19 Feb
2019
19 Feb
'19
7:01 p.m.
On Tue, 19 Feb 2019, Ali wrote:
For your 286 machine(s) wouldn't you like a combination of Compaticard,
CatFerret, and option board, to use instead of the existing FDC board?
If this were USB, then it could add floppy back onto some more "modern"
machines. If USB, with appropriate "modern" drivers, no reason why this
couldn't be used for MOST machines.
It could have. But Brown? (not sure whether I remember his name right)
correctly realized that he could make money doing Mac, but there wasn't
enough additional money with Apple2 to even necessarily reimburse him to
hire those programmers.
Exactly. But, I want
to make it clear that there is nothing SPECIAL about
Compaticard; it's simply one of the best, but not unique.
That would make for a very powerful tool but as you
pointed out yourself
how many users would learn to use it? Unless it is a simple driver that
gets loaded and the user has to simply put in a couple of generic
parameters, e.g. "device=c:\drives\emudsk.sys APPLE", and it is up and
running most users won't be able to make use of it.
By the time that I got out (for other reasons), XenoCopy had not been
profitable for a while. THAT handled files, but the user still had to
deal in other ways with modifications that they needed to the content of
the files. Sure, a Wordstar file could be made into a generic text file
by stripping the high bit. But converting WordPervert format codes into
Weird format codes would have required another career.
My preference
would be REAL MODE (DOS).
As would mine but would a 286 be able to do it? And if
you have a
machine that runs real mode DOS why not make use of the HW that is
there? Match Point
could be implemented in software on the Central Point
board.
Great. Then if the DOB HW is duplicated then that part can be SW
and no need to have Match Point HW duplicated. I am surprised the Copy
II PC DOB card did not handle Apple II disks along with Mac
disks. CompatiCard
was just an ordinary FDC, without the crippling corners
cut.
True, but if you are building the ultimate FDC then you don't want
crippling corners cut. So something functionally equivalent. > SO, you are asking for FDC plus flux transition,
but better
> integrated, rather than flux transition hardware interrupting the
> drive cable.
By the time DOB came out, 286 normally had FDC combined with HDD, so my
suggestion to integrate FDC with OB wasn't applicable.
Yes! All on one card. Throw in FDADAP functionality to
properly write 8"
disks and you have a controller that handles most if not all IBM, Apple
II, and Mac disks.
FDADAP is a cabling adapter, plus generating the TG43 signal,
which would
be trivial to do with a conventional FDC. For READING (I hardly never
WROTE), I cabled my 8 inch drives to 34 pin.
As I understand it, in my limited way, having both FM
and MFM should allow for many CP/M formats including SD.
Yes. FM adds 8" SSSD "Standard", TRS80 model 1 (although still problems
writing some address marks), and a handful of others.
Will some formats be left out? Sure.
GCR, hard sector, etc.
My (and I think Chuck's) favorite example for weird is Sirius/Victor 9000.
(80 track GCR, although with its own versions of CP/M-86 and MS-DOS!)
Will it be as powerful as a Kyro
Flux for archiving? Heck no.
But will it let me pop in my original 123
disk and copy it for use with out too much hassle and
work? Of
course.?
There are a few exceptions, such as Pro-lock.Well then
you had
the ENHANCED Deluxe Board. :)
Not necessarily. MANY versions of Pro-lock used the
same identical check
code, so one "crack" beat a lot of them. But some of the better ones
rewrote their own subroutine.
Pro-Lock relied on a physical defect on the disk. Both in terms of
getting an read error trying to read that track, but sometimes even
confirming that WRITING to that track also failed.
They called it a "laser fingerprint", because "a sweatshop where they
scratch disks with a paperclip" doesn't sound as impressive.
Similarly, my Prius has a "LASER CUT key". Yeah. Right. The one that I'm
using right now was cut with a tiny side-mill bit and a pantograph.
> But, in quite a few cases, people have
disassembled (now illegal under
> >DMCA!), found the vulnerabilities and
>simply disabled the copy protection.?
Yes but that is harder and harder to find. They were
never public but
each city had multiple BBSes offering such altered programs. And of
course the other problems w/ this method is you are confined to the one
altered version?? (even if you own a later version). Also there is no
guarantee the alterations will not cause a bug that will crop up later
due to a lack of total testing.
I removed the copy-protection from my [legitimate] copy of 123. So that I
could install it onto machines with different drives.
Sorry, I don't remember where the patch is.
But, is it really that hard to find the patches for the major programs?
I don't doubt your statement; I'm just surprised.
In the mid 1980s, when I had a publisher, they copy protected Xeno-Copy!
It used to be, that if I Googled XenoCopy, many of the hits were for a
patch to remove the copy protection from those early versions. Still are!
I set up my publication of XenoCopy to be unprotected once it was
"installed" (putting user name on title page. Prior to the name going on,
I used a ridiculously simple protection to protect from copying of
unpersonalized copies (just using an inconvenient "feature" of MS-DOS)
Even XenoCopy would freely copy those disks! But DISKCOPY wouldn't.
Although I never had reason to EVER use it, I designed a trivial copy
protection that was copyable to a usable copy with DISKCOPY, but the
original disk could not be read by the Option Board (It relied too much on
index pulse). Once Option Board was stopped, it could have had something
else added to make it inconvenient to copy.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com