CSS "The Impossible"

[ricortes]

Perhaps I'm wrong but it went just a pinch beyond just supplying stuff to defeat copy protection. I'm not trying to say he was dishonest in any way, shape, or form, just that some things like manners are free. Anyone that wants to, correct me on this particular point, but has Bob ever complimented anybody? This is one of the reasons why I used the Nick Burns meme. I can't recall Bob ever saying [sorry, great programmer, good engineer] or generally giving anyone acknowledgement for talent and contributions. A so so example would be his dual drive XF551. To me it is apparent he lifted Bob Wooley's mods and just added a couple more. I just don't recall him ever ACK'ing Wooley in public. On the other hand, I think it was Creative or Innovative concepts that marketed the Wooley mod and quite literally fell all over themselves with praise for him.

 

 

There's a couple of other things that stuck me as odd at the time. For instance the dual drive mod he did was supposed to correct a flaw/bug in the XF551. I flat out asked him if he would elaborate on the bug and was greeted with silence. Understand that I would have settled for no fix, but a work around so the bug wouldn't bite. Kind of like we have the 'don't insert or delete lines when using Atari BASIC' kind of thing. He never replied so I think the bug is fixed by others, but we will never know if it is the one he was talking about or another. There's other examples with other people, programs, and companies. At this stage, it loses its importance that a XF551 may eat your disks and destroy your work. I'm pretty sure Bob's official 'tude at the time was ~'If you don't want to get hit by the bug, buy my mod' but it came across a lot like 'screw you if you don't buy my mod'. Some things are just too important to keep a secret IMHO.

[ijor]

Bob got back with me this morning. It's not a "no," but it is "not at this time." He says that he does not have the time to search and find what all he still has.

 

Not sure I understand the relation with having no time to search what he has and releasing his IP into the public domain ...

[Alfred]

I suspect when Bob says no it's because he doesn't have the stuff anymore. It's been many years since I last visited him in Rochester and CSS was long done for at that time. IIRC Bob sold the last of his BB boards to somebody else to build and most of the rest of the stuff simply got tossed. He was always rather careless about backing stuff up, and it was fortunate a couple of times I had copies of his work so that I could send it back to him when one of his ancient 8" hard drives failed. Didn't SJC get the rest of the mux boards, I don't remember now. I have about a dozen mux cards myself as well as handwritten instructions somewhere on how to build it into the mb and avoid using the cartridge slot. The shitty VIA was always an issue and eventually 6522's got hard to find and he gave up on the product.

 

I don't know about him never thanking people. He was never anything but polite or courteous with me. I worked with him, sometimes talking on the phone for five and six hours at a time almost every day, for many years on various things. I used to have awful phone bills, and I used to say it would be cheaper to drive to talk to him than phone him. Now Wooley is a bit of a sore spot with him I have to admit, he didn't much like him. Partly it was because he thought some of Wooley's designs weren't as elegant as he thought they could have been, partly I think he thought he had been crossed by Wooley over some past deal. I know I don't have fond memories of Wooley either. I sent him some gadget I bought from Germany, some kind multi-switchable OS thingy and I sent it to Wooley to have a look at to figure out how it worked, and many months later all I got back was a box of broken pieces.

 

Bob did live in the basement back then, since that's where all the hardware was. He had an old 800 wired up to run the phone system in the house. It was pretty nifty at the time, you could transfer calls to other phones, intercom etc. His mother was fine then, I think it was just easier to live at home than move out just to say he had moved out.

 

I have a copy of the Puff BBS but it requires a dongle that also functions as a ring detector. There's nothing special about the BBS itself; the only clever part is the resident modem code which hides under the BASIC rom. Other than that it might as well be Forem or Oasis. I also have a Bob E-Burner. It's not the CSS version but what Bob himself used that was the precursor. I badgered him into making me one because the one I was using at the time, some orange cartridge one took ten minutes to burn a 16K EPROM, and his does a 27512 in like 40 seconds.

 

Bob's not a very public guy, but if he thought somebody did good work he would say so to others, if only privately. He's certainly a decent guy though and somebody I am very happy to have known.

[+mytek]

 

I suspect when Bob says no it's because he doesn't have the stuff anymore.

 

No matter how good a person was at backing up the information, after 30 years it's extremely probable that some if not all the documentation would have been lost. Lets face it back in those times before the internet, pdf's, and cloud storage, only the most diligent would still have everything in this present time. Case in point, everything I was working on in that same time period is virtually gone, with at best only 1% still in my possession.

