Super-Card Ami II (Patented) Copyright (C) 1989-94 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. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS FOR A500/1000/2000/2500/3000 w/external drive: 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 II unit into the DRIVE PORT with the switch facing upwards. Now, plug the external drive cable into the Super-Card Ami II 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 external". If you have a system with two internal drives, please refer to the installation instructions included with your package. The SWITCH on your unit is to disable it when you are not using it for copying purposes. The SWITCH needs to be in the "disable" position (to the LEFT) ONLY if you have a 4th system drive (DF3) or if a piece of software looks for our board (this did happen on the 64/128). When the software is loaded, it will check for presence of the board. If the board is not found, or the SWITCH is in the wrong position, it will tell you and give you the opportunity to move the switch to the other position. You do NOT have to turn off your computer to do this. 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", gives you an exact copy of the SOURCE disk. This software works fine ALL versions of Kickstart 2.0 (last tested on 2.04-Kick.175.20). 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 on a track. 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 two. There are two protection schemes that the 3.5" drives will not write correctly. This deficiency has NOTHING to do with the Amiga, just the disk drive. The software is where the main limitation lies. 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", and the disk drives. Since the entire copying procedure is software dependent, it is possible to enhance the software should there be a protection scheme that Super-Card Ami has trouble duplicating. With this design there will NEVER be anything that we can't copy! USING THE SOFTWARE: Insert your Super-Card Ami II 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 II, 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. Don't 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. You will see a "grid" box on the LEFT side of the display, and a "window" box on the RIGHT side of the display. Below these boxes are the control gadgets. In the upper right and left corners of the screen, you will see two small boxes. The box in the upper LEFT is to exit the Super-Card Ami II v4.0 software, returning you back to where you originally loaded the copier from. The box in the upper RIGHT is a Screen2Back gadget. Clicking on this gadget lets you toggle to the next available screen (this is handy is you have something going on in the background). The "slider bar" to the right of the "window" box currently has NO function, however, it will with future versions of the software. Let's take a walk through the functions of all the gadgets... SOURCE & TARGET --------------- The SOURCE drive can be ANY drive. The TARGET drive can be ANY drive. The only exceptions to this rule is when using HARDWARE as the current METHOD, and you MUST be using two different drives (no single drive copying is available). When copying with the HARDWARE METHOD, you *must* copy from DF0 to DF1 or DF2. There is no way around this. Otherwise, the ability to copy "backwards" (from an external floppy to the internal floppy) was added because of INDEX pulse mis-alignments, drive speed variations, etc. It gives you a little more flexibility this way. When the gadget is "depressed" (white lines in lower right corner, black lines in upper left corner), it is selected, meaning that this drive is going to be used. *NOTE* If you do not have the hardware installed, or if you are copying in the "backwards" fashion, an error message will be displayed. Clicking on "OK" will allow the copying process to continue, but you will not be using any hardware oriented routines for the copy. 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 three possible choices are: DETECT, HARDWARE, or SOFTWARE. If you select the DETECT mode, the software will scan each track and decide whether the hardware or normal nibbling routines should be used. 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. *REMEMBER* HARDWARE copies *must* be made from the internal floppy to an external one! 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 two possible choices are: NIBBLE and INDEX. These are the two modes used for copying. In the NIBBLE 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 LED will flash...don't worry!...this is normal! If the nibbling routines were unable to match a sync, then a raw dump of the track is done. HARDWARE -------- This gadget is currently locked to SUPER-CARD AMI II, however, future updates will allow the use of the SYBIL hardware with this copying software. GRID ---- Each time you press the LEFT mouse button while the pointer is over-top of the GRID gadget, it will toggle between normal and "depressed". It is used to control "individual" or "normal" track copying. When the GRID gadget is up (normal) and you move the mouse pointer over the "grid" box (that is where the TRACK XX-X is displayed) and press the LEFT mouse button down, you will see the information about the cell you are over. Each cell has two halves representing upper