SNES Preservation Project "Dead" after USPS Loses $10K of Cartridges

TwiceOver said:
So what was the reason for non-delivery? That didn't seem to make it into the story. His USPS contact probably asked him not to mention because there was probably nothing wrong with the box.
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It was in the guy's writeup.

The morons at the German post office took the two cardboard boxes of 50 cartridges, taped them together side-by-side, wrapped them in brown craft paper, and put the label on that. It should come as no surprise that the paper got torn off in processing.

German engineering fail.
 
Yep, auctioning off lost packages is a thing.

Percentage wise it's a minute amount t of them, but with a service as large as the postal service ice it adds up, and they maintain a center for that.

It's usually stuff where eithrt the sender is an idiot and does the fill stuff out properly (address is wrong, no return address) or the shipping label has been mutilated to the point where they can't identify who sent it or where it is going.

Next step is going to the postal inspectors who might open it to try to find out whose it is and where it is going.

If after exhaustive research they just don't have a clue, they hold on to it for a period of time, in case there are claims against description, and if that fails, it gets auctioned off.

Again, a vanishingly small proportion of all packages, but as huge as USPS is it adds up.

I believe them when they say a machine ate it. Not the entire package of course, but a machine could easily have mutilated the label to the point where it was unreadable.
 
XenIneX said:
It was in the guy's writeup.

The morons at the German post office took the two cardboard boxes of 50 cartridges, taped them together side-by-side, wrapped them in brown craft paper, and put the label on that. It should come as no surprise that the paper got torn off in processing.

German engineering fail.
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47609052.jpg
 
TwiceOver said:
So what was the reason for non-delivery? That didn't seem to make it into the story. His USPS contact probably asked him not to mention because there was probably nothing wrong with the box.

Back in the early '00s I was deep into FSFT, many packages being sent. One person sent me a processor that never arrived. He paid me back. Several months later I was at the post office doing something else and the person noticed my name and said "I'll be right back..." Came back with my processor. Been sitting on a shelf, with a perfectly readable destination address.
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Yeah. The fact these ended up at an auction facility makes it strange. Do they literally not manually read the packages "oops, machine can't read it. Guess we have to auction this one off! Hope they had insurance."

Mohonri said:
Unfortunately, USPS does lose packages way too often--personal experience, here. But they never fail to deliver the junk mail every day.
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I think that also depends on your location and who the person on your route is. At my current place, USPS has been rock solid and FedEx/UPS are the ones that mess up a lot. A good delivery person knows where to leave packages out of sight and such, the bad ones don't care and just throw them on the porch or may "ghost deliver" them because they want to go home early.

If you have the guy from Funny Farm, I can imagine you'll get a lot of lost packages.
 
XenIneX said:
It was in the guy's writeup.

The morons at the German post office took the two cardboard boxes of 50 cartridges, taped them together side-by-side, wrapped them in brown craft paper, and put the label on that. It should come as no surprise that the paper got torn off in processing.

German engineering fail.
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Blame the ecoterrorists. Germany has a full ban on plastic bags so I bet they couldn't even wrap the packages to mylar and had to use paper instead.
 
Very good news. The emulation world owes a lot to Byuu, who has taken his quest to emulate the SNES to...... let's just say excessive extremes.
B00nie said:
Blame the ecoterrorists. Germany has a full ban on plastic bags so I bet they couldn't even wrap the packages to mylar and had to use paper instead.
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Why would you need mylar or paper? Tape the label on the fucking box and be done with it. Never had a cardboard box break in transit. If you're worried, wrap it in duct tape a few time.
 
I am absolutely floored that the USPS found a "lost" package. I'd be surprised if any USPS worker could find their ass with both hands if blindfolded. Not that they are dumb, just that they do not give a rats ass about anything.
 
XenIneX said:
It was in the guy's writeup.

The morons at the German post office took the two cardboard boxes of 50 cartridges, taped them together side-by-side, wrapped them in brown craft paper, and put the label on that. It should come as no surprise that the paper got torn off in processing.

German engineering fail.
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US Military leaving Germany shipping their personal possessions home were always having nice things "lost" by German customs and shippers, even firearms.
 
Burticus said:
I am absolutely floored that the USPS found a "lost" package. I'd be surprised if any USPS worker could find their ass with both hands if blindfolded. Not that they are dumb, just that they do not give a rats ass about anything.
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Lots of attention, maybe.

"Lost" can mean stolen or "misplaced" for later. I know when my stuff goes missing, it's usually a higher value, cool item. All my dumb stuff (or run of the mill) is never lost. Only the real neat stuff.

Real glad they "found" this "lost" package. :)
 
sirgallium said:
Some carts have unique chips in them that add to the game that he also copies into the code
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He already completed special chip emulation about 5-7 years ago with the help of someone who had the skills and knowledge to trick the hardware into giving up its program ROMs. I think the main purpose of the preservation project is independent verification with his own homemade hardware. During the preservation project for US games, most of the hash files matched existing dumps, but he found that a few games were fudged slightly to work with existing emulators. A minor thing, sure, but it really shows how far this guy goes to preserve things to the fullest extent possible.
 
