X-Copy and Para-Copy 1.0 Loading Turn on your Amiga and insert the Kickstart Disk into the built-in disk drive, (only for the Amiga 1000). When your computer asks for the Wrokbench, load the X-COPY disk. The program starts by itself. When the X-COPY menu appears on the screen, the disk can be taken out of the drive. The screen shows a menu list (above) and a status list (below). In the middle-left the drive configurations can be seen, and to the right, two small control screens, in which you can follow the copy process of each track. 2.0 Configuration X-Copy adapts by itself to any given system configuration. It uses the connected disc-drives as well as most possible memory expansions, with the exception of self-made expansions which fall between the addresses of $80.000 and $200.000. Depending on the number of drives connected, and the amount of RAM memory, some operations cannot be used. The NibbleMode, for example, needs two disk drives to operate properly. The following list is intended to give the user a clear view of the possibilities: Configuration A: Configuration B: Configuration C: Drives: one two - four two - four Memory: any less than 1.5 MB 1.5 MB or more Operations: DosCopy+ every mode exclu- all Checkdisk ding DosCopy+ RAM When X-Copy uses configuration "A", a slightly different menu screen will appear. Amiga 500 users "should not connect" more than 2 external disk drives, otherwise the power supply runs the risk of getting damaged. The use of low-power-disk-drives are a possible alternative. 3.0 Use The program is mainly controlled with the mouse. With configuration "A", the use of the keyboard is also necessary. All important functions can be selected and changed from the menu bar. If for example, the copy mode is to be used, move the pointer to the head of the screen, left fromthe MODE sign, and then click the left mouse button. The other options (DEF/LIST/NAME/SIDE) are to be chosen the same way. The start/endtrack has to be entered using the little triangles over each number. The same applied to SYNC and LENGTH. 3 Over each connected disk drive a small light-bulb symbol appears. Pointing on these light-bulbs and clicking the left mouse-button the drives are selected (orange) or not selected (grey). Each drive can be used as SOURCE or as TARGET drive. Only one drive, of course, can be selected as the SOURCE drive. Using DosCopy or DosCopy+ the VERIFY function can be added, clicking the left mouse-button a second time over the selected TARGET drive. The VERIFY function is selected when a red "V" appears on the light bulb. 4.0 General Information For each mode, a Start/Endtrack between 00 and 81 can be selected. The Start/End head can also be selected to begin on the UPPER-SIDE (0) or on the LOWER-SIDE (1) of the disk. The selection takes place at the right of the Start/End track option. You can also choose to copy only one side of the disk, by using the SIDE option of the menu bar. This option is very useful with some nonstandard Amiga formats, like ATARI-ST disks, that are only formatted on one side. Each selected copy option is started by pressing the left mouse-button in the menu list on the STOP/GO symbol. An already started option can also be stopped pressing the RIGHT mouse-button over the STOP/GO symbol. 4.1 DosCopy DosCopy offers a very fast option of copying normal Amiga disks, (approx. 67 sec.). If a reading mistake is found on the SOURCE disk, the corresponding mistake number is shown (compare LIST option). Instead of stopping the process, X-Copy uses the NibbleMode and tries to copy what was not possible before. But that measn that the reading mistake is also going to be found on the target disk. Using DosCopy you can also select the VERIFY option. 4.2 DosCopy+ DosCopy+ has two differences to normal DosCopy. When a reading mistake is found, it does not recall NibbleMode immediately, but tries to repair the error. This means that on the new disk, there will not appear mistakes, even if there were some on the original. The second difference is that you can make copies using RAM, if you have at least 1.5 MB of RAM memory available. 4 When copying using RAM, only a source drive is selected (no target drive. After starting, DosCopy+ copies the contents of the disk into RAM. After doing so, the user will hear a beep signal, and find in the status-line following note: "RAM, NAME OF THE DISK JUST READ". All connected drives are going to be selected as target drives automatically. Starting again, the disk found in RAM is going to be copied onto all target drives. This process can be repeated as often as wanted, without having to read in the SOURCE disk again. If the source and the target drives are selected from the beginning of the copy operation. DosCopy+ works like DosCopy, with the exception of the previously explained disk repair function. 