+Allan Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Some time late last year ballyalley and I decided to make a big purchase of over 40 original APX titles in order to scan the manuals and make ATRs of all the disks. Some of the disks had already been dumped but the manuals were missing. As of the past week all the manuals have been scanned and posted on Atarimania.com and some of the ATRs have been posted. There are some that are copy-protected and will need to be cracked before posting. APA252 AMANSARRANAS APA094 KEYBOARD ORGAN APA182 MAGIC MELODY BOX APA172 MUSIC II RHYTHM & PITCH APA181 MUSIC PLAYER APA098 MUSICAL COMPUTER /TUTOR APA229 MUSICAL PILOT APA216 PIANO TUNER APA062 PLAYER PIANO APA077 REVERSI II APA112 DISKETTE MAILING LIST APA217 STRATEGIC FIN RATIO ANAL APA138 METRIC & PROBLEM SOLVING APA261 NUMBERLAND NIGHT WATCH APA163 PREFIXES-8 APA230 PUZZLER APX APA133 THREE R MATH SYSTEM APA203 THREE R MATH CLASSROOM APA208 THREE R MATH HOME SYSTEM APA213 VIDEO KALEIDOSCOPE APA099 WORDMAKER APA185 FOG INDEX APA192 TYPIT APA026 EXTENDED WSFN APA231 MATHLIB FOR DEEP BLUE C APA222 COLOR ALIGNMENT GENERATOR APA109 SPEED-O-DISK APA067 T: A TEXT DISPLAY DEVICE APA065 DSEMBLER APA114 RECIPE SEARCH'N SAVE APA013 NEWSPAPER ROUTE MANAGEMEMT APA105 RPN CALCULATOR SIMULATOR APA186 PUSHKY APA128 FAMILY VEHICLE EXPENSE APA199 HEX-A-BUG APA027 COMEDY DISKETTE APA076 WORD PROCESSING DISK APA058 CHAMELEON TERMNL EMULATOR APX APA136 ELEMENTARY BIOLOGY APA044 DECISION MAKER You can find them here: http://www.atarimania.com/list_utilities_atari-400-800-xl-xe-apx_publisher_1087_8_U.html and here: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-prefixes_25613.html We'd like to complete archiving the whole APX software line. If anybody has any ATRs, CAS, disks, cassettes, or manuals, please contact one of us. Allan 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Jefferson Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Why not VAPI or PRO images of the those? They can always be cracked later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F#READY Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Better to use Kryoflux or Supercard Pro to preserve those disks IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Ok, I'll say it. Thanks for this! It's very good stuff. I know it takes a lot of work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted January 5, 2015 Author Share Posted January 5, 2015 How do make Kryoflux, Supercard Pro, VAPI or Pro images? I only have an SIO2SD device with a regular 1050. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Who manages Atarimania? I posted there a long time back about the Defender binary not being a clean dump. It's been hacked to run in RAM and has a bug as a result of it. 8 humans instead of 10. I also posted a note in the comments section for Defender but it was deleted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted January 5, 2015 Author Share Posted January 5, 2015 Who manages Atarimania? I posted there a long time back about the Defender binary not being a clean dump. It's been hacked to run in RAM and has a bug as a result of it. 8 humans instead of 10. I also posted a note in the comments section for Defender but it was deleted. Well I've been mostly updating the 8-bit section for the past year or so. A guy Franck from the Neatherlands (I think) runs it. I don't think he posts here much. Sometimes Frank will do some editing. If there is something 8-bit related that you see that needs fixing PM me and I'll see if I can fix it. I'll look into the Defender issue. I just downloaded the rom and the one there has ten humans so I am assuming someone had replaced it with a correct rom. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Thats good to hear. I havnt checked in a while. last time it was still the bad dump. thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bcombee Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 Wow, I didn't realize that APX had used copy protection for some of their releases. Having read once that APX discs were all written from 810 drives on Atari 800s, I figured they'd just be stock DOS 2.0S-formatted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted January 5, 2015 Author Share Posted January 5, 2015 Wow, I didn't realize that APX had used copy protection for some of their releases. Having read once that APX discs were all written from 810 drives on Atari 800s, I figured they'd just be stock DOS 2.0S-formatted. Most are formatted with 2.0s but then are somehow copy-protected. It may not be really complex copy-protection but my knowledge of copy-protection is pretty limited. