"Weak bits floppy disc protection"

[ebiguy]

1 hour ago, E474 said:

I think if you are interested in actually making your own custom formats, the best software for this is the Archiver Editor

As you can guess from my previous post, I like very much this software.

It is powerful, it makes use of all the hardware capabilities, it has a very well designed interface.

And it's also nostalgia to be honest.

Back in the old days, I did not have an Archiver. But a friend of mine had one (a 810, not a 1050) and I wish I had one also.

It was almost impossible for a teenager to buy this device from France.

I remember that we tried one day to understand how a software was protected.

But, at that time, there were many protection techniques I was not aware of.

So just looking at the track layout did not allow me to understand how the protection worked.

But looking at the symbols (CRC,deleted mark,...) on a diskette seems like an introspection into the disk (an information that was only seen by the exclusive club owning an Archiver) and it was a thrilling experience.

 

I got a little rough in my previous post about Happy software with the fact that you can not choose the source and destination drive.

But I made maybe from 500 to 1000 copies in both ways when testing Happy and Archiver implementations in RespeQt and this missing feature in Happy was a real pain.

 

Before working on RespeQt, I thought that the Super Archiver Copier was a stripped down version of the Super Archiver Editor.

With the Archiver implemention in RespeQt, I learned that Super Archiver Editor program and Super Archiver Copier are really not the same.

I mean, the copy option in those 2 programs are different. The uploaded code is not the same.

Even 3.02 and 3.03 do not send the same code to the Archiver upgrade.

During all my tests, I found that sometimes that one program was better in certain situation, but the second one was better in other situations.

So the conclusion is that if you can not copy something using the copier, try the copier embedded inside the Super Archiver Editor.

It way work but that is extremely rare.

 

1 hour ago, E474 said:

does the Super Archiver also slow the disk RPM, or is that something that only the BitWriter does?

Yes it does when detecting too many sectors on a track.

You set the slow speed with the diagnostic program.

BitWriter has 3 speeds but I never experienced a speed change using it.

 

52 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

and of course there were several programs to copy various copy-protected disks

Which kind of protection the Speedy 1050 is able to copy?

 

 

EDIT: It would be cool to set up a friendly competition where people would create a protection and others would try to duplicate the disk but only with the Atari tools (no Kryoflux or Super Card pro and no Altirra).

Has something similar already been done in the past for the A8?

Edited July 2, 2020 by ebiguy

[+CharlieChaplin]

Errrm, sorry but I do not know... you have to ask the tech guys. I simply used the various copy programs for the Speedy and the copy either worked or did not work.

 

There are many programs like BackupCopy that work only with copy-protected 90k disks, but also some programs like MS-Copy, Ultracopy, etc. that work with copy-protected 130k disks (AMC-Verlag, etc)...

 

[ijor]

2 hours ago, E474 said:

    I'm still not that convinced a track buffer is that much of a benefit. For regular speed I/O, it's a bit quicker, but for high speed I/O, such as if you are running a sector copier, on, for example, a US Doubler, I think you can get the same copy speeds by reading the sectors in a different order (I remember @Nezgar started a thread on copiers that were optimised for reading sectors in a non-sequential order so that the disk didn't have to be formatted with a sector skew to get the highest copy rates).

 

Sorry, but with all due respect, I think you don't know what you are talking about. Did you actually try that? Did you also test the difference writing with or without a track buffered write? Did you tested the time that it takes in each case to copy a simple copy protected disk? I guess you didn't. Note that you can nowadays perform most of these tests under emulation thanks to Altirra full drive Happy/SuperArchiver emulation capability.

 

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and also some disks that will only run in a Happy drive, though I'm not sure this is related to the track buffer or not, and if these same disks could have been copied by the Archiver/Super Archiver and would have worked on any drive.

 

The old Archiver/Chip is rather limited. The Super Archiver alone can create weak sector, but can't copy some titles like the Synapse or ECA supertracks (Syncalc, Archon II, etc). The Super Archiver + BitWriter combination can indeed copy almost all Atari 8-bit and the copies would run on any disk drive.

 

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I remember reading somewhere that the reason for disk backups that would only run on a Happy drive was more to do with providing a certain amount of legal coverage than any technical reasons, but I don't know if that's actually the case or not.

 

I don't think this is the case. I think the main reason is that the Happy simply lacks the hardware capabilities to actually copy those disks. Happy eventually produced the Discovery Cartridge for the Atari ST. This cartridge can copy virtually every floppy disk and not just for the Atari, but for virtually any platform, except those disks with physical alteration like laser burn holes. Furthermore, it produces digital file images so that you send them to somebody else. So it doesn't seem like he was looking for legal coverage.

 

Edited July 2, 2020 by ijor