Frustrations and setbacks
Dec. 9th, 2018 07:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoI regrettably do not have any major discoveries or breakthroughs to announce this time, but I didn't want to leave the Interlight saga hanging with radio silence and no update.
At this point, the current status of the project is that I think I have successfully ripped and dumped The Story of Jonah. IsoBuster can see the contents of the disc just fine, and I extracted .iso and .cue files.
Testing and playing it is the trick, because it turns out that the current state of CD-i emulation is a dire mess. We have tried just about every CD-i emulator on the market, and they all either completely fail to read images (even an actual CD-i ROM I downloaded just to have a known good ROM to test as a control variable) or setting them up is such an arcane advanced degree-requiring nightmare that we haven't even been able to get far enough to read the images. It might just be easier to get an actual CD-i and a capture card at this point, but three problems:
1) CD-is are like $300
2) According toswordianmaster, at least some CD-i units have faulty batteries that tend to brick the system when they die, meaning the console itself is on that whole "better enjoy this while you can before that 30-year-old internal battery finally gives out" doomsday clock that is usually reserved for old console games with battery saves. This makes it harder to justify spending that much money on a CD-i.
3) Even if I capture-carded this, some YouTube videos of me playing Lost Sheep aren't really the same thing as getting dumps published. I mean, ideally anyone who's actually interested after reading all this should be able to check the Interlight games out for themselves, too.
At this point, we're at a loss. Tremendous thank yous to all my friends and loved ones who helped me get the project this far:xyzzysqrl, swordianmaster, all the Video Game Giveaways Telegram group mods but especially Jão, and of course Sara <3 But the next step might just involve expanding our support network out even further. At this point, we have what I think is a good dump of The Story of Jonah (I can dump all the other ones too if that one works, but may as well make sure we're on the right track first) and can provide the files to anyone who asks, but what in the name of all that's fluffy do you do with them? I can't... I'm sorry, I'm not smart enough to hack through the current CD-i emulation scene. If anyone reading this is, or can help spread the word to someone who is (https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/tag/interlight if you need a handy link to bring them up to speed on what we're trying to do here and what we have so far,) or knows something I missed, or.... Basically, what I need is someone to either poke around with the files on their end or hold my hand through how to do that on mine.
If you can do this, you will have my eternal undying gratitude. If I'm right about not seeing any of these already dumped anywhere, and Sword is right about even the physical consoles themselves having a shelf life... well. Losable gaming history is at stake.
(Actually, it might be anyway. CDs are more stable than old floppy disks but they are not a permanent safe and secure forever medium. It may take decades, such that these CD-i games from 1991 are still perfectly fine for now, but bit rot can eventually claim them if physical scratches don't first.)
Finally, I need to issue a correction for this part of the log from last entry:
Celine Kalante, [05.12.18 16:13]
Again, it's... mostly just because this is all going so easy so far. Jonah was like $40 on Amazon. All I needed was the full (corrected, thanks MobyGames) company name from the box and I found two ex-Interlight employees on LinkedIn with a simple two-minute DuckDuckGo search. I'm used to how epic that American Sailor Moon article made The Search feel, and this is all just... this is not hard. Why am I the only person who ever thought to do this.
Oh, because CD-i emulation is an unfathomable hellscape and anyone else who tried this probably hit the same hurdles I just did. I see.
At this point, the current status of the project is that I think I have successfully ripped and dumped The Story of Jonah. IsoBuster can see the contents of the disc just fine, and I extracted .iso and .cue files.
Testing and playing it is the trick, because it turns out that the current state of CD-i emulation is a dire mess. We have tried just about every CD-i emulator on the market, and they all either completely fail to read images (even an actual CD-i ROM I downloaded just to have a known good ROM to test as a control variable) or setting them up is such an arcane advanced degree-requiring nightmare that we haven't even been able to get far enough to read the images. It might just be easier to get an actual CD-i and a capture card at this point, but three problems:
1) CD-is are like $300
2) According to
swordianmaster, at least some CD-i units have faulty batteries that tend to brick the system when they die, meaning the console itself is on that whole "better enjoy this while you can before that 30-year-old internal battery finally gives out" doomsday clock that is usually reserved for old console games with battery saves. This makes it harder to justify spending that much money on a CD-i.3) Even if I capture-carded this, some YouTube videos of me playing Lost Sheep aren't really the same thing as getting dumps published. I mean, ideally anyone who's actually interested after reading all this should be able to check the Interlight games out for themselves, too.
At this point, we're at a loss. Tremendous thank yous to all my friends and loved ones who helped me get the project this far:
xyzzysqrl, swordianmaster, all the Video Game Giveaways Telegram group mods but especially Jão, and of course Sara <3 But the next step might just involve expanding our support network out even further. At this point, we have what I think is a good dump of The Story of Jonah (I can dump all the other ones too if that one works, but may as well make sure we're on the right track first) and can provide the files to anyone who asks, but what in the name of all that's fluffy do you do with them? I can't... I'm sorry, I'm not smart enough to hack through the current CD-i emulation scene. If anyone reading this is, or can help spread the word to someone who is (https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/tag/interlight if you need a handy link to bring them up to speed on what we're trying to do here and what we have so far,) or knows something I missed, or.... Basically, what I need is someone to either poke around with the files on their end or hold my hand through how to do that on mine.If you can do this, you will have my eternal undying gratitude. If I'm right about not seeing any of these already dumped anywhere, and Sword is right about even the physical consoles themselves having a shelf life... well. Losable gaming history is at stake.
(Actually, it might be anyway. CDs are more stable than old floppy disks but they are not a permanent safe and secure forever medium. It may take decades, such that these CD-i games from 1991 are still perfectly fine for now, but bit rot can eventually claim them if physical scratches don't first.)
Finally, I need to issue a correction for this part of the log from last entry:
Celine Kalante, [05.12.18 16:13]
Again, it's... mostly just because this is all going so easy so far. Jonah was like $40 on Amazon. All I needed was the full (corrected, thanks MobyGames) company name from the box and I found two ex-Interlight employees on LinkedIn with a simple two-minute DuckDuckGo search. I'm used to how epic that American Sailor Moon article made The Search feel, and this is all just... this is not hard. Why am I the only person who ever thought to do this.
Oh, because CD-i emulation is an unfathomable hellscape and anyone else who tried this probably hit the same hurdles I just did. I see.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-09 03:54 pm (UTC)I don't know how to do it myself, but I'll keep an eye out for anyone who knows how to do cd-i things. best wishes.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-09 07:07 pm (UTC)β No idea how much I can do but I'm interested. I'll ping you over Telegram soon.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-30 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-31 04:12 am (UTC)I'm afraid I do not have a Facebook account, so I am unable to contact this person. I'm very sorry for the imposition, but might I ask you to refer this person our way? https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/tag/interlight is a handy link to bring anyone up to speed with the full saga thus far, and I'd love to hear any expertise I can. Just... you know... on a platform that I'm able to access, preferably. :)
Thank you for the interest--I hope not to disappoint!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-31 06:03 am (UTC)Someone else who might be able to help you who has an available email address is the owner of the CD-i emulator website, it's cdifan (at) gmail (dot) com. Hopefully he's still active, I had a look at his blog and there were posts from earlier this year so he's probably still around.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-03 05:14 am (UTC)If this works, I'm definitely giving you a huge chunk of the breakthrough's credit for hooking me up with that lead. :) Though even if it doesn't, I'm super grateful for the help either way! I guess now we just wait and see....