 

 

I don't know about him never thanking people. He was never anything but polite or courteous with me.

 

I would have to say the same for my dealings with him as well. I remember Bob Puff contacting me out of the blue wanting to do a trade of some of his stuff for the original 1990 TransKey's I was selling. His offer to me of a BB, PSU, and Hard Disk drive for only 3 of my Transkey's was most generous in my mind. And his conduct through out this transaction was nothing but respectably towards me for what I had accomplished in my product.

 

 

Now Wooley is a bit of a sore spot with him I have to admit, he didn't much like him. Partly it was because he thought some of Wooley's designs weren't as elegant as he thought they could have been, partly I think he thought he had been crossed by Wooley over some past deal.

 

I know Bob Woolley very well and for a long time, and although I can't say why Bob Puff felt this way towards him, it just doesn't ring true that it was something Bob Woolley would have intentionally caused or wanted. You can ask virtually anyone in the Atari community about Bob Woolley, and they'll most certainly have a story to tell of how he helped them or someone they knew, and of his generosity in many aspects. I know for a fact that he would often donate hardware and test equipment to people who had neither the means or the money to buy this themselves. And more times than I can count, I've heard of him taking the time to design and construct a prototype of some sort of upgrade, and then freely give it away to the Atari community at large. He is also renowned for probably being one of the leading people to write detailed DIY articles on some of these unique ideas and projects.

 

 

I know I don't have fond memories of Wooley either. I sent him some gadget I bought from Germany, some kind multi-switchable OS thingy and I sent it to Wooley to have a look at to figure out how it worked, and many months later all I got back was a box of broken pieces.

 

Although this may not make you feel any better, I think you are the exception to the rule when it comes to this. And I can't speak for Bob Woolley, or pretend to really know what the objective and methods to be employed that you two discussed and agreed upon in order to figure out how that board worked. But often in the journey to backwards engineer something, it inevitably gets destroyed. I can speak from experience on this one

 

 

Bob did live in the basement back then, since that's where all the hardware was. He had an old 800 wired up to run the phone system in the house. It was pretty nifty at the time, you could transfer calls to other phones, intercom etc. His mother was fine then, I think it was just easier to live at home than move out just to say he had moved out.

 

Yeah I apologized for insinuating that there was something wrong with him still living with his Mom. That was bad of me, and done in poor taste. In fact Bob Puff was just being the exemplary son watching after his mother in a time of need. I wish my feelings towards my mom would have been as good (it was far from it, we fought all time), which is probably why I made the remark in the first place. Once again me bad, and I do apologize.

 

 

I also have a Bob E-Burner. It's not the CSS version but what Bob himself used that was the precursor. I badgered him into making me one because the one I was using at the time, some orange cartridge one took ten minutes to burn a 16K EPROM, and his does a 27512 in like 40 seconds.

 

I had both of those burners . And by far Bob's was the absolute best! Although I did like the orange cartridge concept, and that is the one I used to burn TransKey EPROMS with (I think it was called Pro-Burner ).

 

 

He's certainly a decent guy though and somebody I am very happy to have known.

 

And as I said earlier, he was decent and fair to me as well

 

- Michael

[Alfred]

 

No matter how good a person was at backing up the information, after 30 years it's extremely probable that some if not all the documentation would have been lost. Lets face it back in those times before the internet, pdf's, and cloud storage, only the most diligent would still have everything in this present time. Case in point, everything I was working on in that same time period is virtually gone, with at best only 1% still in my possession.

 

I guess that makes me diligent. I have everything I ever acquired for the 8 bit with two exceptions. I got rid of the 2 20MB 8" hard drives I got from Bob after they failed, and I also got rid of the two 8" floppy disk drives that I had bought off somebody. They were in a steel case about 3'x5' and ten inches high. The whole thing weighed about 60lbs not including the separate 40lb power supply. I decided that with hard drives there was just no chance I was ever going back to using these things and trashed them. Everything else I have, hardware and software, mostly packed away now, but still close to hand. Some of it's never been used, like the MPP pbi kit thingy.

[BillC]

I had both of those burners . And by far Bob's was the absolute best! Although I did like the orange cartridge concept, and that is the one I used to burn TransKey EPROMS with (I think it was called Pro-Burner ).

 

- Michael

That would have been a Thompson Electronics Proburner.

