Re: ADT122 and above?

["Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net>]

Hey Andy,

Sorry to top post and go off-topic, but if you've
done any more with your IDE interface, could
you email me the updates? I'm working on my
own and need some more info.

Thanks,

Bill @ GarberStreet Enterprises
http://garberstreet.netfirms.com


Andy McFadden <fadden@fadden.com> wrote in message
news:oa2Ha.2669$%3.172466@typhoon.sonic.net...
> Bryan Villados <news003@macgeek.org> wrote:
> > With that... It would be a really neat hack if someone is able to take
an
> > existing bit copier like Locksmith or Copy II+ and modify it. Instead of
> > output the copied data to a destination disk, have the output sent to
> > something else like a binary file or even a super serial card connected
to a
> > PC. That way, the output (including work-arounds based on the entered
copy
> > parameters) could then be sent someplace else, and later on in the
future
> > the recipient could feed the saved output back into the program and
produce
> > a disk. I'm sure the output wouldn't be compatible with any emulator at
the
> > moment, but this would be an excellent way of preserving your original
> > copy-protected disks to something else (CD-R, etc.) other than copying
it to
> > another disk. My understanding of NIB is that it doesn't support things
like
> > 1/2 track copy protection and such.
>
> What you describe is more or less what Saltine's Super Transcopy does,
> i.e. it's a modified nibble copier that writes its output to a file.  In
> this case, the "file" is written to two 5.25" disks in a peculiar format.
> The only information in the output that doesn't end up in the NIB file
> is which bytes are 9-bit or 10-bit sync bytes.  It would be easy enough
> to modify CiderPress to leave them alone or tweak an emulator so that it
> wrote NIB output with sync bytes marked, but that alone doesn't buy much.
>
> What you need is to go a step further, and be able to support variable
> track lengths for nibble-counting, variable track counts for disks
> that have 36 (or even 40) tracks, half or "quarter" tracks, and track
> synchronization.  It might be necessary to have a flag that indicates
> 9-bit vs. 10-bit sync bytes.
>
> This will require software on the A2 side, updates to emulators, and a
> new file format.  If you want to get carried away you could even support
> nibble images of 3.5" disks.
>
> The good news is that it would be easier to support in an emulator than
> to actually write the data back.  It used to be that you'd sometimes
> have to fiddle with your drive speed to get a nibble count right, and
> of course *reading* quarter tracks is much easier than *writing* them.
> You can store full images of each quarter track and read back exactly
> what the drive sees, unlike actually trying to create a disk, where each
> quarter-track stomps on its neighbors.
>
> --
> Send mail to fadden@fadden.com (Andy McFadden) - http://www.fadden.com/
> CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.cdrfaq.org/
> CiderPress Apple II archive utility for Windows -
http://www.faddensoft.com/
> Fight Internet Spam - http://spam.abuse.net/spam/ & http://spamcop.net/


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