Couple of questions reg. qmeg and C-Simulator

[carmel_andrews]

like it says on the tin, some questions regarding qmeg and C-Simulator

 

Is there a 'dumped' version of qmeg (or was there a version of qmeg) that allowed reading or writing to more then 255 sectors (as the dumped versions of this replacement o/s i've seen, seem to have a limitation of only reading and writing to 255 sectors....whereas supermon/omni and ultimon allow for reading and writing to over 255 sectors)

 

Also, regarding C-Simulator...Is there a version of this program (pref dumped) that allowed copying of non standard game tapes (i.e games from novagen, english software, EA and synapse, which all have a very similar style of loading which is a game loader that immediately starts loading the main game data in larger chunks/blocks of data) whereas a standard atari game tape is a loader that then has a gap and then starts loading the game data is slightly smaller chunks/blocks of data)

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

Q1: I do not know/understand what you mean. Where do you think is the restriction to read/write only 255 sectors in QMEG - in the sectorcopy program, in the monitor, the freezer, the C-Simulator or where ?!? Besides, what version of QMEG-OS do you use - the official version 4.04 or some of the hacked/cracked/patched polish versions flying around...?!?

 

Edit 1: Late at night, I partially read the german manual of QMEG OS 4.04 and it is the monitor (MLM) that is restricted to reading/writing 255 sectors only. I do not know why this is the case nor if it can be changed somehow...

 

Q2: Do you mean the C-Simulator of QMEG-OS or C-Simulators in general ?!? Well, having tested several C-Simulators on the A8 (C-Sim I by PPP, C-SIM II by PPP, LDS-C-SIM by U.Peterson, Super-C-Emulator by mhs, Howfen Tape to Disk, Multi-Cassette to Disk, etc. - but not Transdisk from Page 6 / NAU nor C-Sim from QMEG-OS), it looks like most/all of them can only copy the standard tapes. None of the C-Simulators I have tested could copy a non-standard tape by Novagen, English Software, Synapse, etc. to disk (and then load it from disk). Rumour has it, that Transdisk IV by Page 6 / NAU could copy such a tape to diskette...

 

But err, there are many other ways to work around these C-Simulator restrictions, simply download a hacked/cracked copy from the internet, use a freezer (hardware or software freezer, e.g. the one that is built-in into QMEG-OS or the Turbo Freezer or The LDS-Freezer or The Freezer! or some other freezer you know) or any other good hacker/cracker tool.

 

Edit 2: Looks like the QMEG-OS C-Simulator can only load standard 128byte-block tapes, so there is no chance for the non-standard (1kbyte?) tape block loaders of English Software, Novagen, Synapse, etc. Try the QMEG-OS freezer for these tapes...

-----

 

At the moment I am testing "The Reset Machine", a program that was released a long time ago in Abbuc magazine. This program hides a copy-program somewhere in RAM (you can choose the location, ranging from $0100 and $0500-BB00) and then boots/loads your tape or disk normally. When the program has loaded you press a key (Break if you chose Break-Vector, Shift if you chose any of the other options) and if you are lucky the program gets then copied to a (now unprotected) bootdisk. This works only with programs that are single-load/single-stage NOT with multi-load/multi-stage programs (meaning the loading process of the main program can be multi-stage, especially when it is loaded from tape - but as soon as the main program has fully loaded there must not be any further loads, so a game like Spy vs. Spy 1,2,3 with an outro or level-based games like e.g. Conan, where one level loads after another and does not stay in RAM, would not work).

 

For a simple test of the Reset Machine, boot the program without basic and then:

0) for this test DON`T press START, SELECT or OPTION keys to change the copy mode (they are not needed for this test described here, we will use Break-Vector as copy-mode)

1) press "C" to set the loading routine to C: (load from cassette) and press right-arrow key once to use $0500 to hide the copy program in page 5

2) insert a "blank" disk and press the SHIFT key, the disk will now be formatted and a loader will be written to it

3) when formatting is done, insert your tape into the tape drive and press play, on the computer keyboard hold down START+OPTION and press RETURN for the beep, press Return again to start loading from tape

4) when the tape has fully loaded and the title screen of the game appears, press BREAK - now the title screen should disappear and the game should be saved to disk; when this is done, Self test appears

5) boot the created disk without Basic (press RESET or Power off then on again, hold down OPTION) and see if it works...

 

If loading the tape game, saving it to disk or finally loading it from disk fails, you can simply re-try this procedure, but choose another memory location (point 1) arrow key left or right) to hide the copy program (with some programs this helps, with some it does not help). There are some more options to copy a protected disk or tape with the Reset Machine, use START key to scan your disk (and write down the result for later use), SELECT key to choose another copy-mode and OPTION to get a useless german text. Alas, I have not yet found out how these other copy-modes should work (and the german text does not describe it), so you are on your own here (I always use the Break-Vector copy mode). Anyways, with the Reset Machine I could copy quite some games to disk - games by The English Software, Synapse, Novagen, etc. that did not copy at all with a C-Simulator...

 

Greetings, Andreas Koch.

reset_machine.zip

Edited July 7, 2011 by CharlieChaplin

[Rybags]

Copying a tape with non-standard block size would be anything but straight-forward.

 

A program would need to use a custom SIO with missed byte detection to determine blocklength so in theory it might be sort of easy. Chances are that such a protection scheme might also use variable IRG lengths too, but they could be detected by keeping track of timing.

 

The holy grail of protecting an Atari tape would be to use different values on the timing bytes, or using a number of timing bits that doesn't pad out onto a byte boundary (of course entirely new timing tables would need to be calculated as well).

 

Actually, that alone along with a sufficient change in recording rate would probably defeat almost any attempt to copy.

 

But it's a case of why bother - practically everything out there can be had on disk.