Re: Disk Coping Hardware

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

AMart79196@gmail.com wrote:
> Maybe a few months ago on ebay there was an item that sold for quite a
> few hundred dollars that claimed that it could copy any disk made for
> the apple2 platform no matter what type of copy protection was on the
> disk it was to copy.  It was a hardware item, not a software item, but
> could have been accompanied with software for it to run.  I am not
> sure who made this device, what the name of it was, or the exact items
> it came with.  I also don't remember if it came with a controller card
> or connected to the smart port.
> If anyone out there can comment on what this device is called, what it
> came with, who made it, or any valuable information on this device, it
> would be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks in advance for your time and effort in responding to this post.

If it was specific to the Apple II, then it may have been EDD 4+.
This version of Essential Data Duplicator came with a hardware
card that intercepted the read signal from a Disk ][ drive directly,
making it possible to read *all* the bits on the track, not just
groups of 8 bits with the high bit set.

As you surmised, both the hardware card and the software were required
to achieve this.

Of course, there were many diskette duplicating machines, which were
hardware/firmware boxes independent of any (other) computer.  These
machines could copy any diskette bit-for-bit, regardless of formatting.

Usually the most specialized and expensive part of these duplicators
was the diskette "changer" to allow a stack of floppies to be written
without human intervention.

-michael

NadaNet networking for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

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