Re: Captain Crunch's EasyWriter now available on Asimov!

[Antoine Vignau <antoine.vignau@laposte.net>]

On 8 sep, 21:52, "Michael J. Mahon" <mjma...@aol.com> wrote:
> Antoine Vignau wrote:
> > On 8 sep, 20:24, "N.N. Thayer" <nntha...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>We now have disk images of the very first word processor for the Apple
> >>II, written by John "Captain Crunch" Draper himself: EasyWriter!
>
> >>It is available on Asimov in the /images/productivity/word_processing
> >>folder:
>
> >>EasyWriter (Cap'n Software - John Draper - 1979) - Program.dsk
> >>EasyWriter (Cap'n Software - John Draper - 1979) - Formatted Disk.dsk
>
> >>Thanks to Dirk Backenköhl​er for supplying the disks, and to Antoine
> >>Vignau for deprotecting and imaging them!
>
> >>You can read the good Captain's account of EasyWriter's development
> >>here:
>
> >>http://www.webcrunchers.com/stories/easywriter.html
>
> >>Of more interest to programmers might be his implementation of Forth,
> >>which Antoine is currently working on deprotecting.  :)
>
> > The formatted disk is not really useful. I made it from EasyWriter to
> > validate the crack.
>
> > As far as Forth is concerned, I can just say: Grrrrrr! A nightmare!
>
> I hope your nightmare has a happy ending--that Forth would be a
> real trophy!
>
> In fact, shouldn't that enable the entire EasyWriter to be displayed
> as Forth code?  (Of course, some will argue that Forth code is "write
> only", so it won't matter!  ;-)
>
> -michael
>
> NadaNet 3.1 for Apple II parallel computing!
> Home page:  http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/
>
> "The wastebasket is our most important design
> tool--and it's seriously underused."

It is not only an on-disk protection removal to perform: I did and
have both sides 16-sec compatible (from an original 13-sec modified
DOS3.2) but it is a matter of understanding the compiled code and
associated virtual machine (a F-code?)

I've done that once for the m-code of Electronic Arts but, as with p-
code, compiled code is annoying especially when it changes RWTS
values. I've tried to modify the RWTS to prevent any modifications
(e.g. assume disk volume is always 254) but I' sure I've missed
something!

Who said boot tracing and disassembly?

Antoine