01 / Establish authority
Prepare the reference.
Preservation DATs and supporting metadata establish the foundation for collection processing.
For the love of the collection.
Every collection
has a story.
Give yours order.
Built for the retro gaming community. CURATOR analyzes, validates, reconstructs, and organizes your emulation collection using trusted DAT-based preservation data.
01 / AVAILABLE NOWv2.5.0-beta.1Read the release notes →
02 / ON THE WORKBENCHFuture developmentRead the developer announcement →
03 / THE ARCHIVEEvery release. Preserved.Browse the release archive →
01
From source files to collection.
A deliberate workflow for collectors who care about what they keep—and knowing exactly what they have.
02 / Identify the files
Know what you have.
Match your source files against trusted metadata. Separate known, unknown, and unsupported material.
03 / Organize the library
Find its proper place.
Organize verified content into a structured, LaunchBox-ready collection.
04 / Keep the record
Trace every decision.
Review reports and audit evidence as your collection—and preservation data—evolves.
The guided tour
See CURATOR in motion.
02
Notes from the workbench.
Development journal / October 2026
A new chapter.
The same love of collecting.
CURATOR v2.5.0-beta.1 is now available. Read the developer announcement below for the direction ahead.
Read the release changelog →Developer Announcement
CURATOR v2.5.0-beta.1 is the most stable version to date.
I realized that the new direction is going to require a major breakdown of the code and a rebuild of a lot of the logic dealing with the database.
There will not be any forthcoming release any time soon. I apologize in advance for the wait.
Earlier journal entry · September 28, 2026 · Developer Announcement
Developer Announcement
With myOrganizer: CURATOR v2.0.0-beta6, we have reached the end of this branch.
While this is still a work in progress, I have validated many Atari and SEGA sets and the application does a fairly accurate job. There is still a lot of validation to do, but as this is a personal project, it should be more than obvious that I am working with what I personally want for my collection. Of course, I welcome anyone who wants to personalize the application for their own desires to do so, by simply starting their own branch and providing source acknowledgement to me.
This for me is a good enough release to hold anyone over for now. The next branch, v2.5.xx is going to be a major restructuring of the application in many ways. The ulimate end goal is a single application script rather than the multi-stage method I am using right now. Remember, I'm not a professional programmer. I have dabled and this is my very first foray into even using AI as a development tool. I broke the application into stages to help me manage the development in my own way. I am absolutely certain that there are very many amazing coders that can do a better job than me. I just want to learn, at my age (57) how AI will be a part of my reality in the workspace I am a part of (Cloud Management/IT). I have not taken any courses at all. I simply dived in. If you view my site, you can find links to other things I have done while working on this application. In the beginning I spent a great many hours learning to even get the AI to stay within constraints; heck, I had to learn about constraints the hard way! But, overall, this has been both a frustrating and a very enlightening experience. I highly recommend trying it!
That being said, this next phase is going to see very few and limited beta releases. I will more than likely break the application with my next approach and that will definitely teach me a lot of new lessons. And I love learning, so it is not a bad thing.
So, for now. Stay tuned. Hopefully not too much time will pass for the very first v2.5.x release.
Happy gaming!
03 / Beyond the utility
The Collection.
What if the ideas behind CURATOR became a show? Meet the characters and explore the storytelling through these early proof-of-concept videos.
Explore the YouTube channel ↗PROOF OF CONCEPT / TEASER
Welcome to The Collection
Start with the original show concept.
MOTION COMIC / TWO MINUTES
Hash & Beta: The File Mystery
A first glimpse of the story in motion.
Meet the cast · Six character proofs of concept
From Atari to today
A collector behind the code.
My computing story began in the Atari 8-bit era, when software and friendships traveled through modems and BBSes. That history helped shape CURATOR.
Meet Jiraiya1969 →Another project / A different universe
Citadel Omega — M.E.T.A. Force
An impossible signal. A fortress. The surviving record of a war that has yet to begin. A separate creative project co-created by Miguel A. Ortiz and Jorge I. Ortiz, with writing by Miguel A. Ortiz.
Enter the Citadel Omega archive ↗