1 Nov
2021
1 Nov
'21
2:05 p.m.
I've recently picked up a new Applesauce floppy disk controller and have been playing
with attaching various different drive types and imaging different Apple II, Atari, TI and
other floppy disks with it. So far I've mostly imaged unprotected disks and run them
in various emulators just fine. I've since added a sync sensor to one of my older Disk
II drives and started to make some flux images of protected disks. These too seem to run
fine in the emulators I've tried. The documentation on the device is limited at the
moment, particularly the software, and while it is slowly being updated I was wondering if
anyone else here had any experience with the setup. Any hints, suggestions, best
practices, "do this to get the best copy", etc, to pass along would be
appreciated. For example I read you can try to recover borderline disks by having it do
multiple passes of the bad sectors. I see how this is done on the Fast Image option and
has helped a couple of times but don't see any way to do
something similar via the Flux Image option. Does it not work/matter with those? Also I
see sometimes it reports a file as bad if I do one image type but if I do the other it
comes back as okay. So I tend to play with both when I can. There is a lot of options and
functions in the Flux Image option that I just really don't know how it works or what
to do with it so far that any info would be great. I know it can image non-Apple II disks
as well and I've done a few. It works great on Apple II protected disks but wonder how
to deal with protected disks from other systems? Or is that more an issue of other
emulators and such not having something like the .woz format being used with the Apple II?
I bought this for my Apple II collection and it was a nice surprise to learn it could work
with other systems too, just looking for more info about them as well. So far I really
love the device and it has been worth the long wait for new units to come back into
production again. Especially as it
is a new design that allows for attaching PC floppy drives now as well. I've noticed
the doc on the site being updated, just hope that they can find time to update more,
particularly in regards to the client software. Best, David Williams www.trailingedge.com
(http://www.trailingedge.com)
1 Nov
1 Nov
2:35 p.m.
There's a new Discord server that John started up for discussion and Q&A about the
device and software, that might be the best place for quick answers. The Discord invite
is:
https://discord.gg/YrQKdwNhdR
(The link is also available in the upper right corner of https://applesaucefdc.com )
There is a Slack channel in the apple2infinitum workspace where a lot of the same sort of
discussion had been taking place before, but now that there are more platforms
represented, John's expanded out to Discord as well so it's not embedded in an
Apple-II-centered Slack workspace.
As far as I know, you are are correct that there is no way to re-read only tracks that
return non-green from the flux imager. I'm not sure if that's on the list of
things to do or whether there might be a conceptual reason why that's not included in
the flux imager. I think it reads a bunch of revolutions while it is sitting on the
track, but one aspect of the "retry" feature of the fast disk imager that is
nice is that you can take the disk out, clean the head and/or the media, and then put it
back in and retry just the failing spots -- the several reads that the flux imager does
are all on the same "visit" and don't let you leave, clean, and then return.
It seems to me like that would be a nice feature to have in the flux imager too -- but
unless it is very well hidden, I do not think it's there.
My understanding of the situation with protected disks from non-Apple-II platforms is that
there haven't been a lot of people to test these out yet, so it's in its early
stages but the more people try things and report what works and doesn't, the better
it'll get. The software is under very active development, with new builds coming out
sometimes daily. It's fairly mature now for Apple II disks, a lot of people have been
using it a lot, but the other platform support (and PC drive connection) is quite new.
-Paul
On Nov 1, 2021, at 5:05 PM, David Williams via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I've recently picked up a new Applesauce floppy disk controller and have been playing
with attaching various different drive types and imaging different Apple II, Atari, TI and
other floppy disks with it. So far I've mostly imaged unprotected disks and run them
in various emulators just fine. I've since added a sync sensor to one of my older Disk
II drives and started to make some flux images of protected disks. These too seem to run
fine in the emulators I've tried. The documentation on the device is limited at the
moment, particularly the software, and while it is slowly being updated I was wondering if
anyone else here had any experience with the setup. Any hints, suggestions, best
practices, "do this to get the best copy", etc, to pass along would be
appreciated. For example I read you can try to recover borderline disks by having it do
multiple passes of the bad sectors. I see how this is done on the Fast Image option and
has helped a couple of times but don't see any way to do
something similar via the Flux Image option. Does it not work/matter with those? Also I
see sometimes it reports a file as bad if I do one image type but if I do the other it
comes back as okay. So I tend to play with both when I can. There is a lot of options and
functions in the Flux Image option that I just really don't know how it works or what
to do with it so far that any info would be great. I know it can image non-Apple II disks
as well and I've done a few. It works great on Apple II protected disks but wonder how
to deal with protected disks from other systems? Or is that more an issue of other
emulators and such not having something like the .woz format being used with the Apple II?
