Wiki:Software

Much of the software now archived in the wiki used to be stored on floppy disks.

Preserving and sharing the software of the Eamon corpus and other related systems is an important part of the Eamon Wiki's mission. This page describes Eamon Wiki's policies and guidelines on what software is appropriate to include, preferred formats, naming conventions, usage, and copyright.

What to upload

Since the wiki is Eamon-focused, any software files uploaded to the wiki should either be part of the Eamon series or be clearly related to it in some way. For example, Knight Quest software files are good to include since it's a game based directly on Eamon, but something like a Zork adventure from Infocom should not be included since — other than being a text adventure — it doesn't have any significant connection to Eamon.

Zork would also be inappropriate to upload on the grounds of copyright: it's a commercial piece of software that should not be freely shared. Only software that's free or in the public domain, or which can safely be considered abandonware, can be uploaded without the creator's explicit consent.

Formats

Most software stored in the wiki was originally created for the Apple II series: written in BASIC, designed to run under Apple DOS or Apple ProDOS, and saved to floppy disks which have since been converted to files suitable for use with modern emulators. These files are almost entirely saved in DSK format and use the .dsk extension. For consistency it's best to use this format for Apple II software images whenever convenient, but the wiki also supports uploading files with .do, .po, .nib, and .2mg extensions.

Other kinds of supported software files include those for the Amiga (.lha), Atari (.atr or .st), and Commodore (.d64), plus general-purpose archives like .zip.

Naming, describing, categorizing

Please name software files clearly and succinctly, and name them in a way that's consistent with how similar files are named.

Give each piece of software a useful description, and be sure to note the creator, source, and date the item was made. Please use the Information Template when adding this data — it helps the page show it in a clean, tabular form.

Here's an example for an adventure disk:

==Summary==
{{Information
|description    = The [[Apple DOS|DOS 3.3]] ''[[Eamon]]'' [[adventure]] ''[[Furioso]]''.
|date           = c. {{Year|1981}}
|source         = [http://eamonag.org/lists/list-master.htm eamonag.org/lists/list-master.htm]
|author         = [[William Davis]]
|license        = {{License|Free}}
|other_versions = 
}}

Please put the software into at least one category. For example, if the file is a DSK file, you would add [[Category:DSK files]]. You can browse to find appropriate categories.

Licensing

When you upload a file to the wiki you will have the opportunity to select an appropriate license. The license you choose indicates to other readers and editors the reasons why it's appropriate for the software to be included in the wiki. Please select the license carefully; if no license fits, just select "other non-free work" and include a short explanation of your own along with the software description.

Linking to software files

When you want to direct the reader to a software file, include a link like so:

Get the [[:File:Eamon 14 - Furioso.dsk|adventure disk]].

The result looks like this: Get the adventure disk.

Note the colon at the beginning of the link — this tells the wiki to link to the file rather than try to actually include the file in the page.