Preserving Type-In Programs and Software Source Code?

[load81]

I realize this might be somewhat "out of scope" for TOSEC but are there any organized efforts to preserve type-in programs, original source code listings; or, failing that, reverse engineered source code listings?

[mictlantecuhtle]

It's not something I'm aware we've ever done on an organised basis here. I added something to the Camputers Lynx dats years ago by typing a program listing in to an emulated machine and saving it out to a tape file, but that's about the extent of it.

There are some machine-specific examples, Bally Alley has a pretty complete set of type-ins etc. for the Bally Astrocade, but not sure how things sit for other computers.

Obviously the PIX project preserves a lot of magazines etc. many of which I imagine contain type-in listings and similar but again not aware of any concerted effort to catalog there.

It's not my decision to make really as to whether a project like that would be "in scope" for TOSEC - I personally think it fits well with the mission to preserve and catalog software history - but think it's safe to say it's a discussion we'd be interested in having. I guess it would be good to understand what the eventual aim would be, how we might aim to "preserve" the programs (e.g. as plain text files, as compiled/runnable programs file, etc.). Lots to think about!

[Retroplay]

I think the closest you'll get to this is the GameBase64 collection.

I've done nearly all the type-ins I could find in various danish magazines for GB64:
http://gb64.com/search.php?f=5&t=0&s=Retroplay&b=Go%21&d=45&h=1&a=0

Also a handful for C16-Plus/4 from mags/books I submitted to Plus/4 World:
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Bally
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Car_Race
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Det_mystiske_rumskib
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Faraos_skat
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Huset_med_de_ti_rum
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Laby_Game
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Mission_Amazonas
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Mordet_i_den_lukkede_boks
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Paa_skattejagt_i_Amazonlandet
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Wallbreak

[load81]

Okay, gotcha.

I've been slowly getting my hands on some 1970's era computing magazines that I think need to be preserved. I may start a side-project devoted entirely to source code preservation. But, I'm definitely in the "alpha" stages of figuring out what tools are needed, what's available, and what I need to write myself.

For Commodore BASIC games like these, it wouldn't be too hard to have a Perl script extract them with by leveraging petcat, But then there is the dependency documentation for things like alternate character ROMs, the the need to create a sane build system so that everything extracted can be converted back to exactly the same binary, etc.

EDIT: Also, thanks for the links!