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n8/Proburner.html

http://www.bollwerk-essen.de/retrocom/atari/ProBurner.pdf

[Mclaneinc]

Perhaps Bob P has simply hit the 'can't be bothered' time of life, I know I've mellowed from the happy go lucky smily chappie I used to be, certainly depression has not helped but my lust for fun has dropped a lot, life has done its bit and what used to float my boat with computers, consoles and old arcade stuff has mellowed with age. I still love it all but I have my days when if feels all a bit too hard, maybe its my illness causing me acute pain but there's also times when I just don't bother...

 

Maybe Bob P has the same...

 

Hopefully if and when my op happens I will lose some of the awful neck pain and be able to sit in front a monitor concentrating on stuff for longer and maybe just maybe being able to do that will rekindle it all.

 

Whatever, I hope and wish all our members the best health...Good memories should be able to inspire us, not so fun when the body or / and head say otherwise...

Edited July 29, 2016 by Mclaneinc

[+mytek]

That would have been a Thompson Electronics Proburner.

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n8/Proburner.html

http://www.bollwerk-essen.de/retrocom/atari/ProBurner.pdf

 

Yep that would be the one

 

- Michael

[+mytek]

Perhaps Bob P has simply hit the 'can't be bothered' time of life, I know I've mellowed from the happy go lucky smily chappie I used to be, certainly depression has not helped but my lust for fun has dropped a lot, life has done its bit and what used to float my boat with computers, consoles and old arcade stuff has mellowed with age. I still love it all but I have my days when if feels all a bit too hard, maybe its my illness causing me acute pain but there's also times when I just don't bother...

 

Maybe Bob P has the same...

 

Hopefully if and when my op happens I will lose some of the awful neck pain and be able to sit in front a monitor concentrating on stuff for longer and maybe just maybe being able to do that will rekindle it all.

 

Whatever, I hope and wish all our members the best health...Good memories should be able to inspire us, not so fun when the body or / and head say otherwise...

 

If only our bodies were once again like a 20 year old, life would be so much different, and in such a good way. To sleep all night and to wake totally refreshed. Wow what a concept!

 

It's like the old saying "youth is wasted on the young". And when you hear this as a kid it really doesn't sink in because you have absolutely no basis for comparison. Unfortunately now I definitely know what it means

 

Best health to you also Mclaneinc

 

- Michael

[thorfdbg]

 

And although this is just speculation, I always thought that the Impossible! versions had to have a set of routines that would generate the same type of error to send to the computer that the original copy protection would.

 

The drawback of this method is that it would not work if SIO is not used for the copy protection. While the majority of programs use SIO for loading, there are a couple of noteworthy exceptions that bypass SIO and interact with the hardware directly. For example, the Lucasfilms games use a custom loader, and so does Sublogic's FS-II.

 

It's also not only the error codes that matter, it is also the timing that matters. The FS-II protection works like this, so does the one of "Soloflight".

 

I don't know how "The Impossible" works, but just patching SIO is not sufficient for a couple of programs.

 

A second trouble is that the device occupies additional ROM space at 0xc000. Some programs check whether there is anything unusual in this area and then abort loading. A couple of EA titles work like this.

 

Although from a PC, isn't this is (in essence) what an ATX or Pro image does?

 

No, not really. ATX includes additional information on the timing of the tracks, it also includes information about double sectors (another nice protection method) and - of course - the floppy disk controller error codes.

 

Hence, it might have not been able to copy all disks.

[Mclaneinc]

 

If only our bodies were once again like a 20 year old, life would be so much different, and in such a good way. To sleep all night and to wake totally refreshed. Wow what a concept!

 

It's like the old saying "youth is wasted on the young". And when you hear this as a kid it really doesn't sink in because you have absolutely no basis for comparison. Unfortunately now I definitely know what it means

 

Best health to you also Mclaneinc

 

- Michael

 

And the same to you kind sir.

 

And yes indeed those words are indeed wasted on youth mostly, I followed the concept that hard work is rewarded, while partly true you also destroy the body and that will never be undone. Respect your body, its the only one you have, you are not invincible and the stuff they can add on isn't good fun to have, Robocop ISN'T real, Star Trek tissue healing in old age isn't real..

 

Paul...

[themrfreeze]

On the black modules he used in the XF551 mods, all the circuitry is encased in some kind of epoxy. I have one of the OS Speed mods and spent days carefully drilling away the expoxy with a dremel. until I started to see the tops of parts. At that point one of my other projects interfered and so far I haven't returned to it. I hated to destroy the mod just to see what it was. Not at all the kind of reimaging I want to do. But sometimes that's all that left to do.

 

 

The black modules contain some number of ICs, stacked on top of each other, with pins from some soldered to others and some jumper wires connecting others. Then there are the external cables soldered to other pins. I don't remember for sure, but I think the most complicated module had 4 ICs in it. Don't recall any discrete components being in there either.

