Copy-Protected Disk (Once it dies, software gone)

[ijor]

I'm not technically knowledgeable, but I'm wondering if the editor in HxC Floppy Emulator might help?:

The HxC software can rotate a track. But as I said above, that probably won't work because it is possible that the protection requires to keep the data correctly aligned to the index hole (not rotated). Again, it is the write splice that must be rotated, not the data.

You can do that with the gw command line parameters but I don't know for sure exactly how. Seems there is a parameter "splice" or something like that. I was looking for a documentation but it seems it is not available and I can't run the GW right now to test.

If you run GW software with the help parameter and post the help content, I might be able to recommend a suitable command line. Or you might ask in the GW forums how to configure the software to shift the write splice.

[Cosmic Puppet]

I'm not technically knowledgeable, but I'm wondering if the editor in HxC Floppy Emulator might help?:

The HxC software can rotate a track. But as I said above, that probably won't work because it is possible that the protection requires to keep the data correctly aligned to the index hole (not rotated). Again, it is the write splice that must be rotated, not the data.

You can do that with the gw command line parameters but I don't know for sure exactly how. Seems there is a parameter "splice" or something like that. I was looking for a documentation but it seems it is not available and I can't run the GW right now to test.

If you run GW software with the help parameter and post the help content, I might be able to recommend a suitable command line. Or you might ask in the GW forums how to configure the software to shift the write splice.

Hi. I'm out of my depth. I tried googling GW software help before my tea and didn't manage to get anywhere. My brain hurts.

I should add that I have no access to the Facebook group as it's private and I'm against joining Facebook.

[alexh]

Apparently Kick Off 2 for the ST had a similar issue?

https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/issues/358

[alexh]

Greaseweazle can write an arbitrary splice and there's an extension to SCP to inform the splice point per track. But something needs to supply that information. Gw won't auto detect splice in raw mode.

I've asked him to expand on that and how to add the splice point information for track #11.0 to the disk image given the information in this thread from @ijor

[ijor]

Apparently Kick Off 2 for the ST had a similar issue?
https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/issues/358

There are many titles that have data under the index and require shifting the write splice. But the github issue you point is about something else. It is about IPF images lacking write splice info.

Kier Fraser wrote:
Greaseweazle can write an arbitrary splice ...

I know it can locate the write splice at any point. What I don't know is how to specify this on the command line.

[alexh]

He hasn't suggested doing this using the GW tool directly, his reply was :

Is that actually all that's needed? It would be fairly simple to write a Python script to inject a write-splice info block into the SCP, with manually-specified per-track offset(s)

If you think that is all that is needed I can reply yes and I am fairly sure he will attempt it.

FYI https://www.cbmstuff.com/downloads/scp/ ... _specs.txt

Apparently there are INDEX/SPLICE modes for SCP image capture (at least in the original SCP software) that might have created this information in the dump originally. I am not an active GW users so I cannot validate if this is valid for GW users.

[ijor]

He hasn't suggested doing this using the GW tool directly, his reply was :

Is that actually all that's needed? It would be fairly simple to write a Python script to inject a write-splice info block into the SCP, with manually-specified per-track offset(s)

If you think that is all that is needed I can reply yes and I am fairly sure he will attempt it.

So the GW software doesn't support specifying the write splice point at the command line? That's too bad.

Such a script would be welcome, of course. But, IMHO, that's no substitute for supporting this at the command line. Especially for this case that this is required just for a single track, it would be much easier to simply add a parameter.

FYI https://www.cbmstuff.com/downloads/scp/ ... _specs.txt

Apparently there are INDEX/SPLICE modes for SCP image capture (at least in the original SCP software) that might have created this information in the dump originally. I am not an active GW users so I cannot validate if this is valid for GW users.

No. The original SCP specifications don't support custom write splice location. The SPLICE mode in the original SCP software is actually a misnomer, at least as it was implemented. I think the idea was to support automatically detecting an optimal write splice mode, but this was never implemented. If you select SPLICE mode it would just read the tracks blindly ignoring the index pulse.

[Cosmic Puppet]

Thanks for looking into this guys. I really appreciate it. I'm just not a big brain when it comes to this stuff. On the up side I realised yesterday that my Greaseweazle software and GUI software were out of date, which I've now sorted.

[alexh]

Dave, a very experienced Atari ST original disk preserver, replied to the Facebook GW thread I started:

This Copy Protection is known as "protect v3.5 by Markus Fritz" it is also used in the Atari ST game "Twinworlds (Ubi Soft)" I have looked at the Atari ST Twinworlds disk in AUFIT and it has the exact same Track #11.0 The protection track is a hybrid Dual Format track ; it uses 27 amiga sectors that ends with 1 Sector in ST/IBM format with illegal sector numbering

Does any of this tie up? Usable?

He went on to ask Denis Lechevalier (aka dlfrsilver) another extremely experienced Kryoflux/Supercard/GW user who has made hundreds if not thousands of unofficial IPF disk images for the Atari

Is this protection still currently unsupported in the CTA for IPF ?

[ijor]

Dave, a very experienced Atari ST original disk preserver, replied to the Facebook GW thread I started:
...
Does any of this tie up? Usable?

It does make sense, but it doesn't help to solve the problem. To solve the problem we need that the software would support specifying a custom write splice one way or the other. I insist that for cases like this, where this is needed just of a single track, the simplest way is to support this with a parameter at the command line. But otherwise, specifying the write splice location withing a file could be good enough.

Dave, a very experienced Atari ST original disk preserver ...
He went on to ask Denis Lechevalier (aka dlfrsilver) another extremely experienced Kryoflux/Supercard/GW

Dear Alex. This is a small community. I know exactly who Dave Harrison and dlfrsilver are