4.3 NibbleCopy Nibblecopy is capable of copyint almost all known non-standard Amiga formats, for example also IBM, ATARI-ST, ACORN ARCHIMEDES and many Midi Keyboard disks. It also can identify some copy protections, enabling you to copy those programs also. Should a "Red 7" appear on the control screen, the original disk has been made with special hardware and can ONLY be copied with the same type of hardware. (i.e. long tracks). A disk that is protected using this method cannot be copied with any software. Two parameters can be selected for NibbleCopy, SYNC and LENGTH. SYNC is a sign on a track in which the program can detect where the data to read begins. These signs (Syncs) are detected by NibbleCopy for many non standard formats. Program producers could develop new formats that use other syncs unknown to use. if the user finds it out, it can be installed in the menu list, therefore copying the disk. These synce of course, will be updated in future versions of X-COPY. If the user wants to copy INDEX synchronized, it can also be selected with the SYNC option. To do so, the button left of the SYNC option has to be clicked. The amount of information has to be given for each SYNC, using the LENGTH option. it is measured in words (1 word = 2 bytes.) We recommend the use of SYNC and LENGTH only to the experienced user. Under normal circumstances it is not necessary to change the default value. Experience with recent non standard formats, particularly those produced by British publishers, have shown, that you will need to increase the LENGTH with some of them. It should also be pointed out is that the VERIFY option with NibbleCopy mode is neither possible nor useful. 5 4.4. Checkdisc This option is used to detect reading errors on the source disc. For tracks not corresponding to AMIGADOS standards, a red number is shown instead of the green 0. This number corresponds to a given error. Please refer to the error code list in section 6 of the Users Guide. 5.0 Doscopy+ With Doscopy+, the user is able to copy each disk with only two passes. If more than 512 KB is available even one drive is enough. With up to 512 KB memory, the following message will appear on screen after 40 tracks: INSERT TARGET DISK (CR), (E)SC. Insert the target disk and press RETURN, to begin the writing process. Using the ESCAPE key the process is interrupted immediately. After finishing writing, the following text appears in the status line: (CR)CONTINUE, /W)Write AGAIN, /E)SC. If multiple copies are to be made, insert a new target disk into the drive and press the "W" key to repeat the writing process. Otherwise press RETURN to continue with another SOURCE disk. The VERIFY is of course possible. *** Description of the other options *** 6.0 DEF-option Clicking the DEFAULT option in the menu list, all parameters are returned to the standard value. 6.1 LIST option All possible error options that X-COPY can detect while copying are shown one by one. Errors 1 to 6 can be found with DosCopy, DosCopy+ and Checkdisk, with NibbleCopy also 2 and 7. 6.2 Quit If you want to leave X-COPY, take out all disks from connected disk drives, and then click the pointer over the upper-left corner of the screen. If you worked with configuration "B" or "C", the computer will return to the Workbench. If you were using configuration "A", the computer will ask for the workbench disk after having RESET. 6 X-Copy Error Codes and Descriptions 1. Less or More than 11 Sectors: Syncs were found, but the amount does not correspond to AmigaDos standards. It could be a non standard format. 2. No Sync Found: Software can be protected or it could be a non standard format. 3. No Sync After Gap Found: The track just read has an AmigaDos structure, but is damaged. 4. Header Checksum Error: A checksum formed by the Amiga on a part of the data is wrong. The use of DosCopy+ can be of help. 5. Error in Header/Format Long In this case not only the checksum is wrong, but also the content of the header is damaged. DosCopy+ corrects this error. 6. Data Block Checksum Error The checksum of a data block is wrong. DosCopy+ also corrects this error. 7. Long Track Only NIBBLECOPY can detect this error. It means that the source disk was copied with special hardware and cannot be copied with software. 7 -- THE CREATIVE VISION PARAMETER COPIER -- WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW -1.0-............................What is a disk? -2.0-.....................The structure of an Amiga-disk. THE PARAMETER COPY -3.0-...................The Creative Vision Parameter Copier -3.1-...................The parameter editor and how to use it -3.2-........................How to save parameters -3.3-...................Loading parameters from disk -3.4-...................Deleating parameters from disk -3.5-................Showing the content of a disk -3.6-.....................Changing source and target drives -3.7-.....................Changing the current directories -3.8-............................Copying a disk -3.9-............................Multiple copy -3.10-..............................Quit ATTACHED AID PROGRAMS -4.0-...............................Speedcheck -4.1-.............................ErrorChecker 1.0 WHAT IS A DISK? As you probably already know, an amiga disk is divided into 80 cylinders. Each of this cylinder has two sides (tracks), an upper and a lower one. This gives a total of 160 tracks, each of which is divided into 11 sectors. Every one of this sectors can hold up to 512 bytes of information. Therefore we find on each disk an amount of 1760 (80*2*11) sectors. To understand the way parameter copy works more detailed information is needed. 