Super-Card Ami V2.1 (Patent Pending) Copyright (C) 1989 By Jim Drew Distributed & Manufactured By Utilities Unlimited of Oregon, Inc. Welcome to the world of HARDWARE copiers! Super-Card Ami (A-me) 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. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS: With the power of your computer switched to the OFF position, remove the external drive cable from the back of your computer. Plug the Super-Card Ami unit into the DRIVE PORT with the LED lights facing upwards. Now, plug the external drive cable into the Super-Card Ami unit. You will notice that it is not possible to plug the board in backwards or upside-down. This "safety feature" was added to insure proper installation with minimal effort and to provide maximum protection for your equipment. These things mean a lot to us at Utilities Unlimited! ** NOTE ** If you have an Amiga 2000 with one internal and one external drive, you will need the version for your setup. Your invoice should state "Amiga 2000 w/1 in/1 ex". If you have a system with two internal drives, please call our office for the latest information. There are two LEDs on the Super-Card Ami unit. One LED will turn on and appear to "flicker" when data from DF0: (internal) drive is being accessed. The other LED will turn on ONLY during writing mode when backing up a diskette. In order to use your DF1: (external) drive normally, the Super-Card Ami unit MUST BE REMOVED! Please remember to turn the power OFF before removing the Super-Card Ami unit. NEVER PLUG IN OR REMOVE *ANY* AMIGA PERIPHERAL WHILE THE POWER IS TURNED ON....YOU *WILL* DESTROY YOUR COMPUTER!! HOW DOES SUPER-CARD AMI WORK? Super-Card Ami works by "stealing" the signal that comes from your internal drive (DF0:) and converting it into the signal necessary for writing the IDENTICAL data READ from the SOURCE (internal) drive. This process called "DupliFlux" (Patent Pending), gives you an exact copy of the SOURCE disk. SO WHY DOES SUPER-CARD AMI WORK WHEN OTHER HARDWARE COPIERS WONT? Our competitor's products either change the clock rate (the rate at which you can write data to a diskette) EXTERNALLY via plugging into the VIDEO PORT, or they do similar to what Super-Card Ami does...except, they just "force feed" the read signal into the write line with NO conversion factor at all. By using this process, a lot of data can be shifted and lost. Losing data can be particular important when a check is made for a specific number of bytes that are written to a commercial software disk. When data is shifted, the track length will change causing erroneous results. The end result is that it may take MANY attempts to make a backup of this kind of disk protection, it is also possible that you would never be able to do it at all. DOES SUPER-CARD AMI HAVE ANY LIMITATIONS? Well, yes and no. The HARDWARE itself has none. The software is where ALL of the limitations are. An explanation of copy protection schemes found later in this documentation file will help you understand why we are "at the mercy of the software". 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) the program will execute. Menu Choices: Default: Range: F1 - Copy Diskette F2 - Starting Track 00 0-83 F3 - Ending Track 79 0-83 F4 - Side to Copy BOTH HEAD 0, HEAD 1, BOTH F5 - Mode AUTO AUTO, INDEX, DOS, SPLICE F6 - Destination Drive DF1 DF1 or DF2 (Amiga 2000 only!) F7 - Syncronize Drives NO NO, YES F8 - Track Scanner (F1) After selecting your STARTING TRACK, ENDING TRACK, and other options. Pressing the F1 key will prompt you to insert your SOURCE diskette (original to be copied) into DF0 and to insert your DESTINATION diskette (to be copied on to) into DF1. You MUST have the WRITE PROTECT tab in the OPEN position on your original. The program will NOT continue unless the SOURCE diskette IS WRITE PROTECTED. This is a safety feature for your sake, even though NO data is EVER written to the SOURCE drive. Press the ESCape key to abort the F1 option. Pressing the LEFT MOUSE button will abort the copying procedure once it has started. (F2) After pressing the F2 key, the STARTING TRACK number can be increased by pressing the RIGHT CURSOR key. The number can be decreased by pressing the LEFT CUSOR key. Once the desired number has been achieved, press the RETURN (or ENTER) key. If you selected this option by mistake, simply press RETURN (or ENTER) to exit. (F3) After pressing the F3 key, the ENDING TRACK number can be increased by pressing the RIGHT CURSOR key. The number can be decreased by pressing the LEFT CURSOR key. Once the desired number has been achieved, press the RETURN (or ENTER) key. If you selected this option by mistake, simply press RETURN (or ENTER) to exit. (F4) Each time you press the F4 key, the SIDE value will change. The three possible choices