and lower heads of a track. If you move the mouse pointer around WHILE holding down the LEFT mouse button, the data for every cell that the mouse pointer crosses will be displayed. When the GRID gadget is down (depressed) and you move the mouse pointer over the "grid" box and press the LEFT mouse button down, you will 'set' the cell. This means that the current control information (MODE, METHOD, TRACK LENGTH, SDV, etc) will be saved in that cell. You can change the control information for EVERY cell if you choose (this could simulate a Copier File). If you move the mouse pointer around WHILE holding down the LEFT mouse button, you will 'set' every cell that the mouse pointer crosses. Holding down the RIGHT mouse button in conjunction with the LEFT mouse button will ERASE the cell's information and turn it to BLACK. * NOTE* To copy "individual" tracks selected in this fashion, you MUST have the GRID gadget depressed *before* you select "START COPYING". If you do not, then a normal copy (using the STARTING TRACK and ENDING TRACK from the Advanced Copying Options menu) will be performed. CLEAR ----- This will clear the "grid" box, erasing ALL previous data. ERRORS ------ If there is an error while copying a disk (the cell for the track with the error will turn RED or GREY) you have the option (after the copy has been completed or aborted) to use this gadget to "re-try" those tracks with errors. *NOTE* Before you can re-try these tracks, you MUST select "individual track copies" (this is accomplished by selecting the GRID gadget so that it is depressed). OPTIONS ------- Selecting this gadget will cause a window to open with ADVANCED COPYING OPTIONS. These options should not really have to be used under normal circumstances, but, they exist to obtain the most flexible copying system possible. START TRACK ----------- The STARTING track number is selected by "clicking" on either "arrow", causing the value in the center to increase or decrease. By clicking on the number in the center, you will reset the STARTING track to 00 (most common default value). HEAD ---- The head(s) to be copied can be changed with this gadget. The three possible choices are HEAD 0, HEAD 1, and BOTH. Normally, you would use BOTH. ENDING TRACK ------------ The ENDING track number is selected in the same fashion as the STARTING track number, except that if you click on the number in the center, you will reset the ENDING track to 79 (most common default value). LENGTH MODE ----------- When this gadget is selected, it will toggle between CLOSE, EXACT, and FIXED. CLOSE uses the OVERLAP value to determine how close of a track length cutoff is used. EXACT uses the track length of the SOURCE disk (the one you are copying) as the cutoff length. FIXED uses a value contained in the TRACK LENGTH gadget. Most copying will use the CLOSE option. VERIFY ------ This toggles the verify ON and OFF. TRACK LENGTH ------------ Length of a track to be used by the FIXED option of the LENGTH MODE gadget. INDEX ADJUST ------------ Some disk drives do not have a reliable (or accurate) index pulse detector. This value is the number of bytes from the start of a track's data to skip before writing. This can adjust for mis- aligned index pulse detectors. A common symptom of a poorly aligned detector is trashed graphics when loading a copy you made. Also, try switching drives (copy from the external floppy to the internal floppy). SYNCHRONIZATION DELAY VALUE -------------------------- A disk copy made with the METHOD set on HARDWARE, (or DETECT if a LONG TRACK is encountered) and MODE set on INDEX will attempt to synchronize the two disk drives so that the index pulse of both drives happens simotaneously, resulting in an identical copy. The value can vary from 0 to 4095. When changing this value, do it in fairly small increments (see section on synchronized copies). OVERLAP ------- This is the most common method used to determine how much of the "gap" area should be included when copying a disk. The more gap copied, the better. Many programs will store information in the gap area. Too small of an OVERLAP (negative values) could cause the loss of some of the necessary data. Too large of an OVERLAP (positive values) could cause the over-writing of the first sector after the gap (which is the start of the track). Generally, a value of -0032 works quite well, however, this may not work for all disk drives. SYNC ---- You can change the SYNC value to copy certain programs that use a non-standard SYNC mark. SYNCS are automatically determined through the NIBBLE routine, however, it is possible that the NIBBLE routine may not be able to recognize some non-standard SYNC. This gadget is used in these cases. OK -- Exits the ADVANCED COPYING OPTIONS menu. COPIERS ------- 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 a few others. 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 A or Z gadgets, 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, click the LOAD gadget (you can also "double click" the filename to LOAD the Copier File). You will now 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. ** IMPORTANT ** Super-Card Ami II makes an EXACT copy of the original, if you attempt to use the filerequestor, or exit out of Super-Card Ami II, MAKE SURE THAT THE DRIVES DO NOT HAVE THE SAME DISKS IN THEM!! (Example: DF0 has a game, and DF1 has a copy of that game). AmigaDOS will lockup the computer...rebooting is the only way out. 