8 2.0 THE STRUCTURE OF AN AMIGA DISK Using the C.V. parameter Copier the term "cylinder" (see above), as well as head0 and head1 is used. Head0 is the lower side of the disk, while head1 the upper. Each track (see above) contains 11 sectors. But how are they written on the disk? First we shoudl see how such a sector looks like. You have 512 data-bytes in one block, but because of special problems, which we do not want to analyze further, they cannot be simply written on this track. Amiga codes the data in a special way, inserts some extra information (called "header"), and writes this on the corresponding track. On a similar way all of the 11 sectors are written. But the track is still not full. There is no more space for a complete sector, so that the rest of the free space is filled with $aa-bytes ($aaaa = coded $00-byte). The problem is to find out where the sector begins and ends in each track (we have 512 bytes written 11 times on each track). A mark (a combination of bits) had to be defined, that did not appear in the coded data, and that could therefore be used to identify them. The combination $4489 was chosen, creating the following picture of a track on disk: $4489/header1§or1.../$4489/header11§or11/...gap... ("gap" is the free space left between the 11 sectors filled with $aaaa). When amiga reads a sector, it first reads the complete track and looks in the data for so called SYNCs (=$4489-words). When it finds a sync it knows where a sector begins. Then it is checked with the header if it is the right sector (0...10), the one that should be read. If it is the case, the rest of the sector is decoded. If it is not, the next sync is looked up and the whole process is repeated. New copy protection simply use another word as sync. (for example $a89a), and instead of 11 sectors of 512 bytes, one with $1800 bytes. When the amiga looks for tracks (with normal copy programs), it will not find any $4489 mark (sync) and will not be able to read and therefore to copy it. 3.0 THE CREATIVE VISION PARAMETER COPIER 2.00 CV PARAMETER COPIER is not copy protected. Installation on the hard drive is possible. We recommend to make a backup copy before any further use, and remind the user that any distribution is illegal. The program is started by clicking the ICONS and then giving the current directories (example df0:). 9 3.1 THE PARAMETER EDITOR After reaching the main menu, the letter "e" has to be pressed in the keyboard, in order to get to the editor. With this parameter, the program gets the information on how to copy tracks. Once in the editor, the arrow (--->) can be moved with the cursor keys. Track and headnumbers are the first ones in each line. There are two main copymodes: ADOS and NDOS. Which one is on use, is indicated below the FORMAT line. When NDOS is selected the SYNC and LEN values have to be entered. For example, with a copy protection in which a track has only one $1800 bytes long sector and is marked with a $a89a SYNC, the SYNC value $a89a and the LEN value $0c00 ($1800 bytes = $0c00 ($1800/2) Words) have to be entered. With ADOS, SYNC and LEN have completely different meanings. Still remember the GAP? With this modus the GAP can be changed, in order to cope with some copy protections which fill this gap with any possible values instead of the $aaaa. LEN defines the number of words that shall be copied fromt he source-disk gap to the target-disk gap. If $7fff is entered, a standard value is used. If the user wants to set up special GAPs, the SYNC should contain the value that is to be filled into the GAP. Then the LEN value has to be set up to the length of GAP+$8000 ($8000 has to be added to the value, to indicate that the GAP from the source disk is not to be copied, but that it is to be filled with your own value). If LEN $ffff (=$8000 + $7ffff) is used, a standard value is used again. INDEX can be selected "on" or "off". When on, the Amiga waits for the index imputs, before an I/O with the drive, SPD (speed) can mean 2ms or 4ms. This is the length of a bit on disk. If a GCR-coded disk (for example C-64) is used, "MSBSYNC" has to be on. But in normal cases it has to be off. Precompensation has also to be off ("000"). It can be setup to 140, 280 or 560ms, but up to now we have not found any copy protection that uses this possibility. There are two kinds; GCR or MFM (depending on the format in use). The standard value with Amiga disks is MFM. Parameters for each track are edited by pressing RETURN (always the track marked with the arrow is edited). The SYNC value for the track can be entered as a hex-number, after which "y" or "n" has to be pressed to turn the index imputs on or off. Then LEN is entered. Now the ADOS or NDOS modes can be selected pressing either "a" or "n". With SPD a "2" or "4" is to be pressed. MSBSYNC can be turned on ("y") or off ("n"), and PRC accepts "m" (=MFM) or "g" (GCR). Last but not least the length of the precompensation is chosen ("0"=ms=off, "1"=140ms, "2"=280ms, "5"=560ms; normal mode is "0"). 