Re: Help me read a SuperText disk!

[Robert Presswood <rpressw@ix.netcom.com>]

Chris Nebel wrote:
> 
> This is a weird one, here.  I've got a SuperText data disk with an old
> project on it that I need to retrieve, but I lack SuperText itself.  At
> first I thought that I could dig through with a sector editor and
> reassemble it -- slow and painful, but possible.  However, it turns out
> that the disk is formatted in a truly twisted way.
> 
> Get this: Apple II disks are soft-sectored, so what sectors are where is
> actually described in the track data.  This disk has 16 sectors per track,
> all right, but they're numbered not 0 to 15, but 0,2,4,6,8...30!
> Naturally, my editor (Zap, from Beagle Brothers' "Bag of Tricks") won't
> let me ask for a sector numbered higher than 15, so I can only see half
> the disk.  This is bad.
> 
> So, my request to all you other Apple II diehards out there:  Can someone
> send me either of the following:
> 
> 1. A copy of SuperText.  This would obviously be the easiest for me.
> (Yes, I know it's of questionable legality, but I really only need it to
> read this disk, and then I can throw it away.  It seems a reasonable
> thing.)
> 
> 2. A sector editor that can read the wacko sector structure on this thing.
> 
> If it makes a difference for how you send it, I'm using a Mac II LC with
> an Apple II card and (naturally) a 5.25" drive.  SuperText is/was by Muse,
> the fine folks that gave us the original Castle Wolfenstein.
> 
> Oh, and could someone explain why in God's name the Muse programmers
> decided to (in essence) copy protect the data disks for A STINKING WORD
> PROCESSOR!
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Chris
> 
> (P.S.: If you respond via mail, delete the obvious bit from my return
> address.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but I get spammed enough as it is.)

This is reaching into long corridors of cobwebbed memory, but I seem to
recall that the SuperText copy protection scheme as of 1979 or so
involved diddling with the sector recognition bytes (or whatever they
were called).  This is to say that they used an a DOS altered in a very
basic way.  I believe that it may have been as few as 6 bytes.  This is
considerably less twisted than what went on with later copy protection
schemes.

I have absolutely no guarantee that I can find this information for you,
after 4 moves over the years.  If I can, I will e-mail the stuff to you.
You could then temporary modify DOS for a read from the SuperText disk.

But a more reliable route to solving your problem would be to locate
some software which allows you to read a whole raw track into memory,
and locate the sector recognition bytes by inspection.  You could then
modify the DOS read routine yourself, without any admittedly iffy input
from me.  A copy of Beneath Apple Dos might be very helpful for this.