A legal Mega-download of ROM's for the Pandora

[DaMummy]

my 300kb/sec upload is ready to help, but im not too familiar with the legality of roms/emulators/homebrew/apps so if someone can put something together, ill be glad to help seed said torrent

 

[ibisum]

But is anyone going to track? We can all make prety big lists pretty quickly

Why don't we just use this thread?


I've got the Oricutron side of things covered - there are tons of ROM's that are legal to distribute with this emulator. If people will start filling this thread with known-legal ROM's and their appropriate emulators, I will keep track and start assembling packages.


Something like a direct link to the ROM file, which emu it is for, would make a nice list ..

 

[bzar]

I just wanted to say:


And so it begins...

 

[Gren]

^There is a hole in your mind.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Why don't we just use this thread?


I've got the Oricutron side of things covered - there are tons of ROM's that are legal to distribute with this emulator. If people will start filling this thread with known-legal ROM's and their appropriate emulators, I will keep track and start assembling packages.


Something like a direct link to the ROM file, which emu it is for, would make a nice list ..

All the games at back2roots.org are licensed and free to download.Tons of amiga games there.My link

 

[T.T.]

I'd love a massive starter pack for the Pandora, including basically all of the games and software currently available in a single download. It would be a pain in the behind to keep up-to-date, though. Would be nice if dl.openhandhelds had a sort-of "build your bundle" feature.


As for ROMs, I just consult my external hard drive. If you haven't already got all of the ROMs you might ever want to play ready and lined up for your Pandora... then what the hell else have you been doing for the last 2 years?


Oh, and don't forget to buy Descent 1 & 2 from GOG.com for $5.99. http://www.gog.com/e...ent_1_descent_2 - a Pandora essential.


It's a shame that Retrode isn't still alive and kicking: http://www.retrode.org/

My brother has a Retrode, they're really cool, and handy.

 

[cappuchok]

For what it's worth, regarding back2roots, dream17 and similar sites: I would probably inquire about the license for those freely distributable Amiga games before including them in a package. In some cases they do not allow any kind of online redistribution beyond the original site that got the license. On that note, Factor 5 provides some of their old Amiga games on their website, but explicitly ask that anyone wishing to redistribute them should ask for permission.

 

[MarioPandio]

I dont know if its still being hosted but Hooka previously put together 2 SD card packs for the GP2x with purely legal materials. I grabbed a 4gb one that unpacks to around 2.7gb and its great for use with Ginge.


Not everything runs but most stuff I tested did. Perhaps someone can see if he will re-up it, or provide them here to go with this compilation?


Edit:


Contains the following games/apps (which I presume are legal as it was linked on the other forums GP2X section but I cant re-find the thread)

Spoiler

 

[Blue Protoman]

Perhaps at one point I could put together a .rar containing various homebrews and whatnot. I've got a MegaUpload account that could do with some action. Just point me to legal downloads and I'll do the dirty work.

 

[skeezix]

*dead*?


jeff

 

[mindlord]

I dont know if its still being hosted but Hooka previously put together 2 SD card packs for the GP2x with purely legal materials. I grabbed a 4gb one that unpacks to around 2.7gb and its great for use with Ginge.


Not everything runs but most stuff I tested did. Perhaps someone can see if he will re-up it, or provide them here to go with this compilation?


Edit:


Contains the following games/apps (which I presume are legal as it was linked on the other forums GP2X section but I cant re-find the thread)

Spoiler

I'm just going to put this here... cause.. well... It's important.


Linky

 

[Blue Protoman]

Actually, I've played that. It's a crappy backport of Donkey Kong Country for SNES. Surprisingly well-made, considering its background. It's still crap, though.

 

[skeezix]

As I posted earlier on .. pderoms.de is more about public _ROMS_ but ignores the wide bearth of other things .. homebrew, text adventures, scummvm, stuff like Wesnoth, etc and so on. Also, I think the goal was 'unzip and ready to use'


This is another one of those perfect opportunities for someone in the community to step up, who wants to help but isn't a coder etc. Its ont a tonne of work to do this Has our community gotten lazy? wheres those who will jump in to do a couple nights screwing around to help their fellow forumites?


</bait>


jeff

 

[DaMummy]

id put the work in, if i knew what the legal stuff is, so im not touching it as i know id be posting illegal roms, but as far as posting it on usenet, making a torrent, or uploading it to something like rapidshare, id be helpful on that level

 

[skeezix]

See up above for lost of legal links; also, maybe verify with some googling.


But for instance --


For homebrew, just get it from dl.openhandhelds and the app-store and wiki; you know these are legit, since we all made them.


For ScummVM games, go to the ScummVM site to download them -- they're donated to the public and well proven/documented by the ScummVM team.


For text adventures, trheres new homebrew adventures put together every day; theres the 'IF Competition' (IF being Interactive Fiction) which will provide endless lists of those games (for feeding to Gargoyle which I ported to Pandora.)


For Amiga, someone mentioned above a good place to get them.