10 By pressing CTRL + R the standard parameter value is chosen. By pressing ESC the editing of a line can be stopped. Many tracks of a disk have usually the same parameters. You can take over the last entered ones to the next track by moving the arrow to another one and pressing "1". If a specific track should not be copied, by pressing "c" it is marked as "NCPY" (doNotCoPY). Moving the arrow back to this track, and pressing "c" again, the NCPY disappears. IMPORTANT: when LEN:0000 is entered, NCPY does also appear, since attack with this length is not copiable. This NCPY does not disappear with the use of the "c" key. If SYNC 0000 is entered, it will be copied with no sync. This means, the Amiga does not look for such a mark while reading a track. In combination with "index on" many protections can be copied. Using $FFFF as SYNC the AUTO copy mode is turned on. This makes the program try out all the SYNC combinations it knows and to use the most logical. By this way CV PARAMETER COPY II can recognize and copy most of the foreign formats by itself. To quit the editor the ESC key has to be pressed. 3.2 SAVING PARAMETERS Pressing the "S" key while at the main menu, and entering the filename, your parameters will be saved under the given name in the PARAMETERS file on your program disk. 3.3 LOADING PARAMETERS Pressing "L" and entering the filename, your parameters will be loaded. 3.4 DELEATING PARAMETERS (and programs) Pressing "K" and entering the filename, the file with the given name will be deleted from disk. 3.5 CONTENT OF A disk Pressing "D" all parameters in the current directory are listed on screen. 11 3.6 CHANGING SOURCE AND TARGET DRIVES Pressing "1" the source drive (copy from) is installed, pressing "2" the target drive (copy to). 3.7 CHANGING THE CURRENT DIRECTORIES Press the "X" key and enter the name of the current directory. 3.8 COPYING A disk Pressing "C" the copy process with the loaded parameters is started. Take the parameter copier disk out of the drive and insert the source and target disks into the respective source and target drives. Then press RETURN or ESC to continue or go back to the menu. After finishing the copy, the Parameter Copier disk has to be reinserted into the drive. When a track cannot be read with the given parameters, the message "bad parameters" will appear on screen. The user has to press "Y" or "N" depending on if the copy process should be continued or not. This is the reason whey the user should be aware of a special characteristic of this copier: To copy some protections (for example King-Soft-parameters) it is needed to copy with the corresponding parameters to an already formatted disk, and then to make a copy from this copy to another disk (with the same parameter). The "bad parameters" message that will appear with the first copy has to be answered with "Y". The process can be interrupted at any time pressing the right mouse button. 3.9 MULTIPLE COPY This mode is only useful when only one drive is used. After having written on disk the just read part of a source-disk, the program will ask if it should be written on another disk. 3.10 QUIT To leave the program, just press the ESC key. 12 4.0 SPEED CHECK With this program, the speed of the chosen drive is measured. Load the program with "U". The number of the drive about to test is the same of the target drive. Insert a NOT write-protected disk, which data may be lost in the process. It is shown how many words can be written with your drive on one track (LENGTH). 4.1 ERRORCHECKER This program is started with the "V" key from the main menu. A disk has to be inserted into the source-drive, which is checked for eventual errors. Final Notes We hope that our program works to your satisfaction, and kindly ask you to send us your registration card. As a registered customer you automatically get a free membership of the CACHET-USER-CLUB. Members can dispose of our great discounts on all following purchases. We also want to present some of the other products of our house. More information can be found in any good computer magazine or in our demo disk. We would be glad to send you this disk for a expense fee of DM 4,-- (US$3,--, Brit.Pounds2,--). Sending us an empty disk and a appropriate stamped envelope with your address, no fee will be charged. For any technical question, please write to the following address: CACHET, Ostendstr. 32, 7524 stringen, West-Germany Tel (49) 725 322 411 or (49) 931 887 475 Products scheduled for 1989: Utilities: X-COPY, QUED, CACHET-MONITOR, CACHET-BOB-EDITOR Games: CRASH & BURN, QUASAR, DROL, SLIDER, ALIEN LEGION, SYSTEM 4, DISASTER AREA, ANDROMEDA 13 ============================================================================ X-Copy V.2.0 docs are brought to you by The Southern Star for M.A.A.D.