About selling Castlevania (by IBM/1988) packages on eBay

ibmpc5150

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281899788026
--> It was sold at $515.55 (5.25")
It is Not sealed (maybe unused but complete) package.
But I'm very supprised that was over $500 on eBay last year.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281902209608
--> It was sold at over $177.50, but I think a few of package contents are missing.
1) Konami's Catalog
2) Registration Card

http://www.ebay.com/itm/112256501081
--> They're with 8 packages, but Castlevania is sealed (5.25"), it was sold at only $202.50
Seller didin't mention about "Castlevania".
Maybe most of buyer didn't know.

ibmpc5150

http://www.ebay.com/itm/182686344116
--> It is selling at $699.95
Package says that is 5.25" media, but 3.5" media is also included.
All contents are included, but disk seems to be modified by GO.BAT file.

[Deleted User]

Did you purchase these already or are you just posting the eBay listing links? These prices seem to be very much on the high side.

ibmpc5150

http://www.ebay.com/itm/112466187187
-> It is sealed package and selling at $749.95
Package says that is 5.25" media,

SomeGuy

ibmpc5150 wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/182686344116
--> It is selling at $699.95
Package says that is 5.25" media, but 3.5" media is also included.
All contents are included, but disk seems to be modified by GO.BAT file.

Facepalm at this guy showing the disks stuffed in a Windows 9x machine. That means the disks are probably "infected" with last access dates and volume tracker garbage.

I always cringe when someone says they "tested" floppy disks. Even write protected, if they don't know what they are doing, they could be damaging the disk if the disk or drive is dirty.

ibmpc5150

@SomeGuy

I've asked to the seller.

The seller said "I believe it is the 3.5" disk that is tested in photo."

I don't know 5.25" disk sectors are modified or untouched, but anyway 3.5" disk sectors are modified (written) by GO.BAT file.
(Original untouched disk doesn't include GO.BAT.)

[Deleted User]

SomeGuy wrote:

ibmpc5150 wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/182686344116
--> It is selling at $699.95
Package says that is 5.25" media, but 3.5" media is also included.
All contents are included, but disk seems to be modified by GO.BAT file.

Facepalm at this guy showing the disks stuffed in a Windows 9x machine. That means the disks are probably "infected" with last access dates and volume tracker garbage.

I always cringe when someone says they "tested" floppy disks. Even write protected, if they don't know what they are doing, they could be damaging the disk if the disk or drive is dirty.

What exactly is the kind of "garbage" that 9x puts on disks besides the stuff you mentioned? Just wondering.

P.S. In my old systems I write protect disks (and clean the drive and disk if I can) before using it.

SomeGuy

Those are the two main things. Just by accessing the disk, Windows 9x will overwrite the OEM ID in the boot sector with a "volume tracker" ID. The idea is that creates an easier way for Windows 9x to tell the difference between otherwise identical disks. In practice, this automatically destroys certain kinds of old backup disks that used the OEM ID for their own identification purposes.

Then, just by copying files from a floppy, Windows will attempt to write last access dates to each file entry. You don't normally see these dates, but tools like WinImage can show you these date stamps. A disk that was made in 1985 should not have a 2017 date stamp anywhere. Although uncommon, some MS-DOS clone OSes used those fields for other things such as file level password locking. Technically, the space in the FAT directory structure was reserved by IBM specifically for last access dates all the way back in IBM PC-DOS 1.0 - but it was never used until 95 and NT.

Windows can also write other garbage such as image thumbnail databases, or "webby" folder desktop.ini files. Some early crappy virus scanners will also leave behind small database files with file scan info.

Additionally, Apple MacOS X is notorious for littering disks with "dot files" that it hides from the users.

Tools like the Kryoflux will show where someone has written to a factory-produced disk, because writing leaves a slight "splice" at the beginning and ending of the sector.

Part of the reason for archiving original disks is to give collectors the option of restoring their disks to a pristine condition, should a previous user have erased or damaged the contents. So if the archive itself is not pristine, then it is not as useful.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for the clarification. Do modern Windows OSes (Windoze 10 in particular) do the same thing with floppies? (I know that Windoze 10 doesn't write desktop.ini to floppies anymore -- at least emulated ones created by the Virtual Floppy Disk vfd.sys -- but it may do other stuff)

Also my custom VGA version of the Windows 3.0 test drive was edited on Windoze 10, so SomeGuy could you see if Windoze 10 had left any cruft on the edited images? (The topic with the download link is easy to find, just search the Software subforum)

macOS does like to create dotfiles and hide them, but there is a Terminal command that can display hidden files in the Finder. From there you can delete them. A quick google will help you with that.

Doesn't write-protect switched ON solve all the problems that you mentioned earlier though? Or do 9x and NT not respect the write-protect setting and attempt to write to the disk anyway?

ibmpc5150

I recommend to discuss on the another thread about non related Castlevania (IBM) on eBay.