State of the art of Dragon software preservation

[robcfg]

Hello everyone!

I decided to take a look at the list of publishers and made a list of all that are listed with their titles, because I wanted to know what's the state of art of Dragon preservation and to help search and dump the missing bits.

The information was compiled into a LibreOffice/OpenOffice calc sheet (Excel, basically).

I used 3 coloured columns to indicate the state of the dump, the scans and screenshots and the existence of a page for the title here in the archive.

For the dump status, red means there's no dump, yellow an incomplete dump or one that isn't in the downloads section, and green one that is a verified dump, is available in the downloads section and linked in its wiki page.

For the scans and screenshots, red means no scans and no screenshots, yellow means that there are screenshot and not scans, or low quality scans, and green means high quality scans and screenshots displayed properly in the wiki pages.

For the wiki page status, I used only red for non-created pages and green for created pages. I could have use yellow for pages created but without information, but I think that once you have the scans of the tapes and inlays, you can fill the info.

Now, which would be the best way to share the document so when someone uploads missing content, could update the document for everyone? Google docs, maybe?

I guess we have more preserved than it appear from looking at the list, because I haven't checked the downloads section, only the wiki pages linked in the games and applications lists. But still a lot of work to do

I've attached my list in .ODs and .XLS formats so you can take a look. Feedback and suggestions are welcome!

Have a nice weekend!

[rolfmichelsen]

Good initiative, although I believe that the situation is a bit "greener" than this spreadsheet indicates, especially with respect to the dumps. Anyway, a good indication that there is some tidying up to be done for most software packages. Might be an idea to redo the spreadsheet as a wiki page so that contributors can sign up for items and then update the status once everything is in place. Might also be an idea to put in a separate column for all documentation available from the wiki. For most titles, this is just the inlay but the list also includes more complex software titles such as OS-9, Flex and the business packages that actually come with significant documentation.

I'm up for the challenge and will set myself a goal of getting two titles to green every week. Anyone else?

-- Rolf

[robcfg]

Hei Rolf!

You're right, the current state of art of Dragon software preservation is not as bad as it seems. I told that I didn't go through the downloads section to assign the right colors.

I can try to make a wiki page with the list, but being that big, it would be hell to edit, specially table cell's colors. That's why I was suggesting to use Google Docs, and that's why I was asking to the people here.

My idea was to maintain the list easy to check with only three columns, because otherwise it would be difficult to maintain. Also, a red color in the wiki page column means it's not created, so it's pretty straightforward, and if you see yellow on the other two columns, you only have to go to that page and see what is missing.

So, challenge accepted, Sir!

Edit: I almost forgot! I know I've asked a lot of times for someone besides Simon to have access to the downloads section to put new material. We all know that Simon is a busy man, so to keep everything moving, I'd ask one of the veteran members here like Rolf, Zephyr or Sixxie (to name a few) to be able to upload the new material to the downloads section so we can link it from their wiki pages.

[robcfg]

Updated files with 4 new titles from Salamander Software

[admin]

Hi all.... Anybody who wants an FTP account to upload (full access to downloads storage) please contact me via email (simonhardy72 at yahoo co uk) and I will let you know the hostname, username and password for FTP.

I am so busy that I am only hosting and visiting the site now.... you guys are running it !!

[admin]

In addition - if anybody wants a complete ZIP of my "TODO" area on my HDD - let me know and I'll find a way of getting it to you - its full of things that are/were in progress to be sorted and uploaded.

[rolfmichelsen]

That's why I was suggesting to use Google Docs, and that's why I was asking to the people here.

Using Google docs is ok with me.

-- Rolf

[robcfg]

Well, I uploaded most of my stuff to the downloads section, and also added the links to the wiki pages.

The updated spreadsheet is now on Google Docs (link here).

Please take a look and tell me if you can edit it.

Regards,
Rob

P.S. Now it looks greener, hehe

[Serenarian]

I just came upon this site by chance and it revived my interest in the old Dragon.

I see you have a software utility in the archive that a friend and I wrote, and I'd like to reasure you that I'm quite happy for you to use and distribute it. Your software list doesn't show any scans for the manual though, and that probably makes it tricky to make full use of the software. Can I send you a photo copy so that you can scan it in? Sorry I don't have the original text files any longer and I don't have the facility to create a PDF. The software is Zapper and we were Softsystems. If you want an original copy on 5¼ floppy then I can send that too. The address in the manual is no longer valid now - I've long since moved, but people can contact me via this site if they wish.

I guess I'll have to dig out the Dragon again and do some coding now that I'm retired. I have a modified Dragon 64 (2 actually) with Dragon Dos, Dragon Plus board and most of the OS-9 software, Eprom programmer, interface boards, speech sythesizer and other junk. I'd be glad to help with any projects or advice if I can be any help.

[zephyr]

Welcome to the Dragon forums!