So the trick here is someone shoudl start collecitng and just get it going; no one ever wants to start, but just someone can


I'd do it, but I'm already doing a dozen things, so its just not right


jeff

 

[Prometheus]

As I posted earlier on .. pderoms.de is more about public _ROMS_ but ignores the wide bearth of other things .. homebrew, text adventures, scummvm, stuff like Wesnoth, etc and so on. Also, I think the goal was 'unzip and ready to use'


This is another one of those perfect opportunities for someone in the community to step up, who wants to help but isn't a coder etc. Its ont a tonne of work to do this Has our community gotten lazy? wheres those who will jump in to do a couple nights screwing around to help their fellow forumites?


</bait>


jeff

Like I said earlier in the thread, I've been maintaining a gigantic list for a couple of years now (it's right there in my signature, too). It's got a lot of formerly-commercial stuff across a whole range of systems (although personally I think that the juiciest pickings are for the Amiga, as there a lot of well-known titles available legally now). However, in what I'm fairly sure is a number of cases, it's not possible to re-distribute the games concerned.


Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go through it all to find what can and can't be re-distributed in a big "unzip and go"-type file.

 

[gadgetoid]

Creating one big zip-and-go file is easy enough. It's been done fantastically well for the Dingoo/Dingux.


Keeping it up to date, however, is a massive chore.


I propose a build-your-own bundle extension to the official Open Pandora store. It'll require the co-operation of Craig, but the server on which the store is running should periodically zip up all the PNDs into one package, or give the option to check boxes and build your own bundle of PNDs for download. It's a piece of piss to do, programmatically, and would focus any efforts to keep it up to date onto the Pandora store... keeping that, in turn, up to date and benefitting everyone, even those who don't want the bundle.


We could also nab GOG.com's Gogmixes idea, and allow users to build their own bundles based around a theme, and share them with others, in addition to adding guides/mini reviews and more against these bundles.


That way, no single person is responsible for maintaining such a monumental bundle.


Of course, you wouldn't be able to distribute ROMs in it, but I don't think that's ever going to be the case- a big ROM-pack isn't hard to find anyway, legitimate or not.

 

[DaMummy]

the problem with user uploaded roms, is that theres bound to be people that will upload illegal stuff on there, knowingly too

 

[skeezix]

Presumably it would not be user uploaded; we'd have a dictator who makes his torrent pack available, and presumably its clean, or people can let them know to clean it up.


Prometheus -- hwy not get it started? Just grab a bunch of good Pandora homebrew (from wiki, dl.open and appstore), that doesn't have ROM requirements at all. (And optionally, some that do if the data-files are available.. such as the Shareware quake and Descent levels .. provides some playability, and also illustrates folks where to put the files when they buy them, etc.) For non-emus, theres lots of good and easy pickings -- like SucmmVM, just hit up the official ScummVM site and suck down a pile of publicly distributable games. Likewise for Interactive Fiction for feedig to Gargoyle .. just hit up any numbre of sites like TAFs or whatever (or I can prepare a few.)


I figure I coudl put together a decent collection in a couple hours if I wanted, and I could host the download or start off a torrent. But then I'd be on the hook for maintaining/adding to it .. and I'm already maxxed out with all my sundry projects But I could, if people reeally want it and no one else wants to put it together.


Hell, we should just get a DropBox account for this purpose, and then let 3 or 4 people share the password and do the uploading to it. That'd keep it a 2GB limit which might be handy for such a thing Then someone just pulls it and makes a torrent out, and piece of cake.


I can set up Gargoyle and Interactive Fiction for someone .. I can zip up a pile of all legit stuff pretty easily. ScummVM is easy. Quake and Descnt is a bit of work (I've always used the real deal from GoG/etc, but you can use shareware I think.) A lot of standalone games and such should be easy to just drop the pnd in the /pandora/menu in the torrent and good to go.


Strikes me .. all the banter we've had, someone could've just done it


If needed, I'll pop a night and just do some random stuff and stick it on my box for download, or into a dropbox,and someone else can grow it from there. Or we can drop it


jeff

 

[myownlittlworld]

Presumably it would not be user uploaded; we'd have a dictator who makes his torrent pack available, and presumably its clean, or people can let them know to clean it up.

I guess I'll play dictator. Post what you'd like to see in the torrent pack here and I'll post it to LegalTorrents (along with a link here) tomorrow. You've got less than 24 hours to vote! What're the best games for new Pandorians?


A few conditions:

• I can't distribute everything. I need permission to redistribute. Free software is alright (GPL, BSD 3-clause, etc.), as well as anything that says it can be redistributed freely.
  
• I'll include emulators for many major systems, but not ROMs. I don't have time to track down the redistributabilty of an arbitrary ROM.
  
• I won't include engines specific to a single game (PrBoom, GemRB, IOQuake, etc.), because expecting the average user to have bought one specific game a decade and a half ago is just silly and wastes valuable space in my torrent.
  
• I'm not including games that are otherwise being sold for a profit, unless I can distribute a trial version. Does BattleJewels have a trial version?
  
• I might wait until I've properly packaged (and included) the Devil's Random Cowsay to release the torrent.
  
• I won't bother making a repository for the torrent. It's a torrent, and the PNDs are the source files.
  
• I'm trying to keep this to 512 MB (488 MiB), so it can fit on just about anybody's SD card.
  
• Other conditions as they occur to me.