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»»» THE CREATIVE VISION PARAMETER COPIER 1.03 «««
written in 1988 by Thomas Lopatic
visual fx and additional help by René Feibicke & Robert Frahm
copyright (c) 1988 by Creative Vision Germany
Keep programmers programming and don't spread this disk. This program
is really worth the money you paid for it. So please be so fair ...
- - - T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S - - -
BASIC KNOWLEDGE
---------------
-1.0- .......................................... What is a disk ?
-2.0- ............................ How Amiga disks are structured
THE PARAMETER COPIER
--------------------
-3.0- ................. The Creative Vision Parameter Copier 1.03
-3.1- ................. How to edit the parameters for each track
-3.2- ......................................... Saving parameters
-3.3- ........................................ Loading parameters
-3.4- .................................... The directory function
-3.5- .............................. Exchanging source and target
-3.6- ........................................ How to copy a disk
-3.7- ............................ Information about this program
-3.8- .................................................... Quit !
UTILITIES ON THIS DISK
----------------------
-4.0- .............................. The speedometer "SpeedCheck"
-4.1- ................................ The disk-scanner "Examine"
-4.2- ....................... The Disk-Error-Check "ErrorChecker"
P R E F A C E
-------------
BE WARNED! THE C.V. PARAMETER COPIER IS A VERY POWERFUL BACKUP UTILITY,
WHICH IS ABLE TO COPY ALMOST ANY OF TODAY'S PROTECTIONS. BACKUPS MAY
ONLY BE MADE FOR PRIVATE PURPOSES. NEVER SPREAD A COPY OF AN ORIGINAL!!
THIS IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN BY THE COPYRIGHT LAW OF YOUR COUNTRY!! JUST
MAKE BACKUPS OF YOUR ORIGINALS TO BE SURE YOU HAVE A COPY IN CASE OF A
DAMAGE ON YOUR ORIGINAL DISK!!
THANK YOU,
Thomas Lopatic
1.0. WHAT IS A DISK ?
---------------------
As you certainly know, your Amiga disk is divided up into 80 Cylinders.
Each of these 80 Cylinders has two sides. One upper side and one lower
side. Each side is called a track. So a disk contains 160 tracks. Each
of these 160 tracks is divided up into 11 sectors, each containing 512
bytes of data. So you have 1760 sectors (80*2*11). These are the facts
every "normal" Amiga user knows. But this is not enough to understand
how to backup a protected disk ... Don't worry. Soon you will know a
bit more. Just continue reading!
2.0. How Amiga disks are structured
-----------------------------------
When using the C.V. Parameter Copier we talk about Cylinders (as you
have just read) and head 0 and head 1, where 0 means the lower and 1 is
the upper head. Each side (you can also say track) contains 11 sectors
(as said before). How are these sectors written onto disk? First let's
examine what one sector looks like. You know that you have 512 bytes of
data in one block, but due to special difficulties you can't just write
these 512 bytes of data onto the track. The Amiga encodes your data in
a special way, adds some information (checksums, ...) called a header
to it and writes it onto your track. In the same way the rest of the 11
sectors is brought onto your disk. But the track is not full yet. It is
still some room. But this room is not enough for one more sector and so
it is filled up with $aa bytes (i.e. encoded $00-Bytes). But now there
is a problem. You have now 11 sectors on your disk, but nobody knows
where a sector starts or stops (remember that we have just written the
512 bytes of data 11 times onto your disk). So the intelligent people
said: "We must find a special data word (i.e. 2 bytes) which doesn't
exist among the encoded data to mark the beginning of each sector." And
this combination was found: $4489. This word surely doesn't exist in a
data block, after it was encoded in the special way described above. So
everyone knows where a new sector begins. He just has to search for a
word with the value $4489. A track on disk looks like the following
diagram shows:
$4489/Header1&Sector1/..../$4489/Header11&Sector11/...Gap...
(The "Gap" is the room which is filled up with the $aa-bytes. Look above.)
The $4489 is called the STANDARD-MFM-SYNC.
When the Amiga wants to read a sector, it reads the full track. Then it
looks for SYNCs ($4489). When it finds a SYNC, it knows that it just
has found the beginning of a sector. Then it looks in the Header (where
the number of this sector is written down) and looks whether the found
sector is the sector Amiga wanted to read. If this is the wanted sector
Amiga decodes the sector and has the 512 bytes of data which are con-
tained in this sector. Otherwise it keeps on searching.
New copy protections just don't take $4489 as SYNC, but another value,
e.g. $a89a. Also they often consist of only 1 sector on one track. But
this sector doesn't contain only 512 bytes but $1800 or more. Because
Amiga doesn't find a $4489 on the track after having read (the SYNC is
$a89a) it doesn't find any sector on this track and so can't copy it.
3.0. The Creative Vision Parameter Copier 1.03
----------------------------------------------
This is a product worth buying! The price is really reasonable. Please
be fair and keep us programming. Please read the preface before copying
anything, otherwise you could do something illegal!
3.1. How to edit the parameters for each track
----------------------------------------------
The password is "what you see is what you get".
After you have entered the main menu of the copier press "e" to enter
the parameter editor. With the parameters you can tell the copy HOW it
shall copy each track of a disk.
When you have entered the editor, the arrow ("-->") can be moved by
using the cursor up/down keys. You can move the arrow to the track you
want. The track & head number are the first two numbers in one line.