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 The earliest forms of copy protection on the Atari with DOS disks involved either bad sector reads, or masking off sectors in the VTOC as not used, after writing the files to the disk. This had the effect of being able to read the programs on the disk (because sector linkages would be correct), but when you used for example 'J' to duplicate the disk, it would miss sectors, and therefore the resulting program wouldn't run (usually you'd get an error 164, or similar). This prompted David Young (later of Omnimon fame) to modify a version of DOS 2.0, to blindly copy all of the sectors on the disk. (the SUPERDUP feature). -Thom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted January 5, 2015 Author Share Posted January 5, 2015 The earliest forms of copy protection on the Atari with DOS disks involved either bad sector reads, or masking off sectors in the VTOC as not used, after writing the files to the disk. This had the effect of being able to read the programs on the disk (because sector linkages would be correct), but when you used for example 'J' to duplicate the disk, it would miss sectors, and therefore the resulting program wouldn't run (usually you'd get an error 164, or similar). This prompted David Young (later of Omnimon fame) to modify a version of DOS 2.0, to blindly copy all of the sectors on the disk. (the SUPERDUP feature). -Thom Is there a copy of this out there? Maybe I could try it to see if I could copy some of them. When I tried to copy some of the disks, the number of files in the copied version would take up less sectors than the original disk. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted January 5, 2015 Share Posted January 5, 2015 A copy exists in the Holmes archive: http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/holmes%20cd/Holmes%201/ATR%20Programs/Disk%20Operating%20Systems/Dos%202.0%20[David%20Young].atr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Isn't SuperDup just a sector copier? (Tied into the dos menu.) So any sector copier should work just fine on those. I never ran into any significant copy protection on APX titles until Antic started releasing them. But that's been a long time ago. Some nice titles there! Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 I just tried it with one and it worked. the second disk I tried did not so that means they used more than one copy-protection. I'm going to try some more tonight. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Jefferson Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 How do make Kryoflux, Supercard Pro, VAPI or Pro images? I only have an SIO2SD device with a regular 1050. Allan I don't think you can in that case... VAPI requires a Happy drive, but I think PRO works on a stock 1050 (but PRO is a proprietary design and not well supported in emulators) Those other things Kryoflux and Supercard Pro require specific hardware that most people don't have (I guess they would be the "ultimate" in disk preservation.) Posting just the ATR will probably quickly get them cracked anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Thats good to hear. I havnt checked in a while. last time it was still the bad dump. thanks. The defender I loaded was a xex file and it goes to the title screen and plays a weird sound. Pressing start makes the sound again. Could never play it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 The defender I loaded was a xex file and it goes to the title screen and plays a weird sound. Pressing start makes the sound again. Could never play it. I just downloaded the rom right now. It definately is a cart image and not an xex image. Atari Frog fixed it on March 23, 2013. How's that for details. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farb Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Very nice! Thanks for all your hard work on it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 Thanks to tschak909's tip I was able to copy a few more disks. The remaining ones I couldn't copy were the MECC educational disks, fun-forth (which might be because of the word forth disk format), and Jukebox #1. The MECC disks don't give me any file listing when I try to list the files on the real disk. I posted the ones I did copy tonight. Most of them were already on Atarimania but in CAS or XEX forms so no big deal but there was a one or two new ones. I have 6 more disks to try to copy tomorrow. Allan I don't think you can in that case... VAPI requires a Happy drive, but I think PRO works on a stock 1050 (but PRO is a proprietary design and not well supported in emulators) Those other things Kryoflux and Supercard Pro require specific hardware that most people don't have (I guess they would be the "ultimate" in disk preservation.) Posting just the ATR will probably quickly get them cracked anyway. Thanks for the info. Besides the actual data I don't what else you would want to archive. The copy-protection? I'll probably send the last few off to someone with a Happy drive to copy them. Question: Can you copy a physical disk with copy-protection with a happy drive and make a disk image for emulators, or can you only copy them to another physical disk? Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Happy Drive owners could make PRO images with APE, as far as I remember Happy did not do all the protection systems but enough to make it very handy.. And a little trivia for new folks, the Happy drive was created by Scott Adams brother, (Scott) him of all those wonderful adventures from Adventure international.. Rumour has it that Atari brought out Mr Happy when he produced a version for the ST computers but he or Scott would never confirm that.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shawn Jefferson Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) Thanks to tschak909's tip I was able to copy a few more disks. The remaining ones I couldn't copy were the MECC educational disks, fun-forth (which might be because of the word forth disk format), and Jukebox #1. The MECC disks don't give me any file listing when I try to list the files on the real disk. I posted the ones I did copy tonight. Most of them were already on Atarimania but in CAS or XEX forms so no big deal but there was a one or two new ones. I have 6 more disks to try to copy tomorrow. Allan Thanks for the info. Besides the actual data I don't what else you would want to archive. The copy-protection? I'll probably send the last few off to someone with a Happy drive to copy them. Question: Can you copy a physical disk with copy-protection with a happy drive and make a disk image for emulators, or can you only copy them to another physical disk? Allan I can't speak for others, but think the idea is that a cracked piece of software is not the "original"-it's been modified in some form, and it may not behave like the original. At least the VAPI format can be created with a SIO21050 cable and a Happy drive, and this produces an "ATX" file, that can be read by APE (with an add on DLL), and by Altirra, at the very least. It's my understanding that the VAPI format stores the copy protection and allows APE/an emulator to "emulate" the protection for the software-essentially what the disk drive is signaling to the computer. VAPI is not a method to make physical copies, only to "rip" disks with copy protection. The Kryoflux method records the actual flux changes on the disk itself in a special format that is independent of what the disk drive may signal to the computer (my understanding of it anyway). I doubt these APX titles are very complicated copy protection-wise though, at the most maybe a bad sector. It's also possible that the disks have actually deteriorated and are actually bad and not copy protected at all too. A straight sector copy of the disk (I always used copymate4.4) would probably give an ATR that can be booted in an emulator and quickly cracked by most people here in short order if the disk has copy protection. Edited January 6, 2015 by Shawn Jefferson 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 I can't speak for others, but think the idea is that a cracked piece of software is not the "original"-it's been modified in some form, and it may not behave like the original. Often, cracked software has its loading screen picture removed. Conversely, the ones who've done the cracking may add a loading screen with their name or other meaningless garbage on it, or they may alter the existing loading screen or program selection screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kr0tki Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 This one statement made me worry: There are some that are copy-protected and will need to be cracked before posting. From the very beginning, the goal of Atarimania was to preserve software in its original form; that means that copy-protected disks should be imaged together with the copy protection, in the form of a VAPI image. Allan, I hope that your statement didn't mean that Atarimania is shifting away from that original goal. Also, big thanks for your work with Atarimania - the increased activity in the 8-bit section is very much appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 This one statement made me worry: From the very beginning, the goal of Atarimania was to preserve software in its original form; that means that copy-protected disks should be imaged together with the copy protection, in the form of a VAPI image. Allan, I hope that your statement didn't mean that Atarimania is shifting away from that original goal. Also, big thanks for your work with Atarimania - the increased activity in the 8-bit section is very much appreciated. Right now I'm the only person really working on the 8-bit section. My goal is to make it easier for people to use the hard-to-find 8-bit software. I don't know a lot about these different preservation forms. The thing is I don't have any way to make these images with all the copy-protection in them. I don't really see the point but like I said I can't re-create them anyways. I'm just trying to make this stuff available to people to use. And that includes having manuals for them. Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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