Re: Jacques Triad

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Damien Cymbal writes ...
> 
> Indeed, that is the game.  I used ADT with the number or read retries
> bumped way up and was able to get a runnable image.  How its name got
> converted from Triad to Jacques Triad is a mystery lost to the ages.
>

     Good going! The name change? Perhaps the guy who cracked the protection
was named "Jacques".

 
> As a tangent to this, what is a good Apple II disk copy/recovery tool
> that is good for these type of situations (i.e. ability to crank up
> the read retries) if I wanted to "stay native"?
 ....

     First, make sure your drives are correctly adjusted for speed (about
199-201 on the Copy II Plus VERIFY- SPEED) and that the heads have been
recently cleaned.

     A fairly good quickie try is to use Disk Muncher. If you get a read
error, ESC and try again. Also, try switching Source and Target drives.
Sometimes DM will make it through a 'problem disk' and you've got a good copy
that will not have weak sectors.

     Multiple retries at doing a File Copy under Copy II Plus sometimes
works.

     Sometimes multiple retries at reading a sector with Copy II Plus's
Sector Editor will get you a good read. Then, you can write it back to the
original or a partially good copy and have a fresh write which should read
better. You can try the same thing using the Copy II Plus Sector Copy.

     Another option is the Turdnil Copier. It's a sort of crude copier for
non-protected disks which uses a modified ZAP sector-copy routine from
Beneath Apple DOS. TC will try to copy one or more tracks sector by sector.
If it has a problem reading a sector, it automatically does several retries.
If it still fails, you get an error message and you have the option of
telling it to try the sector again.

     If the main problem with a bad sector is in the header, you may be able
to make a good copy by turning OFF error recognition for header info (via a
POKE to DOS from the Applesoft prompt) and running a copier such as TC or
COPYA.

     Most of the programs mentioned above are on the TNILUTIL disk which you
can find on Ground and GSWV ...

ftp://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/useful.stuff/Disks/
http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Utils/

By the way, the main utilities in the COPY II PLUS on the disk is set to work
for 36 tracks because that was a fairly popular mod for a while. (Same for
the Disk Muncher).  So, since most diskettes are 35 tracks, you are usually
going to get an error at the end of a VERIFY DISK, etc. for the 36th track.
Just ignore it.

     Probably, there are several other disk salvaging utils on Ground,
Asimov, and GSWV you could try. Have gone through a few and recall that they
looked interesting.



Rubywand