[themrfreeze]

 

Maybe she couldn't live in the house without assistance, and it worked out well for him to stay there with her. Now, if it turns out he lived in the basement... then that could be a whole 'nother thing.

 

The CSS office (when Bob owned the company) was in the basement of the family house...he lived upstairs. Bob's family was a close-knit religious family...he lived with his parents and possibly one sibling (I forget now) in their house when I was working for him. I believe his father has passed away, not sure about his mom....haven't talked to him in years.

 

Regarding Bob as a person (and keeping in mind that I worked for him from '89-'93 or so and that's what I'm basing this on), he was a good guy. I can understand why somebody might say he was eccentric, as he was pretty religious and also certainly would be considered an introvert. That doesn't make somebody a bad person at heart though, which Bob certainly was not. I *never* had a problem with how he treated me, nor did I ever personally see him being a dick to anybody.

 

You also have to keep in mind that back then, CSS was his sole source of income, so of course he would be protective of his work. I'm sure that might come across badly if he felt "threatened" by somebody and reacted accordingly, but I'm sure all small businesspeople are like that to some extent. As far as I know he's still self-employed, which may explain his hesitance to spend time trying to dig up old CSS stuff instead of tending to his current business.

Edited August 6, 2016 by themrfreeze

[Diaperboy]

I used "Miracle" (software) back in the day. It is NOT a patcher program like Blackpatch or Chipmunk. When loading a backup made with Miracle, you had to first load Miracle, then select Load, then insert your backup. Loading a backup WITHOUT first loading Miracle did not work.

[FULS]

On 7/15/2016 at 5:55 AM, ndary said:

Bumzyman if you ever have the chance to pull that computer, i would love to see a picture of the hardware or a short video of the boot process

Hey I know this quote is 4 years old, but here is a short demo of "The Impossible!".

Impossible YouTube Video

 

I used this a lot before I bought my "Super Archiver with Bit Writer".

Here are some backups made with The Impossible!. They only work with an Impossible Board.

 

Boulder Dash (Impossible ver.).atr

Mr Robot and His Robot Factory (1983)(Datamost)(Impossible! ver.) - Copy.atr

Pinball Construction Set (Impossible Ver.).atr

Syncalc (1983)(Impossible! ver.).atr

SynStat (1983)(Impossible! ver.).atr

 

I wonder if Phaeron could get these to work on Altirra?

 

 

 

 

[ndary]

thank you for the great video

[+DjayBee]

On 7/3/2016 at 1:27 PM, Larry said:

The Miracle surely must be a "patcher" program that became the "Black Patch."

 

And although this is just speculation, I always thought that the Impossible! versions had to have a set of routines that would generate the same type of error to send to the computer that the original copy protection would. So on the disk, when you got to the protection, the copy would call a routine from a rom/eprom/sram pac in the IMP. It would generate the error, and so on. (?) Although from a PC, isn't this is (in essence) what an ATX or Pro image does?

 

On 7/9/2016 at 10:22 PM, ijor said:

I don't think so ...

 

I agree. I also suspect it is a protection emulator, not a freezer.

 

Yes, but besides that the information was gathered with a different level of accuracy. A "software" impossible is invasive and then not fully compatible. That XL version probably runs a custom OS under the ROM. That's why the software version requires 64K (XL or XE) and wasn't available for the plain 800. Obviously it will break in sever cases.

 

Processing the (de-)protection of CSS titles I also stumbled over the fluxdump of The Miracle! in the a8preservation archive.

First: The ATX does not work with any standard emulation because it seems to contain a physically damaged disk. It writes over this sector and expects it non-writable except for some bytes at the beginning.

Though it does work in Altirra with full-disk emulation of US Doubler.

 

When it works, you receive this screen:

Press OPTION

Press START (after inserting your protected disk in D1)

Pressing START did not work for me but SELECT works.

It boots and runs the disk. You then need to press START, SELECT and OPTION together.

It reloads the disk and afterwards shows:

Do what it tells you to do and you will have a disk which can be started with SELECT in the initial menu screen.

 

 

Miracle!, The (1986)(Computer Software Services)(US)[b][cr CSS].atr

 

If someone owns a disk of The Miracle, please dump and upload it.

Our dump is flagged [b]ad and I don't know why.

I suspect that it is because of the unformatted tracks 19-27 which were not used in any of my tests and therefore might be as shipped.

Edited December 23, 2023 by DjayBee
updated disk image