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Text File | 1996-03-09 | 13.5 KB | 331 lines

Super-Card Ami II (Patent Pending) v2.5 July-01-91 Copyright (C) 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 By Jim Drew Distributed & Manufactured By Utilities Unlimited of Oregon, Inc. _ _ Welcome to the world of HARDWARE copiers! Super-Card Ami (A-me) II is a simple to use archival backup system. With this product you will be able to make backup copies of any 3.5" floppy diskette. USING THE SOFTWARE: Insert your Super-Card Ami disk into DF0: and reset your Amiga by pressing the CTRL-AMIGA-AMIGA keys together. In just a few seconds (literally) there will be a menu brought up on the screen. That is how you probably got to this documentation file...right? If you select SUPER-CARD AMI the copying software will be executed. For those of you who have had previous versions of the Super-Card Ami software, you might be bit shocked by the drastic changes in the display screens. Dont panic...this is a change for the better ....believe me. The new software makes it VERY easy for ANYONE to backup the software they own. THE DISPLAY AREA The software is controlled entirely by the mouse. There are a few options that must be changed by entering new data through the keyboard. However, under normal circumstances, you should never have to change these. At the TOP of the screen you will see a window with a GRID display in it. This display shows which TRACK and HEAD are currently be copied. Each window in the grid will display a character letting you know EXACTLY what the software is doing: R-eading, A-nalyzing, W-riting, V-erifying, C-opying (hardware). Other display characters are: (Blank Grid) Track was skipped - Copier file skipped as programmed . (White) No Error occured - everything went ok * (Red) DMA Error (Source) - hardware problem * (Green) DMA Error (Target) - Over Lap value is too big I (Purple) Indexing Error - hardware problem (disk ejected) ? (Red) Reserved - for future use S (Yellow) Short Track - track is shorter than $1860 words L (Cyan) Long Track - track is longer than DF1 can write S (Red/White) Sync Error - sync search activated B (White) Stongbits - Strongbit protection found B (Dark Grey) Weakbits - Weakbit protect found Anytime you see anyone of the above characters RED instead of the color that it should, that means that the track did NOT VERIFY correctly. The copy may still work fine, so try it first! WHENEVER YOU SEE A 'L' or 'S' (LONG TRACK OR SHORT TRACK), YOU **MUST** BE USING 'HIGH DENISTY' DISKETTES....NOTHING ELSE WILL WORK!! NO EXCEPTIONS...EVER....I MEAN IT....YOU WILL BE WASTING YOUR TIME...YOU BETTER NOT CALL ME AND TELL YOU ARE USING GENERIC DISKS WHILE COPYING LONG TRACKS OR I'LL THROW A FIT. :-) Just below the grid, you will find the information box. This area tells you vital information such as what track/head is being copied, what the track-length, gap-length, # of sectors, etc. are for the original you are copying. On each side of the information box, you will find two gadgets. The function of these four gadgets are explained in the "advanced users" section. Directly below the information box are four gadgets: METHOD, START/STOP, COPIER FILES, and MODE. METHOD Each time you press the LEFT mouse button while the pointer is over-top of the METHOD gadget, the COPYING METHOD will change. The two possible choices are: HARDWARE or SOFTWARE. If you select HARDWARE, then the hardware ONLY will be used to copy the disk. If you select SOFTWARE, then normal software nibbling routines will be used to copy the disk. *NOTE* Unlike previous releases, if you do NOT have a hardware unit, you can NOT use the software at all! START/OPTIONS By pressing the LEFT mouse button while the pointer is over-top of the START/OPTIONS gadget, you will begin the copying process. At any time you wish to hault the copying process, HOLD the LEFT mouse button. COPIER FILES When you select this gadget, you will see a FILE REQUESTOR appear in the middle of the display. On your Super-Card Ami II disk, you will find a series of directories. One directory for every letter of the alphabet plus one miscellaneous one. Directories are also known as "drawers". If you click on the DF0 gadget, the disk directory will be read and displayed in the center of the requestor window. You may scroll through the directory listing by either clicking on the UP or DOWN arrows, or by moving the "slider bar". The DIRECTORY listings will be in GREEN, and the FILES in the directory will be in WHITE. Once you have selected a copier file, you will be prompted to insert your disks into the appropriate drives and the copying procedure will begin. *** PLEASE NOTE *** Insert a disk in the drive ONLY AFTER the requestor is displayed! Otherwise, AmigaDOS may not let you read the disk...this ROM bug was corrected with the 2.0 kickstart. COPIER FILES are the easiest way to make a backup! When you select a copier file from the list, the information on "how to copy" that program is loaded into a buffer. That information is what the nibbling routines use to backup the disk. This same buffer is also the one that the nibbling routines use to store the information about a disk as it is being copied. MODE Each time you press the LEFT mouse button while the pointer is over-top of the MODE gadget, the COPYING MODE will change. The four possible choices are: AUTO, INDEX, DOS, SPLICE. These are the various modes for used for copying. In the AUTO mode, the disk is looked at to see if there are sectors (of any length) and tries to "parse" through them to see how many sync marks there are. If there is a non-standard sync mark (the SYNC gadget contains the "standard" sync mark of $4489), then a search is made through a data table. While this happens, the power light (and GRID display) will flash....almost like a GURU error has occured....dont worry!...this is normal! If the nibbling routines were unable to match a sync, then the screen will flash and the copying mode is changed to SPLICE. The SPLICE mode looks at the disk structure and tries to determine where the start/end of the track is by trying to find the "write splice". The INDEX mode uses the index pulse to start/stop the reading of the track. Most commercial games can be duplicated with this mode. The DOS mode is just for normal AmigaDOS disks. However, if in the DOS mode, there was an abnormal track, the software will then go into AUTO