Impossible!, Impossible! XL

[+Larry]

Did anyone ever have or even see either of these? Any clue how they worked? Supposedly worked with a standard drive, so that means (I think) that the copy protection had to be by-passed. The 800 version supposedly would copy almost any Atari disk, and I just can't "connect the dots," unless it was something like a cartridge or SRAM that contained a database of disks like the "Black Patch," Chipmunk, etc. There is an ATR of a sector copier for the Impossible! and there is another disk that supposedly activates the Impossible! But if you have no device, then nothing happens.

 

There was a thread here about an unknown board that we speculated might be the Impossible!, but I don't think we ever pinned that down conclusively.

 

-Larry

[AtariGeezer]

I have the 800 version with 1 Buffer chip. IIRC The way it worked was to throw the switch in the Impossible! OS position, then boot the disk. It would monitor the run/init load addresses while booting. It would then write the memory contents back to a new disk.

 

Then you throw the switch back to normal and boot this new disk, it would run if the Impossible! was detected.

Most games worked...

[Rybags]

It was less capable than claimed. Probably only good for simple copy protection. There's other threads around about it.

One weakness is you need the thing installed to play the "copies". That in itself greatly reduces the usefulness of such a device.

 

Seems it logs where bad sectors are and when reloading can replicate what the game expects (to a degree). In aid of this, from what I can gather the device probably uses a custom OS and some work Ram.

 

In this day and age, such a thing is redundant. Practically all the old games can be duplicated without need for any disk errors present.

So probably collectable + curiousity value only.

[+Larry]

I have the 800 version with 1 Buffer chip. IIRC The way it worked was to throw the switch in the Impossible! OS position, then boot the disk. It would monitor the run/init load addresses while booting. It would then write the memory contents back to a new disk.

 

Then you throw the switch back to normal and boot this new disk, it would run if the Impossible! was detected.

Most games worked...

 

Hi Jay-

 

Do you recall if the 800 Impossible! was "potted" as CSS did with most all of their devices so that you can't see what's really there -- just some wires coming out of the epoxy? Or?

 

Yes, seems reasonable that extra information might have been written to the "copy," and then when that part of the copy-protection was needed, the Impossible! could intervene and supply the error information. (?) Sounds interesting, even if it was not a really robust system.

 

-Larry

[AtariGeezer]

 

Hi Jay-

 

Do you recall if the 800 Impossible! was "potted" as CSS did with most all of their devices so that you can't see what's really there -- just some wires coming out of the epoxy? Or?

 

Yes, seems reasonable that extra information might have been written to the "copy," and then when that part of the copy-protection was needed, the Impossible! could intervene and supply the error information. (?) Sounds interesting, even if it was not a really robust system.

 

-Larry

The one I have isn't potted, it looks like this one: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/176239-atari-800-rom-mod-question/?do=findComment&comment=2195274 , but only 1 buffer IC. The one in the link has two on the left side of the Eprom...

Edited March 20, 2015 by AtariGeezer

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

The Impossible was described in one of the Alpha Systems books on protection techniques IIRC. Both can be found on the net.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[ricortes]

I'm pretty sure I have one in an 800xl picked up used. Tops of chops sanded off and painted black. Never bothered to get it running in IMP mode.