I bought this for my Apple II collection and it was a nice surprise to learn it could work
with other systems too, just looking for more info about them as well. So far I really
love the device and it has been worth the long wait for new units to come back into
production again. Especially as it
is a new design that allows for attaching PC floppy drives now as well. I've noticed
the doc on the site being updated, just hope that they can find time to update more,
particularly in regards to the client software. Best, David Williams www.trailingedge.com
(http://www.trailingedge.com)
3:13 p.m.
On 2021-11-01 16:35, Hagstrom, Paul <hagstrom at bu.edu> wrote: > >
There's a new Discord server that John started up for discussion and Q&A about the
device and software, that might be the best place for quick answers The Discord invite is:
> > https://discord.gg/YrQKdwNhdR > > (The link is also available in the upper
right corner of https://applesaucefdc.com ) Ah never checked in the Contact section of the
site so didn't see the discord. Guess it is time to learn about this new fangled
discord thingy, seems like a new version of IRC... :) > > > As far as I know, you
are are correct that there is no way to re-read only tracks that return non-green from the
flux imager. I'm not sure if that's on the list of things to do or whether there
might be a conceptual reason why that's not included in the flux imager. I think it
reads a bunch of revolutions while it is sitting on the track, but one aspect of the
"retry" feature of the fast disk imager that is nice is that you can take the
disk ou
t, clean the head and/or the media, and then put it back in and retry just the failing
spots -- the several reads that the flux imager does are all on the same "visit"
and don't let you leave, clean, and then return. It seems to me like that would be a
nice feature to have in the flux imager too -- but unless it is very well hidden, I do not
think it's there. Yeah I've found a few times where even just opening the drive
door, re-inserting the disk and having it try just the bad sectors again made a
difference. That is something I really liked and was looking for in the flux image
settings. Then there are all the various options in the disk analyzer that I'm at a
loss to see how to really use and have so far just ignored with no issues. > > >
My understanding of the situation with protected disks from non-Apple-II platforms is that
there haven't been a lot of people to test these out yet, so it's in its early
stages but the more people try things and report what works and doesn't, the
better it'll get. The software is under very active development, with new builds
coming out sometimes daily. It's fairly mature now for Apple II disks, a lot of people
have been using it a lot, but the other platform support (and PC drive connection) is
quite new. Well the non-Apple II platform support was a surprise bonus for me when I
received mine as I was mostly looking to deal with my Apple II collection. But I do have a
lot of Atari disks as well as other platforms listed as working with the device so am now
very interested in those. I've imaged a few others but not sure what is really
protected and what isn't there. Most have worked just fine but a couple have had
issues which I assumed is due to copy protection but I've just been using the fast
image option as I didn't yet have a drive that could flux the 40 tracks of the Atari
disks. Especially when the backs of some of the discs were used. Maybe if I could tell it
to only flux one side of the disk instead of trying both as
I am using a PC drive at the moment to image the Atari discs and those don't do
flippy disks very well. Best, David Williams www.trailingedge.com
2 Nov
2 Nov
12:13 p.m.
The trickiest protection I've seen is where there is a hole punched through the disk
on one track. The idea is that the protected program writes to that track and expects to
see a failure to read that track.
Dwight
12:58 p.m.
On 11/2/21 12:13 PM, dwight via cctalk wrote:
The trickiest protection I've seen is where there
is a hole punched
through the disk on one track. The idea is that the protected program
writes to that track and expects to see a failure to read that
track.
There were more floppy protection schemes than you could shake a stick at:
https://diskpreservation.com/dp.php?pg=protection
The Apple II ones were interestingly devious, particularly the "spiral
track" one.
At any rate, lots of stories there, both in creation and defeating.
--Chuck
1:35 p.m.
New subject: The Prolok Saga (Was: Applesauce FDC
On Tue, 2 Nov 2021, dwight via cctalk wrote:
The trickiest protection I've seen is where there
is a hole punched
through the disk on one track. The idea is that the protected program
writes to that track and expects to see a failure to read that track.
It
doesn'tneed to be a hole all the way through, merely any physical
defect that renders that spot unusable.
The "Physical Defect" protection.
Copy protected disks had already been made with flawed content to produce
an error on READ, and were easily circumvented by the "duplicate" copy
having flawed content. The next step was to have a physical defect, so
that the protection software would WRITE to the bad track, and confirm
that the track really was damaged.
So, they would scratch the disk.
In the case of Prolok, the check to confirm a physical defect consisted of
writing all zeroes to that area; verifying all zeroes; writing all ones;
and verifying all ones.