mode and try to copy it. Many disks that are mostly all DOS format can be copied easily this way. COPY PROTECTION....HOW DOES IT WORK? The way in which the Amiga hardware was designed has left the copy protection industry open to virtually do anything. Unlike the 1581 disk drive for the Commodore 64/128 computers, the Amiga does not have a drive controller chip limited to a specific disk format. For this reason, the Amiga will read and write other disk formats such as IBM, Apple Mac (Read Only), and Atari ST. The disk controller chip PAULA, can also read GCR formatting by adjusting the timimg "window" to allow a slower data rate to be read/written. With all of the nasty things that protection companies are doing, Super-Card Ami does very well. When copying an INDEXED disk in the INDEX MODE, a perfect copy can be obtained. You might wonder why this wont work for a disk that was produced with NON-INDEXING. Let's explain how a disk is layed out: There are 80 tracks per side, two sides, a total of 160 tracks...for normal Amiga Dos format. It is possible to access all the way up to track 83. However, not ALL disk drives will reliably read the outer tracks because of the physical limitation of the drive mechanical section. Put simply, the head hits the INNER STOP before it can actually reach the track(s). When a disk is said to be "INDEXED", all of the tracks are aligned, or lined up in a row. An example of a INDEXED disk would be: Track #: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! * * * * * * ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! The "*" represents the START and END of the track, known as the TRACK GAP area. This is a section of the track that is not used by normal Amiga Dos. Some protection schemes actually place their protection in this area. As you can see, all of the "*" are aligned together, and start at the exact same place on the disk. This is very easy to duplicate. The Amiga disk drives have an INDEX HOLE SENSOR built into them. A simple check at the sensor port tells the Super-Card Ami's INDEX MODE to turn on the WRITING for the DESTINATION drive (DF1) and to start reading the data. Once the sensor detects the hole again, the write is turned off and the the process is repeated for all tracks until the backup is finished. Now, if the data was NOT INDEXED, it might look like this: Track #: 1 2 3 4 5 6 * ! ! ! ! * ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! * * ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! * ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Notice that Track #2 isnt even visible. That is because it is 180 degrees off of the INDEX mark. Notice also that Track #s 3 & 4 are INDEXED, but not intentionally. Occasionally you might end up with a few tracks that appear to be INDEXED. To get around the problem of NON-INDEXED diskettes, intelligent scanning routines are used to try to determine where the TRACK GAP area is. Due to the complexity of the routines and various methods, they will not be discussed. Copying a disk in INDEX MODE merely makes the copying process EXTREMELY fast, and is NOT necessary. The AUTO MODE should also copy a disk that IS INDEXED. While copying thousands of disks, I noticed something of interest. Nearly all of the older style protection schemes (weird or long track on only one track) can be copied using the DOS MODE. When the DOS MODE encounters an abnormal format, the software then selects the AUTO MODE to take care of it. So, MANY titles can be backed-up very quickly using the DOS MODE. ADVANCED USERS Ok...here is the scoop for all of you advanced Amiga hackers: WEAKBITS/# Revs is STILL NOT currently being used with this version of software.S STRONGBITS works great....try Stunt Car Racer, Hard Drivin', etc. The OVERLAP value works like the *OLD* Offset Length on the original Super-Card Ami I software does, except that numbers are +/- instead of wrapping around to $FFFF for positive values. Programs like Iron Lord, Puffy's Saga, etc. use this. DELAY is really handy for those OLD and SLOW A1010 drives. Change this value (0-35) for a delay between major disk operations like head step, head settle, write mode on/off, etc. ALL of the routines use the CIA timers to keep track of where the start of the track is in reference to the INDEX mark. This works great! Because copies of copies now function properly. When you copy a disk, it is NOW exactly like the original...right down to where the track pysically starts on the disk's surface. ALL copier files are 5564 bytes long. They must be this length or you will get a 'file damaged' message. The file may or may not still work though. If something doesn't verify correctly....dont panic! It may never! If there are WEAKBITS (unformatted data) in the gap area, you WILL get a verify error. So try the copy before you give up! CREDITS: Design, Copyright, Patent Holder Jim Drew THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE!: Assistance beyond that of mortal men: Shawn Liptak (Author of Nib & Soon-to-be: Barrier Blaster) (I copied your protection scheme, Shawn!) Moral support, and general helpers: Michelle Parrett & Annette Kyckendall Having patience when I showed up late or not at all: Linda Droden For all of those "late nite visits" he made: John Droden Thanks to Mom & Dad for pounding on my head when I gave up! A special thanks to our customers who have helped our corporation become what it is today! Software Sources: Mike Wade Al Mercer Eric Boyd Software Pipeline Dale "Chip" Dryer Beta Testers: William J. Coldwell Lilliane M. Carter Mark Wignall (My game design partner) Bill Seymour Lastly (but surely not least!) I would like to thank my lovely wife, Chauna. Her patience and understanding for all of the long, late nights spent without her, has made the dream of Super-Card Ami II a reality. Yes, we are still together....amazing... I QUIT! ...actually I am taking a break from the copying world and I am going to try my hand at game design with a friend. Looks like some sort of twisted space game with proportional solid 3D animation. It should be as good as any Psygnosis game....gee, I wonder how I can copy protect it?!?!? ...Jim Drew This original message scared a lot of customers into thinking that I wasnt going to be supporting the Super-Card Ami II anymore. That is incorrect. Actually, I havent had time to do much with the game, as Super-Card Ami II is taking all my time just to stay on top of things.