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vladitx
Inscrit le: 19 D�c 2007 Messages: 22
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Post� le: Mer 19 D�c 2007, 21:39 Sujet du message: just joined |
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Bonjour/Bonsoir everyone,
Sorry for not speaking French, but I hope my primitive English will suffice to communicate.
Joined this forum by idea of Toinet. I have too many Apple2-related projects in the queue and too little time, but I still hope to finish some of them eventually.
My practical experience covers only ][+ and //e Bulgarian clones known as "Pravetz" and almost no peripherals due to regional peculiarities.
P.S. Hi Deckard! |
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toinet
Inscrit le: 15 Juin 2007 Messages: 326 Localisation: Paris, France
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Post� le: Mer 19 D�c 2007, 22:03 Sujet du message: |
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Добър вечер Vladimir,
Welcome to that wonderful forum owned by JPL, master of the Logic State Sequencer (LSS) which may interest you a lot for your disk II (really)low-level project.
I'll be delighted to discuss protection methods with you but, please note that JPL knows (a lot) more than me about them as he understands it as the LSS level, which I don't. I am a 6502 code reader
Jean-Pierre, the room on your site dedicated to the different protection methods should be translated
Merry Christmas,
antoine |
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Deckard
Inscrit le: 29 Mar 2007 Messages: 350 Localisation: Levallois-Perret / Le Mans
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Post� le: Jeu 20 D�c 2007, 13:11 Sujet du message: Re: just joined |
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Hi Vladimir,
welcome on our small A2 newsgroup,
vladitx a �crit: | I have too many Apple2-related projects in the queue and too little time, but I still hope to finish some of them eventually.
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We *here* are all in the same situation
Some of the works in progress:
- french version of the A2 FAQ (Jean-Pierre)
- inventory of his (crazy) A2 collection with pictures+doc+disks (Jean-Pierre)
- HOW TO : crack A2 software (Jean-Pierre & Toinet)
- full explaination of the disk II drive mechanisms (Jean-Pierre)
- Brutal Deluxe's legacy (Toinet & Oz)
- EDD/SST source code for Merlin 8 (Toinet + Jean-Pierre + Deckard)
- Sleep an entire night (Deckard)
...
vladitx a �crit: |
My practical experience covers only ][+ and //e Bulgarian clones known as "Pravetz" and almost no peripherals due to regional peculiarities.
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I thought you were waiting for a disk II drive sent from Germany by one of your friend...
JM |
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vladitx
Inscrit le: 19 D�c 2007 Messages: 22
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Post� le: Jeu 20 D�c 2007, 17:29 Sujet du message: |
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Hi all,
My pending projects are like this, sorted in the order they should be completed:
1. diskette imaging
2. disk drive + diskette emulation, MCU + SD flash (optionally +USB)
3. CPU 6502 emulation
4. making my emulator RA2 mimicking bare Apple ][/][+
5. adding few peripheral cards
6. expand to //e
7. same emulation transferred to FPGA
Each new step mostly requires some previous.
Several days ago I also tried software decoding of NTSC signal, but still nowhere close to having results.
@JPL+Deckard: I hope you join our protection-related email discussion with Toinet.
@Deckard: that drive never arrived, but recently I got a hold of Hong Kong one, half-height. Still haven't time to try it. |
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Deckard
Inscrit le: 29 Mar 2007 Messages: 350 Localisation: Levallois-Perret / Le Mans
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Post� le: Ven 21 D�c 2007, 0:00 Sujet du message: |
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vladitx a �crit: | Recently I am spending some time on the problem and so far have setup of a simple board with MCU that controls directly the Disk ][ drive and samples the data for many rotations. Sampled stream is sent via USB to PC. Capturing DSK-style images is done already as a trivial task, but some analysis is being worked on. Final goal is making images (like Disk2FDI) but tuned specially and only to the Apple2. |
IMHO the only way to preserve A2 software is to find a solution which can be used by all the disks owners without additional hardware.
JM |
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Deckard
Inscrit le: 29 Mar 2007 Messages: 350 Localisation: Levallois-Perret / Le Mans
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Post� le: Ven 21 D�c 2007, 0:35 Sujet du message: |
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vladitx a �crit: |
toinet a �crit: |
A.2 Translation nibble change
There is a standard table to convert nibbles to bytes, some change the table values => Indoor Sports |
Same. But won't even a normal sector copier (like LockSmith) copy this? |
If your read routine doesn't have the same "nibbles to bytes table" than the original disk, your dsk will be full of bad bytes and will never boot...
You have to extract the original table for deciphering correctly the original disk.
JM |
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Deckard
Inscrit le: 29 Mar 2007 Messages: 350 Localisation: Levallois-Perret / Le Mans
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Post� le: Ven 21 D�c 2007, 0:52 Sujet du message: |
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Disks with track number $23 (and directory on it).
