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Re: Copying FS2 Scenery disks

magnusfalkirk wrote:

On Jul 10, 1:37 am, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:

magnusfalkirk wrote:

On Jul 7, 5:42 pm, magnusfalkirk <dean.pha...@gmail.com> wrote:

Greetings,
Just a question out of curiosity. Can I copy one of the Flight
Simulator II Scenery Disks using the parameters for Flight Simulator
II on Copy II+? I ask this as I recently won a copy of FS2 on eBay
that came with a copy of Scenery Disk 1. I'd like to backup the
Scenery Disk, and if possible make it available by uploading to Asimov
or some other Apple II software repository, but I don't know if the
FS2 parameters on Copy II+ will work.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Dean

Well I've tried using Copy II+ v9.1 to copy the scenery disk, both
using the Flight Simulator II parameters and just a straight bit copy
and it fails to copy it. So I guess I'll give Locksmith 6 a try
tomorrow and see what happens there. As it stands I have a usable copy
of Scenery Disk 1 but no way to back it up.

>>

Sounds like time to find and disassemble the scenery disk read
routine...  ;-)



Michael,

If I had a clue what I was doing I might give that a try but I never
was a hacker :-)


Emulators make it pretty easy to trace a program as it attempts
to, in this case, read a scenery disk.  Just knowing where the
routine is would allow disassembly and reverse engineering, but
sometimes just following the trace is enough to see what needs to
be changed.

Then there's the problem of normalizing the scenery disk and
modifying the read routine to accept a normal disk...


        I did give Locksmith v6 a try and it partly

succeeded. I was able to boot it to the screen where it says "Sublogic
Scenery Disk This is not a bootable disk". So I booted FS2, went to
the editor, entered the coordinates and altitude for the airport I
wanted to fly out of (which just so happens is the airport in western
Oklahoma that I currently work at), put in the copy of the scenery
disk and hit escape. That was when I discovered Locksmith had only
partially succeeded because FS2 crashed.


Yes, to get the "boot squawk" you only need to have copied the boot
block correctly--which is usually not protected (since the boot code
must read it).


Maybe I'll try Locksmith again, or Copy II+, and try different ways of
copying the disk. You wouldn't happen to know if Computist/Hardcore
Computist ever did an article on deprotecting FS2 or it's scenery
disks? I've downloaded all the copies of both of those and burnedthem
to CD, maybe I'll have to look through them and see if I can find
anything.


Check the Computist index:

http://www.apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Docs/ComputistMagazine_Index.txt

for "Flight Simulator" and you'll find several approaches.  Though I
don't recall any specifically directed to scenery disks, I'd expect
the protection to be similar.

-michael

AppleCrate: An Apple II "blade server"!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
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