Vault Corporation produced "Prolok" with a physical defect. To make it
MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE to investors and clients, instead of a roomful of
people scratching disks with paperclips, they used a "laser fingerprint"
(use a laser, instead of a paperclip).
Since they gave the same or similar subroutines, that checked for the
defect, to every client, it was cracked with software that would locate
that subroutine, and replace the subroutine call with NOPs or gut the
innards of the subroutine. The cracks were often posted on Compuserve.
(Vault sued Quaid software for "CopyWrite"/"RAMKEY")
https://casetext.com/case/vault-corp-v-quaid-software-ltd )
For "cloning" (pirating copies, often with the Central Point Option
board (flux hardware)), software was developed that would
identify the location of the defect, the cloner would then attempt to
scratch the disk at that location, and then the software would locate the
defect and juggle stuff around to put the content in the right place(s)
relative to the defect.
But, Vault Corporation wasn't satisfied until they shot themselves in the
foot with very high caliber rounds.
They announced "Prlok PLUS". W. Krag Brotby (chairman of Vault) said that
it would, if it detected a "fake" copy, wipe out the user's hard disk!
Even at the announcement of Prolok PLUS, the computer marketing
community was aghast and enraged. It doesn't take much to realize the PR
nightmare, and the legal liabilities for damaging a customer computer,
even if it was NOT a false positive!
Ashton-Tate, the largest Prolok client for dBase III, and part
owner of Vault, immediately cancelled their contracts. And announced
that they had done so, that they had never used Prolok Plus, never would,
and no longer used Vault Corporation products.
Almost all of Vault's other clients follwed suit.
Prolok Plus never made it to market!
'Course the "word was out". Few people realize that it was NEVER
actually put to use. In fact some of the more idiotic newspaper "solve
your computer problems" columnists, when stumped, would actually speculate
"maybe your computer was attacked by an out of control copy-protection
program."
So, we ended up with a mythical monster, and the creator of that mythical
monster was vanquished.
If anybody can document an actual existence of Prolok Plus, I would like
to hear about it.
There is little mention of it on the web, but:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/08/06/09/1927205/a-history-of-copy-protecti…
"Re:Ahhh, holes burned in disks (Score:5, Informative)"
https://books.google.com/books?id=9y4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&…
https://www.pcjs.org/blog/2019/05/05/
Kryoflux display of Prolok
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred
4:11 p.m.
New subject: The Prolok Saga (Was: Applesauce FDC
Vault Corporation produced "Prolok" with a
physical defect. To make it
MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE to investors and clients, instead of a roomful of
people scratching disks with paperclips, they used a "laser
fingerprint"
(use a laser, instead of a paperclip).
Which could be defeated w/ the Copy II Plus Enhanced Option board:
http://retro.icequake.net/dob/img/eob/
This board had a small bit of onboard RAM that would load info about the
defect:
"EOB has an extra circuitry that allows it to emulate a burn-hole in a
diskette and cause a running application to think that the original
diskette is present inside the drive. As it can be understood, the copy
of a burn-hole protected diskette can only be executed on a computer
equipped with the standard or deluxe EOB.
In order to create a working copy of a diskette that is protected by a
physically damaged media, the diskette has to be copied using the regular
option board methods (TC/TCM), and then the EOB utility PK.COM must be
executed in order to analyze the original diskette and locate the exact
place of the burn-hole. Once the place has been found, PK saves the data
in a file for future use.
Every time before the copied diskette is used, the PK application must be
executed with the filename that contains the information as a parameter.
Then, PK will program the EPROM that is present on the EOB, according to
the information inside that file.
Whenever the copy protected application tests for the original diskette
and tries to read from (or write to) the physically damaged sector, the
EOB emulates the very exact behavior of a physically damaged media at the
exact place where the burn-hole was, thus confusing the application to think
that the original diskette is present inside the drive."
5:17 p.m.
New subject: The Prolok Saga (Was: Applesauce FDC
> Vault Corporation produced "Prolok" with
a physical defect. To make it
On Tue, 2 Nov 2021, Ali wrote:
Which could be defeated w/ the Copy II Plus Enhanced
Option board:
http://retro.icequake.net/dob/img/eob/
There were many ways around it.
Because Vault didn't write a new software package for each client, it was
fairly easy, after some [not always easy] disassembly to make a patch that
cracked it. Those patches were widely distributed, and the end user only
knew that it was a small patch.
I find it important to note that the Vault VS Quaid lawsuit was before
DMCA. Afterwards, Vault might have prevailed! At the time, disassembly
and bypassing copy-protection was not illegaal.
But, Vault tried to claim that Quaid's software infringed on Vault's
copyright! The courts ruled that Quaid's software was in no way a copy of
Vault's. There was no sftware by Vault included inside the Quaid
software.
