MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Dumping PC games, apps, utilities, programming

I've got bookshelves and boxes full of original PC games / software ... and I've still got one old PC with a 3.5" FDD, a 5.25" FDD, a CD drive, and a USB 1.x slot (last I checked, it still worked ... hope it still does).

Looking to dump these old games, utilities, software for MAME ...

Before diving in, probably a good idea to see what has been dumped so far (game, utility, etc and versions) and see what is needed (or what I have that isn't already dumped).

Some questions:

Is there a wanted list for PC software / games ?
Is there a "already dumped" list for PC software / games ?
Anyone have a guide / information on the latest best practices / tools for dumping old floppy disks, cds ?
Also, assuming scanned images of manuals, boxes, instruction cards, disks, etc should be done as well: what resolution, bpp is required ?
What about software / utilities (got Xtree, Mace utilities, WinZIP, and many more) ? Are any of these wanted ?
What about programming languages ? Got Turbo Pascal v7, Delphi v1, v2, v3, v5, 2000, Code Warrior, and various others originals .... if manuals scans are needed, this is going to be a lot of work.
Also, probably going to get yelled at over this one, but what the hey .... What about "non-original" software (backed up, copied / pirated) ? It might not be in original condition, but is a dump of cracked software better than nothing at all ?

Some of the stuff had nasty copy protections ... even on CDs ... I remember Battlezone (1998) - https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/battlezone) had nasty protections, and I tried all sorts of things to get it working with a virtual CD image (so I could keep the original CD in the box).

I used to love stepping through the code in a debugger and removing the CD checks .... but that was a long time ago. And I'm assuming MAME want the code as it was on the disk - and not with CD/FDD checks / protections removed.

I'd like to do a couple of dumps / scans and then have someone check they are OK / up to par before diving in a doing more.

Of course, all of this is assuming my one remaining old PC still works .... if need be, I'll buy another on eBay. I used to have dozens of old PC's that could be used to dump them .... but that list was greatly diminished about 6-8+ years ago .... I gave away all of the computer hardware I had owned / collected - a Silicon Indigo workstation, Apple ][, Apple ][c, lots of old IBM PC XTs, ATs, etc - way back when I had my big health scare ....

Anyhow, if someone can let me know what's the latest, what's needed / not wanted, etc that that would be much appreciated.

Moose