, or if you're a perfectionist. most of the time a normal drive should be sufficient, unless you run into read errors.
drx makes a good point about accidental overwriting though - thankfully floppies have that write protect switch thingy.
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
posted by retro on Apr 7, 2016:
Why has nobody noticed the real find here?!?
Sega coded the red ring of doom!
No, seriously... use a floppy drive. Not that USB crap, a REAL floppy drive. And I wouldn't bother with a Mac (would the whole big endian / little endian thing matter?) - just use an old PC with a working floppy drive. Personally, I keep good floppy drives for just that occasion. Except for that one that says Mac on it.. and I'd use an old Mac myself. In fact, the art disks are probably all Mac format.
By the way, most of those disks are not Saturn. And it's fairly obvious they're from ID Software - Doom and Commander Keen. It's even written on the disks!
P. Brennan is Peggy A. Brennan, a former production artist. I've reached out to her to see if she'd mind sharing some memories (so that she doesn't get bombarded by hordes of gamers!) - hopefully, she will!
Nice stuff!
Why has nobody noticed the real find here?!?
Sega coded the red ring of doom!
A floppy drive!
tdijital said:
Any software suggestions or even hardware for reading the floppies?
No, seriously... use a floppy drive. Not that USB crap, a REAL floppy drive. And I wouldn't bother with a Mac (would the whole big endian / little endian thing matter?) - just use an old PC with a working floppy drive. Personally, I keep good floppy drives for just that occasion. Except for that one that says Mac on it.. and I'd use an old Mac myself. In fact, the art disks are probably all Mac format.
By the way, most of those disks are not Saturn. And it's fairly obvious they're from ID Software - Doom and Commander Keen. It's even written on the disks!
P. Brennan is Peggy A. Brennan, a former production artist. I've reached out to her to see if she'd mind sharing some memories (so that she doesn't get bombarded by hordes of gamers!) - hopefully, she will!
Nice stuff!
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
posted by unclejun on Apr 7, 2016:
Nice find!
May I add a suggestion for the problematic CD, try with some other CD/DVDdrives.
Nice find!
May I add a suggestion for the problematic CD, try with some other CD/DVDdrives.
A Bunch of Saturn Dev Software
posted by tdijital on Apr 9, 2016:
@retro Ha fair point on it not all being Sega Saturn stuff. The burned CD's were all Sega Saturn though and I'm really curious as to what they are. I'm going back to check out things again today. I've got Windows installed on my laptop now so that should make some things easier.
I will look into getting my hands on an old PC with a floppy drive. I'll get some more pictures and more details today. I will update.
@retro Ha fair point on it not all being Sega Saturn stuff. The burned CD's were all Sega Saturn though and I'm really curious as to what they are. I'm going back to check out things again today. I've got Windows installed on my laptop now so that should make some things easier.
I will look into getting my hands on an old PC with a floppy drive. I'll get some more pictures and more details today. I will update.