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. PARAMETERS! With the release of version 4.0 software, we have added actual parameters that remove disk and documentation (key word or code wheel) protection...and allow the installation of many protected programs on to you hard drive. All parameter files begin with ALT-P as the first character. These files are loaded by the Copier Files, so don't bother loading them, as you will get an error message. CONFIG ------ Due to popular demand, there is a configuration option with the v4.0 Super-Card Ami II software. You can LOAD, ABORT, or SAVE the current configure. EVERYTHING is saved! This includes the disk drive setup, ALL control gadgets, advanced copying options, and even the DEVICE/PATH used by the File Requestor. START COPYING ------------- By pressing the LEFT mouse button while the pointer is over-top of the START COPYING gadget, you will begin the copying process. At any time you wish to halt the copying process, ** HOLD ** the LEFT mouse button. 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 34% Only), and Atari ST. The disk controller chip PAULA, can also read GCR formatting by adjusting the timing "window" to allow a slower data rate to be read/written. SYNCHRONIZED COPIES ------------------- If you look in the lower RIGHT corner of the screen, you will see two translucent "disks". These disks represent the SOURCE and TARGET drives while copying with HARDWARE/INDEX. You will see the physical position of the index pulse on the drive that is the FASTEST between the two. The drive's motor is toggles off and on to slow it down until both drive's index pulses happen within a few microseconds of each (plenty accurate for disk copying, +/- 4 bits). Adjust the SDV (from the Advanced Copying Options menu - selected by the OPTIONS gadget) so that the white dot (which shows the current position of the index pulse) moves slowly around to the "12 o'clock" position. The most reliable copies are made when the dot moves from the "1 o'clock" position to the "12 o'clock" position. If you have the SDV value correct, the copy will fly! If you do not, it may take some time, however, compared to the last version of the Super-Card Ami II software (and all other hardware-synchronizers) it is 1000 times faster! The SDV value can vary slightly from disk to disk. This is due to the drag that is encountered from sliding the disk's surface between two heads. If the disk drive motor's torque is not sufficient, the SDV value could be considerably different from disk to disk. Ok...if you follow these rules when using the HARDWARE/INDEX routine, you should be very successful: If the dot just sits in one position and flashes - ADD to the SDV value! If the dot skips over the "12 o'clock" position - SUBTRACT from the SDV value! If the dot goes in a CLOCKWISE motion (which is the opposite of how it should react), force another drive to do the pulsing of it's motor. This can be done by clicking on one of the two translucent disks in the lower right position of the screen (these are the disks that the index pulse dot moves around in). If you have the SOURCE disk highlighted, then whatever device set to be the SOURCE device will be pulsed. If you have the TARGET disk high- lighted, then whatever device set to be the TARGET device will be pulsed. If neither of the two disks are highlighted, then the Amiga will determine which of the two drives spins faster and pulse that unit when attempting to syncronize. 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 laid 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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INDEX SENSOR-> * * * * * * . . . . . . . . . . . . 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 AmigaDos. 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 II'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 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 * . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . INDEX SENSOR-> . . * * . . . . . . * . . . . . . . Notice that Track #2 isn't 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 NIBBLE MODE should also copy a disk that IS INDEXED. 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 physically starts on the disk's surface. If something doesn't verify correctly....don't 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! HARD DRIVE INSTALLATION ----------------------- Well, it doesn't make sense to copy protect our disks... so, you can install this software on your hard drive. You can copy all of the files from the floppy to a partition on your hard drive with the CLI, or you can open the Super-Card Ami II disk and drag the ICONS into the partition drawer on your hard drive. In either case, MAKE SURE that you copy these files also: Copy to your FONTS: directory on your hard drive: FONTS/SCAIV.font FONTS/SCAIV/8 Copy to your S: directory on your hard drive: SCA.config Copy to your LIBS: directory on your hard drive: JAM.library CREDITS: Beta Testers: Mark Wignall (My game design partner) Joe Fenton Me! Design, Copyright, Patent Holder Jim Drew THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE!: 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!