[vcf-midatlantic] Jason Scott is making a renewed push to image Apple ][ software...

Support info at reactivemicro.com
Wed Mar 22 20:36:50 EDT 2017


Jeffery:  In short - kind of.

There were some copy programs but nothing that was 100% all the time.  From
what I understand some tricks even involved calculating things like track
length - something that couldn't be duplicated on-platform with any copy
program or hardware.

4AM has made some good strides with preservation.  The main issue is
anything protected is unable to be backed up or have an image created.  On
top of that the software used, based on EDD, doesn't really capture all the
bits from this disk.  It's long and boring story why, but basically the
State Machine in the Disk II Controller was never meant to get as low level
or as granular with bits as off-platform hardware could.  Hence, as a
Floppy Publisher with production hardware I could write things to the
floppy medium an Apple never could.  Then base a protection scheme on those
unreproduable artifacts.

Crackers can at best remove protection and preserve the program, but
there's 2 caveats to this as you may notice.  First being - it's not
technically a "copy", it's cracked version without any of the art that is
the protection.  And second being - if EDD can't read all the bits from the
disk, then it's not really a true copy.  And yes, there can even be missing
bits.  And then there's the possibility the program doesn't fully work and
no one will know for sure without at lest very through testing or looking
at raw code and tracing it all - something no one is doing I might add.
"It boot - it works" is kind of the motto right now.

John Morris has been working on this issue however with a new project
called Applesauce.  With some luck I'll be helping him with the hardware
side of things and providing distribution and support to the Community.
The concept of the project is to take a Disk II Drive off-platform where a
Micro Controller can do what the Disk II Controller does but over-sample
many times more than is possible on-platform.  Capturing the actual raw
data stream from the head this means software can now be "totally" backed
up and even new copies produced.

So although there has been a lot of things "backed up" all the software
images need to be at least validated to known good disks.  And at worst,
reimaged.  We have also discussed the concept of creating a website to
organize images in a database, with hashes, metadata, and tags for
example.  The more samples of a disk the better we know we have a good
image.  Allow users to upload images they scan, testing, voting, etc.  But
it's a major undertaking that even Scott isn't looking at touching.  So if
anyone wants to discuss ideas off-list or would like to help, please
contact me.

The project could also be ported to other platforms however I'm not sure
it's needed.  Commodore is the only other platform I heard of with copy
protection, and I think there was a project already (CatWeasel) that fully
backed up disks.  However I'm probably wrong since I know little of other
platforms.

Thanks!




Henry S. Courbis

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On Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 4:21 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

> I don't know about the Apple 2, but the Commodore 64 had great copy
> protection removal with a piece of software called Macerick. It effectively
> was a quick and easy silent crack. Did Apple 2 have such great copy
> programs?
>
> On Wed, Mar 22, 2017 at 1:44 PM Joseph Oprysko via vcf-midatlantic <
> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
>
> > The thing with the various cracking group titles, it's early demo scene
> > music and graphics. Occasionally pushing the limits of the machines. I
> > think those are important as artifacts as well.
> >
> > I do understand the requests for the silent cracks as well. But do you
> have
> > the skills/know someone with the skills to do that?  That's where things
> > might get a bit difficult, as much of that requires intimate knowledge of
> > both the copy protection schemes as well as being able to code in machine
> > language.
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 11:37 PM Jonathan Gevaryahu via vcf-midatlantic <
> > vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
> >
> > > I've got two boxes of stuff i need to inventory and ship him already...
> > >
> > > On 3/21/2017 5:51 PM, Mark Whittington via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> > > > Jason (of archive.org and textfiles.com fame) is renewing efforts to
> > > track
> > > > down and image as much of the existing original Apple ][ software as
> > > > possible.
> > > >
> > > > More info here, summary below --
> > > http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5180
> > > >
> > > > In short, a lot of the software that's been archived so far was
> sourced
> > > > from cracked versions that were often modified greatly from the
> > original
> > > > releases.  There's now a team of very skilled folks who want to be
> sure
> > > > that the pristine versions of these programs are archived and that
> > > > so-called "silent crack" versions are available for future
> generations
> > to
> > > > enjoy.  In this context, a "silent crack" is one that removes the
> copy
> > > > protection and nothing more, and without adding crack screens or
> > > > attributions.
> > > >
> > > > They're getting to the end of the collections that they already have
> > and
> > > > are putting out the call for more from people who may have
> collections
> > > > sitting around gathering dust in boxes.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > <
> > >
> > https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_
> source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon
> > > >
> > > > Virus-free.
> > > > www.avast.com
> > > > <
> > >
> > https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_
> source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link
> > > >
> > > > <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Jonathan Gevaryahu
> > > jgevaryahu at gmail.com
> > > jgevaryahu at hotmail.com
> > >
> > > --
> > Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot.
> > Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do.
> > Normal Person: So you go surfing?
> > Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a
> > lot...
> > Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level.
> > Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?
> >
> --
> Jeff Brace - ark72axow at gmail.com
> Sent from my Commodore 64
>



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