Some people has asked me countless times what's OK and what's not OK when it comes to abandonware, so here is some reading before you upload:

General abandonware rules:

• All abandonware must follow these guidelines:
  
  • The title must be at least 10 years old from the date of release. Only exception is if the owners release it as public freeware. Any releases less than 10 years old will be kept in safe storage until release can be made.
  • The title may not be sold in any stores or supported in any way. This applies to that particular title and not variants of it, such as GoG releases etc.
  • The title may not be pre-cracked or modified in any way that makes it differ from an original release. Serials, keygens etc will be removed.
  • No warez releases are permitted, only dumps of original discs and floppies. If you submit a web download please provide a source for verification.
• Nintendo releases are at the moment not accepted! Nintendo has very little tolerance for sites carrying ANY of their software, many sites has been shutdown by Nintendo because of it. This may change at a later date.
• Regardless of other sites definitions of "abandonware" the above definition is what matters on BetaArchive.

There are no legal definition of what classifies as "abandonware", it's up to each community to define it as they wish. Technically and from a business point of view abandonware is no different from warez, i.e pirated software, but the general consensus is that corporations pay very little interest in titles that are far beyond its support and usability life cycle. A select few corporations even encourage spreading their titles as it prolongs the life cycle of an old title among fans.

The above guidelines and definition applies to BetaArchive only. How others define abandonware do not apply on this site.


Computer abandonwares:

• If the title is floppy based you must upload the release as it is from the floppies. Raw .IMG dumps are preferred, if you have your floppy images in any other format please contact me. Use rawread or Winimage to create your floppy images. Kryodump stream files are preferred if possible.
• If the title is CD-ROM/DVD-ROM based you have to make a raw dump of the disc:
  
  • MDF/MDS (Alcohol120%), BIN/CUE, .CCD (CloneCD) or .NRG (Nero) format for multisession discs (discs with multiple tracks such as audio or extra data). MDF is preferred.
  • DMG, CDR or Toast images for Macintosh releases.
• No floppy-into-folder dumps are accepted (abandonware is commonly found online this way). Only raw dumps from the original media is accepted.

Console abandonwares:

• For the time being BetaArchive will not publish any console abandonware titles onto the FTP nor will they be accepted as FTP access contribution.

Remember these guidelines may be changed at any moment, contact me if you feel something should be added or changed. I will at a later point make a list of useful emulators to run the various releases in.

Due to the limited size on BetaArchive at the moment we ask members to contact me if you want to send up a considerable amount of abandonware. We deal with betas first, abandonware second. But if you have any special release that needs extra attention it will of course be added to the collection. Remember to make clean dumps of the releases and pack them up properly before uploading.

If you can provide a scan of the floppy, cartridge, disc and box it would add a bonus to the release. Be sure to make the scan in high resolution (300dpi or higher) and save it in a lossless format (png, tif), jpeg only if absolutely necessary. Be sure to scan the full media, not only the label. All scans will be processed by me before added to the release.

Got any questions? Feel free to ask.

What about the most standard format - ISO?

when you say "Nintendo releases", do you mean first-party games produced by Nintendo or any game designed for a Nintendo system.

ISO doesn't carry multisession tracks, only the first one. So sure, if you're 100% sure your release got only one track then ISO is fine as well, but I excluded it to avoid people using ISO on multisession discs. But if you dump a multisession disc (say one with a data track and audio tracks) then the audio tracks are either ignored or dumped into separate wav-files... which of course needs a cue file and will only add a whole lot of files. Better then to have one file which includes the full structure of the disc (which BIN, NRG etc does).




I mean releases Nintendo made and distributed. Nintendo are quite strict when it comes to their consoles, in the past EVERYTHING was distributed through Nintendo. Only with the recent consoles are Nintendo allowing independent publishers. So as a general rule I've just kept myself out of everything that Nintendo every touched or approved .

Zeta should be an exception.

Zeta (full name is magnussoft Zeta, http://www.zeta-os.com) is a retail product so it can't be excluded from the abandonware rule. Any betas are fine, but no retail products. Be Inc. BeOS (original BeOS) however is OK since it's a now defunct company, bought by Palm and the BeOS product has been shut down.

