The SNES preservation project is undead

Discussion of hardware and software development for Super NES and Super Famicom. See the SNESdev wiki for more information.

Moderator: Moderators

Forum rules
  • For making cartridges of your Super NES games, see Reproduction.
Near
Founder of higan project
Posts: 1553
Joined: Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:23 pm

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by Near »

Wait.. $5000+ worth of games weighing close to 20 lbs were sent across the atlantic just wrapped in some paper?
And the cardboard box inside had both the sender's name and address as well as mine written on it.
mic_
Posts: 922
Joined: Thu Oct 05, 2006 6:29 am

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by mic_ »

And the cardboard box inside had both the sender's name and address as well as mine written on it.
Ah. Well, that certainly is suspicious. If they were stolen, that seems like a pretty stupid move by the thief(s). How do you liquidate 100 PAL SNES carts in NTSC land quickly without garnering attention? A pawn shop maybe, but then you'd probably only get a fraction of the market value.
jmr
Posts: 48
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 2:38 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada
Contact:

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by jmr »

Damn. :(
I feel bad for giving sympathy to the USPS in my earlier posts. Personally I'm convinced of the whole "MOTHER FUCKING THIEVES" theory (Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - I find it much easier to believe that the USPS is incompetent) but maybe that's just the forgiving Canadian in me.
byuu & Smarthuman, good luck getting the insurance value of those carts; hopefully they don't drag this out longer than it needs to go.
User avatar
mikejmoffitt
Posts: 1353
Joined: Sun May 27, 2012 8:43 pm

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by mikejmoffitt »

The USPS has certainly bungled rare things in the past, but this is the most blatantly mishandled and sketchy (on the USPS's part, not yours!) I've seen within these circles. Who knows what will become of the box.

Is sending the cartridge owner the dumper out of the question? I know this has been asked, but it might be worth making that more of a possibility or introducing him to people in that area who can help in order to reduce the chances of this sort of thing happening.
tepples
Posts: 22708
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by tepples »

mikejmoffitt wrote:Is sending the cartridge owner the dumper out of the question?
It's one of a kind and a bit more sophisticated than your garden variety Retrode.
In [url=https://byuu.org/emulation/preservation/lost-package/]the notice page[/url], byuu wrote:My unique dumping hardware was made for me by defparam, a talented electrical engineer. He is currently working on an easier to design version that we can hopefully distribute to other people in the future.
Near
Founder of higan project
Posts: 1553
Joined: Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:23 pm

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by Near »

I feel bad for giving sympathy to the USPS in my earlier posts. Personally I'm convinced of the whole "MOTHER FUCKING THIEVES" theory (Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - I find it much easier to believe that the USPS is incompetent) but maybe that's just the forgiving Canadian in me.
I'm an angry, cynical bastard. And I went off in a fit of rage as soon as I opened up their envelope. I was expecting a customs duty form, which I was happy to pay just to get my package. When I found that torn letter, I could barely contain my anger.

It was very unprofessional of me to jump right into accusations of theft. I do still believe that this is the more likely scenario, because I am an unrelenting pessimist. Life has spent the past 34 years beating every last ounce of optimism out of me, you see. But yes, I have no proof. Just a feeling. Just like the feeling I had that there was a serious problem with the package when everyone was telling me to wait. And as always, I hope I'm wrong and I will publicly prostrate myself if I am.

But regardless, I shouldn't have acted that way. I apologize to everyone for that.
Is sending the cartridge owner the dumper out of the question?
Even once defparam has them available for sale, the donor is disabled. I am not inquiring as to the nature of the disability, because it's none of my business. So no, it would be out of the question in this case to ask him to put in 400 hours of labor.

I will ultimately welcome as many people that want to perform their own cartridge dumps as possible. All the same, I also want to dump as many cartridges myself as I can. Maybe that's selfish, but the more verifications, the better, right?
User avatar
dustmop
Posts: 136
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2013 7:55 am

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by dustmop »

I've gotten this letter before, exactly the same. Granted it was much less expensive, only $60 of magic cards. But at least then they included the cards, with wholes burnt completely through them. Pretty blatant that there's no remains at all, doesn't look at all like "normal machine processing". Whole situation is really messed up, my condolences.
User avatar
rainwarrior
Posts: 8735
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:03 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by rainwarrior »

byuu wrote:It was very unprofessional of me to jump right into accusations of theft.
To be honest, I was kinda worried to see articles being published on the internet with "$10,000" in the headline when things seemed to be still up in the air to me. It felt like if there was still a chance it would get through at that point, suddenly putting out this info about the value might encourage theft, or alternatively might signal that its undeclared value was a customs violation and get it seized.