Programs which check dongles (e.g. few bytes of the eprom of a specific card, or a device connected to the joystick port, ...)
Unformatted tracks.
Duplicated track number in headers (but not the same datas). |
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vladitx
Inscrit le: 19 D�c 2007 Messages: 22
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Post� le: Ven 21 D�c 2007, 1:09 Sujet du message: |
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Deckard a �crit: | IMHO the only way to preserve A2 software is to find a solution which can be used by all the disks owners without additional hardware. |
I second that, but what if this is impossible on the Apple2?
Deckard a �crit: | Disks with track number $23 (and directory on it).
Programs which check dongles (e.g. few bytes of the eprom of a specific card, or a device connected to the joystick port, ...)
Unformatted tracks.
Duplicated track number in headers (but not the same datas). |
Nice addition. Those disk techniques should be covered by the imaging/emulation.
Was there any software sold with dongles? |
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vladitx
Inscrit le: 19 D�c 2007 Messages: 22
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Post� le: Ven 21 D�c 2007, 1:11 Sujet du message: |
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Deckard a �crit: | vladitx a �crit: |
toinet a �crit: |
A.2 Translation nibble change
There is a standard table to convert nibbles to bytes, some change the table values => Indoor Sports |
Same. But won't even a normal sector copier (like LockSmith) copy this? |
If your read routine doesn't have the same "nibbles to bytes table" than the original disk, your dsk will be full of bad bytes and will never boot...
You have to extract the original table for deciphering correctly the original disk.
JM |
Right, it's enough that the table covers one more nibble and it will render simple copy unusable.
I'm going to refine the techniques + imaging/emulation possible problems soon and post into a dedicated thread. |
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Deckard
Inscrit le: 29 Mar 2007 Messages: 350 Localisation: Levallois-Perret / Le Mans
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Post� le: Ven 21 D�c 2007, 10:07 Sujet du message: |
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vladitx a �crit: | Was there any software sold with dongles? |
mainly professionnal softwares.
1 of them: V43e (a program *written in pascal UCSD* which drives a knitting machine and uses the special 3.5" controler as a dongle - made by Eicon Research, a company from UK). |
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Deckard
Inscrit le: 29 Mar 2007 Messages: 350 Localisation: Levallois-Perret / Le Mans
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Post� le: Ven 21 D�c 2007, 10:54 Sujet du message: |
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vladitx a �crit: | Deckard a �crit: | IMHO the only way to preserve A2 software is to find a solution which can be used by all the disks owners without additional hardware. |
I second that, but what if this is impossible on the Apple2?
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"impossible"?
You're refering to which contrainsts?
Without this feature, disks are lost.
JM |
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vladitx
Inscrit le: 19 D�c 2007 Messages: 22
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Post� le: Sam 29 D�c 2007, 21:25 Sujet du message: |
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Deckard a �crit: | "impossible"?
You're refering to which contrainsts?
Without this feature, disks are lost. |
First few problems that spring to mind are:
1) Inability to sample fast enough. Consider the following fragment:
Code: |
LDA $C0EC
STA $2000
LDA $C0EC
STA $2001
LDA $C0EC
STA $2002
...
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That's about the fastest sampling one can do on 6502 and it's slower than the required 4us/pulse.
2) The disk controller's sequencer (LSS) does funny things to the timing of bits 7-6 and also skips all zero bits after MSB is set.
3) Inability to sample uniformly. With code like the shown above you'll quicky run out of memory and changing memory banks will introduce timing "gaps" in sampling.
4) Insufficient memory (on stock ][ or //e). You need to sample quite some revolutions to analyze the data.
5) Even if certain configuration has enough memory (and somehow first problems are solved in a clever way) the analysis is a very time consuming process - you have to determine track length, disk rotation variation, weak pulses, etc.
6) To keep track images synchronized you must determine a "reference" spot on certain track, then image the other tracks with regard to the spot. This sounds too easy but is a pain to implement.
7) Final "output" of imaged data - how? My clones don't have serial output, so only choice left is splitting and writing data back onto (many?) diskettes again.
Despite I sound overly pessimistic, if someone wants to give it a try I'd be willing to help.
P.S. Should we move this to a separate thread named "Problems in imaging diskettes on Apple ]["? |
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Deckard
Inscrit le: 29 Mar 2007 Messages: 350 Localisation: Levallois-Perret / Le Mans
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JPL Site Admin
Inscrit le: 12 Mar 2007 Messages: 160 Localisation: Issy les Moulineaux / PARIS
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Post� le: Ven 25 Jan 2008, 12:26 Sujet du message: |
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CORP too |
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vladitx
Inscrit le: 19 D�c 2007 Messages: 22
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Post� le: Mar 29 Jan 2008, 2:30 Sujet du message: |
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Very interesting, thanks! Just out of curiosity, do you have idea what was inside the dongle? MCU or something simple? |
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