Yeah and yellowTab has nothing to do with it anymore, magnussoft halted all distribution so therefore I think it has been "abandoned"

From what I can see you can still order it. Website is still open, files, patches and upgrades are still downloadable. At the moment it's a bit of a hot potato I think since it's somewhat clear on how "out of business" it really is. If it were really out of business they would have made it quite clear on the website.

But once the website really shuts down in one way or another then perhaps we'll accept it as "premature abandonware". So hold on to any releases you got. You are free to upload them of course, but I will archive them then for future releases.

No sir, you can not still order it.

Magnussoft is still in business. They sell Zeta/BeOS software. However, they have ceased selling anything to do with the operating system.

YellowTab, which was Bernd Korz company HAS gone out of business (Magnussoft employed him VERY shortly to continue Zeta and get distribution rights, which they gave up as soon as Access revealed Bernd had NO right to the code or distribution). Bernd has made sure he has removed all references of himself to Zeta that he can. If you want official word that Zeta is dead, speak to mmu_man in #haiku on irc.freenode.net. He was one of the developers at YellowTab.

Here is an image showing you that you can not buy Zeta:

Ah, very well then. You've provided me with the info I needed and it seems you're right. I guess we could allow it then since it's not sold or provided in any other means anymore.

I'v got an old Printmaster Gold Classic 3.0 CD for Windows 95 and Windows 3.11 that I can upload to the ftp.
I am pretty sure this is abandonware considering it is from 1996 and it is made by MindScape and MicroLogic as opposed to Broderbaund who makes the newer print master gold.

I can make a scan of the CD and of the back cover but unfortunatly I do not have the front cover and would i include the scans in the 7z file or would i put them in the uploads from 123zach folder?

also note that this is not Printmaster 3.0 Gold that is made by Broderbaund this is the older 1996 Print Master Gold Classic 3.0

Is uploading old software that I created (e.g. A C++ program from 2003) allowed?

Yes, since you own the copyright, so you are free to do with it what you wish.

Copyright has fall so you can do anything you want:P

What about AmigaOS?

Amiga OS is currently owned and maintained by Hyperion Entertainment and they currently maintain AmigaOS 4.x. And i already got all older AmigaOS:es but BA has not gone into classic non-PC abandonware yet. If we did that we would have to release all Amiga software, and that's half a terabyte worth of stuff .

Remember, only because a website doesn't work doesn't mean it's all free to release. I am not even sure Amiga had a www.amiga.com website, originally Amiga was owned by Commodore and they had their own website.

But if you happen to have an original disc with covers etc then you're free to upload it and we'll archive it until we can make a release.

Yes, they had! Weeks before, I accessed this site.

I think the 10 year old rule should be amended by a 'unsupported product' rule:
"being that no releases never than 10 years old or still supported may be uploaded" (shouldn't it be 'newer' rather than 'never'?)
Support for MS products can be checked on the Lifecycle Information page.

Can I upload abandonware that is a .EXE in a .7z file?


And also, before I upload them, are any of these apps/games abandonware?

Q-bert (Atari, Columbia Pictures Industries, Hasbro Interactive) (1999) (PC)

Quicktime Player 2.0-4.12 (Apple) (1999) (PC)

Acrobat Reader 3.0-4.05 (Adobe) (1996-1999) (PC)

Nero Burning ROM 3.0.2.0-5.0.0.3 (Nero AG) (1997-2000) (PC)

NCSA Mosaic 2.0 (NCSA) (PC)

Microsoft Frontpage Express 2.0 (2.0.2.11) (Microsoft) (1997) (PC)

Internet Explorer 2.0-5.0 (Microsoft) (1996-2000) (Mac) IE Mac won't unarchive, they are corrupt.

Mosaic, IE, Frontpage, Acrobat Reader are all abandonware

Dunno about all the others

Thanks. I'm uploading them A.S.A.P.
I'll PM mrpijey abou the rest.

Typo in list 1 item 1: "newer" not "never".

About abandonware: is abandonware that is still selling accepted? I see Doom being sold in Steam, but we still have it on our FTP.

About Nintendo: are Nintendo betas disallowed? Or only abandonware?

Yes.


Nintendo betas are allowed and you should find some on the ftp

what about pc software that recently got abandoned since the company got taken over?