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Re: EDD Plus Project

sicklittlemonkey wrote:

On Jan 13, 6:50 am, "Henry S. Courbis" <apl2research(a.t.)comcast.net>
wrote:


Next I would like to ask who would be interested in the card if it was able
to create Images of copy protected disks?  I know there's a version of
Nibble out there that sort of does this already, but from my own past
experience this program wasn't the simplest to use, didn't always work for
some software and it also created two files for the Image.  My thoughts were
to rewrite the EDD software to allow it to dump an Image file (preferably no
larger then 140k) to Floppy or HDD which would then allows users to upload
them to the Net or even store them on other media (backup) and restore at
will.  I know there are 'purists' out there who like to have original
versions of software as well as cracked versions.



Hopefully some of those lucky souls out there with large collections
of
original software would be interested in preserving it before it's
lost!


As I've pointed out before, this software is not becoming suddenly
less readable than it was, say, last year, so there is little reason
to expect that there is any "emergency" in archiving it.

Archiving--and, most importantly, distributing multiple copies of
the archive--is always a good preservation objective, but we should
keep in mind that we don't need an immediate, half-cocked solution.
There's plenty of time to figure out a thorough and easy-to-use
solution.

It is critical that the solution be usable by anyone with an unmodified
Apple II, without buying anything rare or unusual, since the originals
are wherever they are, and they will not come to the "capture machine".
The "capture machine" must *be* wherever they *are*--and that's a
garden-variety Apple II.


I'd certainly buy one, though I don't have much software.

You're talking about .NIB (format) and SST (modification of EDD)
above.
In terms of preservation they are not terribly useful, as they fail to
capture many protected disks properly. The person to involve in
supporting
a new EDD card and format is David Schmidt, as his ADTPro is the
standard
for capturing disks.


It will take a new image format (at least to the Apple II community)
like .FDI to achieve the objective of capturing *almost* all copy-
protected software.


Which begs the next question - Is there source code for the EDD v4.2
software?  I just tried Sitehttp://www.apple2info.net/hardware/edd/edd.htm
and they were down, although I don't believe they had the source code
anyway.



A PDF of the source code was there. I'm sure someone will email it to
you.


Note, however, that this code does not *automatically* back up any disk.
It must be parameterized by someone who has properly understood what is
relevant to the protection mechanism--an expert task, requiring testing
that is sometimes extensive.


I recently spoke to Geoff Weiss about this software project and discussed
some of the details.  I had an idea that it would be greatly beneficial, for
obvious reasons, to try and write the Image feature of the software to save
the Image as a .DSK file.  This would then fit on a 140k Floppy Disk as well
as allow emulators to run these files.  Geoff doesn't believe that it would
be possible to save the raw data stream in .DSK format because of all the
extra data the EDD would be able to read unlike a standard .DSK creation
program.  Any of you programmers out there have some comments about this
possible .DSK Image addition to the EDD software?  I'm not that familiar
with the .DSK format so I don't really know its limitations.  If .DSK isn't
possible then I guess we'll create our own format unless someone can
recommend something else that would be possible or suitable (.PO maybe?).  A
custom format Image file would then require all Emulators to be rewritten if
they wanted to support it.



DSK and NIB are woefully inadequate for archival purposes. A new
format is
required and has been discussed by a few individuals. My presonal
preference
is to extend .2IMG so that emulator writers are encouraged to support
it.
Any such new format will be larger even than .NIBs unless it is
compressed.


Bingo.

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."