are: HEAD 0 (bottom head), HEAD 1 (top head), or BOTH (both heads 0 & 1). You probably will never need to change this option. However, it has been provided in case you are aware of a software program that uses only one side of the diskette. By selecting only one side, the backup time is one half of the normal time. (F5) Each time you press the F5 key, the MODE value will change. The four possible choices are: AUTO, INDEX, DOS, or SPLICE. These are the different copying modes available. The INDEX MODE will backup ALL software that was created with a commercial disk duplication machine that uses the INDEX mark to START and END the track data. The DOS MODE will copy unprotected DOS disks only. It was designed to be a high speed copier that needs certain circumstances found only on AMIGA DOS formats that wont normally be found on copy protected software. The SPLICE MODE attempts to locate the START and END of the track through intelligent scanning routines. The AUTO MODE is the MOST powerful of all and should be tried before other options. This mode looks at a track and figures out how it should be copied. (F6) The DESTINATION DRIVE can ONLY be DF1 for the Super-Card Ami designed for EXTERNAL drives only. The version coming shortly for the AMIGA 1000/2000 & 2500 with two internal drives WILL be able to select DF1, DF2 or BOTH. (F7) A few (literally) programs require that the START of the track be exactly where the INDEX mark is. So, this option will syncronize the two drives so that the INDEX mark of both drives is simotaneously achieved. Please note that this process can take many minutes to make a backup copy. If you drive appear to just "die", wait a few minutes, they will eventually get back into sync again and continue. Use this option ONLY while in INDEX MODE! (F8) The TRACK SCANNER is a handy utility to let you know what MODE to try first when backing up software. Insert the diskette to be scanned into DF0: (internal drive) and press RETURN (or ENTER to start the scanning procedure. Pressing the LEFT MOUSE button will abort the scanning procedure once it has already started. The STARTING and ENDING tracks as well as the SIDE are also options used by the TRACK SCANNER. The TRACK NUMBER, HEAD NUMBER, TRACK LENGTH and WFS (Words before First Sync) are displayed as each track is scanned. When the scan is complete, a report will be displayed. The report will show you how many tracks were "LONG" tracks, and how many tracks were "INDEXED". This comes in very handy when determining which MODE to use whilce copying. If ALL (or the majority) of the tracks show as being INDEXED, then you will need to use the INDEX MODE. If ANY "LONG" tracks are shown, and NO tracks were INDEXED, use the SPLICE MODE. Most others titles only require the DOS MODE. (DEL) This function, though not listed in the menu, is very handy for those of use that are a bit on the lazy side. By pressing the DEL key, ALL of the Menu Option settings are returned to their DEFAULT settings. This is an easy way to save some time. (F10) Press this key to EXIT the Super-Card Ami program, however, normal drives operations will not work. Just reset your Amiga. 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, 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 written. With all of the nasty things that protection companies are doing, Super-Card Ami does very well. When copying a 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 turn 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 visable. 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. A VERY simple way to tell if a diskette is TRUELY INDEXED or not is to use option F8 (Track Scanner) of the software. Pay attention to the WFS display. If you see wild, inconsistent changes in that value, then the diskette is probably NOT INDEXED. If you see a consistent display with only a few bytes changing occasionally, then the diskette was DEFINATELY 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. CREDITS: Design, Copyright, and future Patent Holder: Jim Drew THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE!: Assistance beyond that of mortal men: Shawn Liptak (Author of Nib) Moral support, and general helpers: Michelle Parrett & Annette Kyckendohl Having patience when I showed up late: Linda Droden For all of those "late nite visits" he made: John Droden For keep their software titles up-to-date and putting up with me!: Eric, Joy, & "Mom" - Soft Cell Software, Inc. 10910 N.E. Halsey Portland, Oregon 97220 1-800-252-DISK 1-503-252-DISK Call for excellent prices on Amiga products! The only man I know that would have a Super-Card Ami sent via Jet! Wes O'Neil Software Sources: Al Mercer Brandon Frankle Eric Boyd Software Pipeline Dale "Chip" Dryer 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 a reality.