Re: EDD Plus Project

[jonnosan <jonnosan@gmail.com>]

Henry,

A french enthusiast  who goes by the name of Deckard has been
collecting info on EDD and the EDD Plus card - check out his work so
far at http://boutillon.free.fr/Underground/Outils/DotNIB/Edd_IV/Edd_IV_Doc.html
(some of it is in french, but there are also lots of english docs).

Also, the .DSK format doesn't allow for storage of some of the
information that copy protected schemes depend on -it only contains
the data stored in the sectors themselves, not the sector headers &
trailers or the 'sync bytes' that appear between sectors. But some
copy protection schemes check how long the gap is between different
sectors.
There is another format (called .NIB) that attempts to contain all the
data present on a disk. If a disk image is made in the .NIB format,
then an emulator could run it, even if the image is still "copy
protected".

BTW if the intention is to come up with a hardware device that allows
images for emulators to be made from copy-protected disks, it might
make sense to make it a stand alone device or a PC accessory, not an
apple ii card. What if you had a box that connected to a PC via USB,
and an apple ii disk drive, and appeared to the PC to be a mass
storage device containing a single .NIB file (which you could then
read and write using ordinary PC applications).

I'd suggest that there aren't that many people interested in copying a
copy-protected disk from one 5 1/4" disk to another one. There would
though be more people who want to get data off a 5 1/4" disk into
something that will have a longer lifespan.

I'd be interested in such a device, assuming it was around $100.
On Jan 13, 8:50 am, "Henry S. Courbis" <apl2research(a.t.)comcast.net>
wrote:
> Hello everyone!
>
> Have a few questions I was hoping to find answers to concerning the EDD Plus
> card.
>
> First I'd like to know who here would be interested in a reproduction of the
> card?  I've never worked with it so I don't really know what it's potential
> is.  From what I understand it will allow coping of most, if not all, copy
> protected Apple II disks.  I also believe the copies created when using the
> EDD Plus card are still protected and not cracked - basically a 100% exact
> copy of the original disk.  Does anyone here have any additional information
> or clarifications to those statements?  On a side note the new design will
> support both full and half high Floppy Drives to allow the board to be used
> in more Apple IIs then the original.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Feel free to contact me directly (email and numbers on Web Site) or post
> comments here.  Thanks in advance for your time.  Any help would be MUCH
> appreciated and a big time saver!
>
> --
> Henry S. Courbiswww.ReactiveMicro.com
> Legacy Hardware and Support - Come take a look at what we have to offer!