Burticus said:
I am absolutely floored that the USPS found a "lost" package. I'd be surprised if any USPS worker could find their ass with both hands if blindfolded. Not that they are dumb, just that they do not give a rats ass about anything.
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It only got returned because he made so much public noise. Good job, happy ending!
 
For everyone trying to blame the torn label deal

"My package was sitting in Atlanta, GA for well over a month with my address clearly visible right on the box."


The address was still clearly visible on the box, yet they were going to auction it off... yeah, no, the usps wasn't kosher on this deal at all.
 
Revdarian said:
For everyone trying to blame the torn label deal

"My package was sitting in Atlanta, GA for well over a month with my address clearly visible right on the box."


The address was still clearly visible on the box, yet they were going to auction it off... yeah, no, the usps wasn't kosher on this deal at all.
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And yet no pic of the box...
 
They're in the post
https://i.imgur.com/8NSjtlvl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RFfN0erl.jpg
When the donor went to send me the next batch of 100 games, he reused my boxes and took them to Deutsche Post for assistance in packaging them up. They ended up taping my two boxes together, and then wrapping the box in thick brown wrapping paper.
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Not sure why he didn't just ship two (how much money did that save I wonder)?
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
then complain to your local post office because i'm sure your street isn't the only one their screwing up so the more complaints they receive the fast they can get rid of the courier.
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heh, good luck with that. Have you been to the post office? Wait in line for 20 minutes, then describe your complaint to them and they give zero fucks, then yell at you like it is your fault that they lost/damaged your package. That's my experience anyway.
 
ChoGGi said:
It was wrapped in brown paper (not sure why people still do that for shipping packages).
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one reason I see people do this is so they can ship something in a USPS box but not pay the shipping associated with that box. So I can ship in a large flat rate box but pay the low-n-slow cost.
 
all the people recommending FedEx is comical to me. I would trust the package taped to the back of a dog making its way to the expected destination more than i would trust FedEx getting a package anywhere.

every area is different. In some areas FedEx is horrible (like where I am), in others UPS is horrible and in others USPS is horrible. There is no perfect choice for all places
 
Exavior said:
all the people recommending FedEx is comical to me. I would trust the package taped to the back of a dog making its way to the expected destination more than i would trust FedEx getting a package anywhere.

every area is different. In some areas FedEx is horrible (like where I am), in others UPS is horrible and in others USPS is horrible. There is no perfect choice for all places
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One of the issues I have with FexEx is if I understand correctly all of the drivers are sub-contracted. Some that I talked to really just don't like FedEx or have pride in their work due to being contracted and not an actual FedEx employee.
 
Yoshiyuki Blade said:
He already completed special chip emulation about 5-7 years ago with the help of someone who had the skills and knowledge to trick the hardware into giving up its program ROMs. I think the main purpose of the preservation project is independent verification with his own homemade hardware. During the preservation project for US games, most of the hash files matched existing dumps, but he found that a few games were fudged slightly to work with existing emulators. A minor thing, sure, but it really shows how far this guy goes to preserve things to the fullest extent possible.
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That's some dedication for sure. The same reason I guess I will pound my head against the wall for hours and days trying to get a server to work right. Some things that you care about keep you going through the hard times.

I would be interested in finding out what effects he will have on any of the games in the end. Especially if anything is changed enough to make a noticable difference in gameplay. Either way I would love to see a summary of the results of this stage in the backup and restoration process.

Nintendo should hire this guy. They are selling roms from emu paradise in their virtual store, and this guy is building his own hardware to meticulously ensure that every game has been transferred perfectly without even having the hardware and knowhow that Nintendo and their facilities could give him. Imagine what he could do then
 
Bigbacon said:
one reason I see people do this is so they can ship something in a USPS box but not pay the shipping associated with that box. So I can ship in a large flat rate box but pay the low-n-slow cost.
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Turn the box inside out.
 
bigdogchris said:
One of the issues I have with FexEx is if I understand correctly all of the drivers are sub-contracted. Some that I talked to really just don't like FedEx or have pride in their work due to being contracted and not an actual FedEx employee.
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Not all drivers, only drivers for ground.... which is what most people send and receive packages through so you might as well say all.

Which as you said leads to a lack of pride in their jobs. A majority of the drivers around here are good at not feeling like making the drive to an area so will just mark down that nobody is home so that they can hurry up and finish their deliveries for the day. I have had packages marked as unable to deliver for 3 days in a row. Funniest was when they did that for my work claiming that nobody was there to sign for packages. I called and complained during the second day of that as we were most definitely open and there. Some times it is much worse and they mark a package as delivered since they are at the last day of being able to say that the package is undeliverable without having the have it shipped back and will keep it on the truck to deliver still whenever they feel like it. Had that happen either to me or people I know a few times. I have also had them deliver to the completely wrong address many times. Instead of to my office they deliver them at times to a place in a different city that has the same street name and number, both cities start with the same letter but are about 45 minutes apart.

So yes that is a good part of it, being sub contracted you are going to be hit or miss if you find people that take pride or not in their job because it doesn't matter one way or the other.
 
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