Generally you have to copy modes. The selected mode is shown under the
"FORMAT" line. There is the "ADOS" mode and the "NDOS" mode. When NDOS
(=NoDosFormat) is selected, the "SYNC" value is your SYNC-word (which
marks the beginning of a sector) and the "LEN" (=length) value is your
length of the sector. E.g. if you have a copy protection where a track
only contains one sector of $1800 bytes, marked by a SYNC of $a89a, set
the SYNC value to $a89a and the "LEN" value to $0c00 ($1800 bytes=$0c00
($1800/2) words). In ADOS mode, the "LEN" and "SYNC" have a totally
different meaning. You remember the gap we talked about? Great. In ADOS
mode you are able to modify the gap, because a nice copy protection is
to fill up the gap with any values and not with $aa. So in ADOS mode
you can tell the copier how many words it shall copy from the source's
gap to the gap of the target disk. If you set this value to $7fff, a
standard number of words is taken. If you want to create your own gap,
set the "SYNC" value to the value of the words you want to fill into a
gap. Then take the length of the gap, add $8000 to it (to tell the copy
to fill the gap, not to copy it from the source) and put it into your
"LEN" field. (If you take $ffff as value ($7fff+$8000) then a standard
value will be filled in.)
The index field can be set to "on" or "off". When the "on" position is
selected, the Amiga waits for an Index pulse before copying this track.
In the speed ("SPD") field you can put either 2ms or 4ms. This is the
time for the duration of one bit on the disk. If you have a GCR-Encoded
disk (like an APPLE(tm) or COMMODORE64(tm) disk) you must set "MSBSYNC"
to "on". Otherwise turn it off. The precompensation ("TIM") is normally
turned off ("000"). You can either set values of 140, 280 or 560ms. I
still have not seen any copy protection which need this. So always set
to 000. The type of precompensation ("PRC") can be GCR (for GCR-Encoded
disks, look above) or MFM (usually).
You can edit the parameters for a track by pressing the RETURN key. The
track the "-->" is pointing to, will be edited.
Now enter the SYNC word for this track (4-digit-hex). After that press
"y" for index on or "n" for off. Then enter the length. Now press "A"
for ADOS or "N" for "NDOS". For SPD press 2 or 4. MSBSYNC can be "y"
(on) or "n" (off). PRC is either "M" (MFM) or "G" (GCR). Last enter the
time for the precompensation ("0"=0ms=off, "1"=140ms, "2"=280ms, "5"=
560ms; usually "0").
Usually more than one track on a disk have the same parameters. You can
insert the parameters you entered last by moving the "-->" to the track
you want and pressing "l" (=last). Your last parameters will be taken.
If you don't want to copy a certain track, just press "c". The track on
which your "-->" points, will be marked as "NCPY" (doNotCoPY). Move the
arrow on this track again and hit "c" again. The NCPY will disappear.
Note: If you enter a "LEN" value of 0000 also a NCPY will appear. You
can't remove it, because you cannot copy a sector with the length of 0!
When you enter a $0000 as SYNC, no SYNC will be searched on the
track. When you select "INDEX on", you can copy many protections.
You can exit the editor by pressing "ESC".
3.2. Saving parameters
----------------------
Press "s" in the main menu and enter the filename. If you enter nothing
you can return to the menu. The file will be saved in the subdirectory
"PARAMETERS".
3.3. Loading parameters
-----------------------
Press "l" and enter the filename. The parameter will be loaded.
3.4. Directory function
-----------------------
Press "d" and the saved parameters on this disk will be listed.
3.5. Exchange source and target
-------------------------------
The source and the target drive are exchanged. So you can copy either
from df0: to df1: or from df1: to df0:.
3.6. Copy a disk
----------------
Press "c", then remove your parameter copier. Insert your source disk
in the source drive and the target disk in the target drive. Then hit
Return to continue or ESC to return to the main menu of the parameter
copier. After the copy is done, replace the parameter copier in your
drive and hit Return.If a track can't be read with the selected para-
meters, you will be told "Bad parameters." Now press "y" to continue
or "n" to abort the copy. (Due to this, to copy certain protections
(e. g. the Kingsoft(tm) protection), first make a copy with a simple
ordinary backup program (e. g. diskcopy), then copy this backup again
with the C.V. Parameter Copier 1.03 and it will work!).
3.7. Information
----------------
Press "i" and the info window will be shown.
3.8. Quit
---------
Use this to exit the Creative Vision Parameter Copier 1.03.
4.0. The Speedometer
--------------------
Call this utility from the CLI with "SpeedCheck dfx:", where x is your
drive to check. Insert a disk which can be destroyed in dfx: and press
the <RETURN> key to start. This utility shows you how many words your
drive can write to a track. Make sure that the disk you have inserted
is NOT WRITE PROTECTED.
4.1. The Disk Scanner
---------------------
It is called with "Examine", Insert now the write protected (original)
disk you want to scan in DF0:. The program shows you any possible SYNC
for each track. If you want the SYNC list to be sent to a file, enter
"Examine >FILENAME". Then it's sent to the file name "FILENAME".
4.2. The ErrorChecker
---------------------
Call it with "ErrorChecker". Then insert a disk to be checked in drive
0. You will be shown any errors on this disk.