Lost Package Derails Project To Preserve Super Nintendo Games (eurogamer.net)

A developer's quest to preserve (and validate) every game ROM for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System has hit a glitch -- thanks to the U.S. postal service. Byuu, the creator of the Higan SNES emulator, had been expecting a package with 100 games from the PAL region (covering most of Europe, Africa, South America, and Oceania). wertigon writes: As it turns out, someone at the USPS thought it was a good idea to lose the package, thereby robbing the project of roughly $5000 and the sad hopes of ever seeing a full indexing, like the one done to the U.S set. Byuu writes... "I do still want to dump and scan the Japanese games I already purchased. But we will never have a complete PAL set. Kotaku reports the games were worth up to £8,000, and though Byuu says the sender never requested reimbursement, it's going to happen "because I can't live with myself if it doesn't." He's asking for donations on Patreon, adding "If the package ultimately arrives, I will be refunding all donations." In that Thursday update, Byuu writes that the post office had finally shipped him the label from the package "and nothing else, claiming the machine ate it." They've launched an investigation, reports Byuu, adding "It's still an incredibly long shot that they'll find anything, but we'll see. I really, really hope that they do."

Comments

Our machines do that sometimes, unfortunately.

[Sqreater]

I'm not saying it happened here, but many people do not understand that you have to put things in appropriate packaging for the machines to process. It saddens me every work day to see what is thrown out of the machines without the packaging it came with. No address, no delivery. Only paper goes in envelopes for example. Not hard items. Not keys. Not pens. Not coins. Not makeup you want your friend to try. Not anything but paper. And that is because it has to go around hundreds of steel rollers, held between high speed belts for sorting. If you have a hard item, put it in a flat bubble-wrap protected envelope for protection and processing through the Automated Package Processing System machines, or, better, in a well-taped box with an address written on the box. And NOT a tiny box. Heck, if you have ANYTHING that is very important, put it in a flat or a box and make it bigger than the item by far. And let me say that only a very tiny percentage of the 156 Billion pieces of mail the USPS processes every year is damaged, destroyed or lost. And most all of that is due to improper packaging of items. Think before you send because people don't route mail anymore, multi million dollar machines do, and at high speed and accuracy.