The announcement of Prolok-PLUS was insane, and destroyed Vault.
There were many other protection schemes.
Early on, I noticed that the software with the Central Point Option
Board could not work if it didn't see the index hole. As a proof of
concept, I showed that one could write a disk disk without an index hole
(indexing on spindle, or covering the hole (moving cookie to a flipped
jacket)) that couldn't be copied by the Option Board, but could be copied
by DISKCOPY.
4 Jan
4 Jan
2:47 a.m.
New subject: The Prolok Saga (Was: Applesauce FDC
Fred, a completely unrelated piece of information, but interesting
nonetheless:
Elnec device programmers are very famous for the number of devices it
programs and its robustness. Also for their clones. If you open a cloned
beeprog you cannot differ it from an original beeprog.
I still haven't completely reverse engineered the protection, but it seems
to be related to the serial number. If any host software beyond 2.63
detects a "fake programmer" it BRICKS the cloned prigrammer. Yes, rends it
useless. You gotta reprogram a pair of eeproms and a pic to make it work
back again.
You told about the prolok plus erasing hds and I remembered of this atitude
from elnec. And no, I know of no one that sued elnec
for bricking their
clone programmer.
So bad. They are great programmers, I have an old beeprog.
73 de pu2sex Alexandre
Enviado do meu Tele-Movel
Em ter, 2 de nov de 2021 17:35, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
escreveu:
On Tue, 2 Nov 2021, dwight via cctalk wrote:
The trickiest protection I've seen is where
there is a hole punched
through the disk on one track. The idea is that the protected program
writes to that track and expects to see a failure to read that track.
It
doesn'tneed to be a hole all the way through, merely any physical
defect that renders that spot unusable.
The "Physical Defect" protection.
Copy protected disks had already been made with flawed content to produce
an error on READ, and were easily circumvented by the "duplicate" copy
having flawed content. The next step was to have a physical defect, so
that the protection software would WRITE to the bad track, and confirm
that the track really was damaged.
So, they would scratch the disk.
In the case of Prolok, the check to confirm a physical defect consisted of
writing all zeroes to that area; verifying all zeroes; writing all ones;
and verifying all ones.
Vault Corporation produced "Prolok" with a physical defect. To make it
MUCH MORE IMPRESSIVE to investors and clients, instead of a roomful of
people scratching disks with paperclips, they used a "laser fingerprint"
(use a laser, instead of a paperclip).
Since they gave the same or similar subroutines, that checked for the
defect, to every client, it was cracked with software that would locate
that subroutine, and replace the subroutine call with NOPs or gut the
innards of the subroutine. The cracks were often posted on Compuserve.
(Vault sued Quaid software for "CopyWrite"/"RAMKEY")
https://casetext.com/case/vault-corp-v-quaid-software-ltd )
For "cloning" (pirating copies, often with the Central Point Option
board (flux hardware)), software was developed that would
identify the location of the defect, the cloner would then attempt to
scratch the disk at that location, and then the software would locate the
defect and juggle stuff around to put the content in the right place(s)
relative to the defect.
But, Vault Corporation wasn't satisfied until they shot themselves in the
foot with very high caliber rounds.
They announced "Prlok PLUS". W. Krag Brotby (chairman of Vault) said that
it would, if it detected a "fake" copy, wipe out the user's hard disk!
Even at the announcement of Prolok PLUS, the computer marketing
community was aghast and enraged. It doesn't take much to realize the PR
nightmare, and the legal liabilities for damaging a customer computer,
even if it was NOT a false positive!
Ashton-Tate, the largest Prolok client for dBase III, and part
owner of Vault, immediately cancelled their contracts. And announced
that they had done so, that they had never used Prolok Plus, never would,
and no longer used Vault Corporation products.
Almost all of Vault's other clients follwed suit.
Prolok Plus never made it to market!
'Course the "word was out". Few people realize that it was NEVER
actually put to use. In fact some of the more idiotic newspaper "solve
your computer problems" columnists, when stumped, would actually speculate
"maybe your computer was attacked by an out of control copy-protection
program."
So, we ended up with a mythical monster, and the creator of that mythical
monster was vanquished.
If anybody can document an actual existence of Prolok Plus, I would like
to hear about it.
There is little mention of it on the web, but:
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/08/06/09/1927205/a-history-of-copy-protecti…
"Re:Ahhh, holes burned in disks (Score:5, Informative)"
https://books.google.com/books?id=9y4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&…
https://www.pcjs.org/blog/2019/05/05/
Kryoflux display of Prolok
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred
843
days inactive
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days old
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