Probably in the end the damage was already done by the time those articles appeared, so maybe it didn't hurt. Perhaps at this point the media attention is good if it helps to get USPS to look into it.
Near
Founder of higan project
Posts: 1553
Joined: Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:23 pm

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by Near »

> To be honest, I was kinda worried to see articles being published on the internet with "$10,000" in the headline when things seemed to be still up in the air to me.

Taking a serious look at buying the games again now, I'm starting to suspect I might have underestimated the value.

Mega Man X3 alone, loose cart, is selling for $850 right now. There's at least ten super rare carts in that box.

> suddenly putting out this info about the value might encourage theft

It was also the only way to get any media attention. "Guy loses $500 package" would not interest anyone. It's the way of the world, and the value claimed is no lie. Easily proven. (except for those claiming the carts never existed.)

> or alternatively might signal that its undeclared value was a customs violation and get it seized.

Possibly, but they are aware that you can't really prove the value of old video games. eBay auction sales don't count. The games are no longer sold, there's no industry for appraisal of value like you have with cars and homes and other high-value items. It's not unreasonable that postal limits on insurance would result in undervaluing of contents.

It was insured as high as it could go by Deutsche Post without any form of proof of value.

> Perhaps at this point the media attention is good if it helps to get USPS to look into it.

That's what I'm telling myself. 20-30% of the comments on it are horrific, and a whole lot of people that don't know me now associate my name with being a scam artist. But I'm used to it, so I'll take the hit if it gives a chance at recovering these games, slim as it may be.
User avatar
Fisher
Posts: 1249
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:58 am
Location: -29.794229 -55.795374

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by Fisher »

Oh man, I feel really sorry for that. :cry:
I've lost a package once, but it was nowere near as valuable as yours, and got very sad.
In your place, I'd be totally insane!!

I think right now we should concentrate in trying to get it's contents (or at least part of it) back, if ever possible.
Let's find who's the guilty later.
I sincerelly hope this project don't dies so early!!

Power to you man!!!
tepples
Posts: 22708
Joined: Sun Sep 19, 2004 11:12 pm
Location: NE Indiana, USA (NTSC)
Contact:

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by tepples »

Oh great, it made Slashdot.
User avatar
Fisher
Posts: 1249
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:58 am
Location: -29.794229 -55.795374

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by Fisher »

Is it considered a good or a bad thing?
User avatar
Sverker
Posts: 46
Joined: Wed May 23, 2012 11:30 pm

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by Sverker »

Well, let's see. The sender purposely misrepresented the contents of the package as being food (which is likely why the package contents could not be matched with the separated shipping label. Customs agencies generally have zero sense of humour about this sort of thing). The value of the package was fraudulently declared to be far lower than it actually was so the sender can continue receiving welfare from the German government. Byuu has publicly accused a hypothetical USPS employee of having stolen the package to sell while simultaneously trying to get USPS to help him locate it. All in the name of dumping copyrighted game software to illegally distribute freely online. Now I'll admit that the situation sucks and I wouldn't want to be in byuu's shoes right now, but I can't be the only one who sees how giving this mainstream media attention, not to mention starting a Patreon about it, might not go as well as he'd hope.
Last edited by Sverker on Sat Feb 18, 2017 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Near
Founder of higan project
Posts: 1553
Joined: Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:23 pm

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by Near »

>Oh great, it made Slashdot.

Right on time, four days after everyone else saw the story :P

> Is it considered a good or a bad thing?

About fifteen years ago, it'd cause a massive surge in traffic to one's site. Nowadays it doesn't even cause a blip.

The Reddit post on r/emulation sent 152 guests to my forum at the same time, the Slashdot story has it sitting at 15 guests.
Sintendo
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Nov 21, 2010 1:55 pm

Re: The SNES preservation project is now truly dead

Post by Sintendo »

Sverker wrote:All in the name of dumping copyrighted game software to illegally distribute freely online.
He's not doing that.
Post Reply