VAPI Image back to disk

[malers]

Hello,

 

is there any possiblity to transfer a VAPI-ATX back to disk?

 

Thanks in advance

Michael

[R4ngerM4n]

No.

[Bryan]

I just bought a Kryoflux, but haven't messed with it yet. It should be possible to convert a VAPI into something the Kryoflux could write, though.

[malers]

whats exactly a "Kryoflux"?

[deathtrappomegranate]

whats exactly a "Kryoflux"?

Google is your friend...

 

It seems to be quite similar to the Catweasel. Sounds very interesting.

[jaybird3rd]

I just bought a Kryoflux, but haven't messed with it yet. It should be possible to convert a VAPI into something the Kryoflux could write, though.

Wow, that looks interesting! I had considered getting a Catweasel, but I was turned off by the apparent dearth of software to support it. This might be my solution, and it would be great if a way to write VAPI images could be found!

[Almost Rice]

Can't you just use a 1050 on the PC using SIO2PC and Prosystem?

[+Stephen]

Can't you just use a 1050 on the PC using SIO2PC and Prosystem?

VAPI images are for copy protected disks, and a standard 1050 cannot write the various "short, fuzzy, duplicate" sectors.

[Bryan]

Yep, the big limitation to copying Atari disks is that the drives have a limited IO protocol that doesn't allow for writing anything out of the ordinary. So, you can put disks with all kinds of funky protection formats in the drive and use various methods to see if the drive is reacting to them, but you can't write them on a stock drive.

 

On many other computer systems, the CPU has access to the drive controller hardware so copying just becomes a matter of sending raw track data to the disk, but there are some things even those systems can't copy without custom hardware (especially when sectors are written at a slightly varying clock rate).

[+Larry]

The VAPI project has been inactive for quite some time, but I was thinking that some VAPI files could be written out with a Happy Drive. (?) It's been a long time, so my memory might be fuzzy on this. Hopefully, Ijor will likely read this and respond.

 

-Larry

[deathtrappomegranate]

It would be great if this device could be used to archive software in VAPI and PASTI formats; the USB interface is a big plus when compared with the Catweasel and Discovery Cartridge.

[kenjennings]

whats exactly a "Kryoflux"?

Google is your friend...

 

It seems to be quite similar to the Catweasel. Sounds very interesting.

 

What a coincidence. My kryoflux arrived yesterday. If I have time this weekend I'll try setting it up. It's part of my effort to recover my working disks. Many were unfortunately done in 360K DSDD on an XF551 and that drive now refuses to read double density from the second side (double sided, single density still works, go figure). I have some generic 360K and 1.2M PC drives and will try to recover the DSDD disks using kryoflux.

 

It supports

FM XFD, Atari 8-bit,

MFM sector image, 40/80+ tracks, SS/DS, DD/HD

MFM XFD, Atari 8-bit

so somewhere in there I think it should read the XF551 DSDD disks.

 

The printed docs with the kryoflux show example commands that create IPF images at the same time as specific kind of sector dump. So I figure one of the options will make it write an XFD format, and then I would use a utility (XFD2ATR) to convert XFD to ATR.

 

 

 

Catweasel, I think, may be dead.

Edited April 4, 2012 by kenjennings

[Bryan]

They say Kryoflux is mainly for use with HD drives, but I don't see why it couldn't handle 360K drives equally well. The main advantage would be for writing disks with the proper SD/DD track width.

[R4ngerM4n]

AFAIK Ijor (the creator of VAPI) mentioned that there is no software available to actually do the writing-back.

[malers]

So, a tool for converting ATX to XFD format is needed. XFD can in turn be written to a 5 1/4 Disk with the kryoflux.

 

I just ordered a kryoflux....

[+Larry]

Let us know how it does! My luck with hardware "Bit Copiers" was poor except for specific "extra-long" tracks.

The Kryoflux certainly looks interesting! (I'd never heard of it.)

-Larry

 

 

 

What a coincidence. My kryoflux arrived yesterday. If I have time this weekend I'll try setting it up. It's part of my effort to recover my working disks. Many were unfortunately done in 360K DSDD on an XF551 and that drive now refuses to read double density from the second side (double sided, single density still works, go figure). I have some generic 360K and 1.2M PC drives and will try to recover the DSDD disks using kryoflux.

 

It supports

FM XFD, Atari 8-bit,

MFM sector image, 40/80+ tracks, SS/DS, DD/HD

MFM XFD, Atari 8-bit

so somewhere in there I think it should read the XF551 DSDD disks.

 

The printed docs with the kryoflux show example commands that create IPF images at the same time as specific kind of sector dump. So I figure one of the options will make it write an XFD format, and then I would use a utility (XFD2ATR) to convert XFD to ATR.

 

 

 

Catweasel, I think, may be dead.

[fiath]

So, a tool for converting ATX to XFD format is needed. XFD can in turn be written to a 5 1/4 Disk with the kryoflux.

 

I just ordered a kryoflux....

 

KryoFlux can read to XFD images, but can't currently write them. It's write support is currently limited to IPF and ADF, though more are planned.

[malers]

So, a tool for converting ATX to XFD format is needed. XFD can in turn be written to a 5 1/4 Disk with the kryoflux.

 

I just ordered a kryoflux....

 

KryoFlux can read to XFD images, but can't currently write them. It's write support is currently limited to IPF and ADF, though more are planned.

 

Whats the difference between xfd, ipf and adf formats?

 

Can KyroFlux be used for backing up protected atari disks?

[fiath]

Whats the difference between xfd, ipf and adf formats?

 

XFD - High level "sector image" format for Atari 8-bit. The contents of each block on a legally formatted disk.

ADF - Same as XFD, but for the Amiga format.

IPF - Mastering format, similar to how the disks were originally mastered. Intended to contains and describe any copy protection on a disk.

 

Can KyroFlux be used for backing up protected atari disks?

 

 

Yes, as long as the disk doesn't have any physical protection (physical holes, etc.), you can back up to KryoFlux's low level "stream format". This contains any copy protection on the disk. You should know though that there are fundamental problems writing this kind of "raw read" back to disk (no matter what device you use) - kind of similar to the sort of problems you get copying VHS tapes. However, once you have the data in stream format, it is possible to use it in emulators, it is also possible to write it with some technical know-how (you need to know "how" to write it). That's just the problem you get with copy protection, whatever device you use to read it.

[Bryan]

Well, my interest in Kryoflux is for making identical copies as well as images and that seems to be its purpose according to the demonstration videos. There are some A8 disks with a ridiculous number of FM sectors on protected tracks which can currently only be copied using a Super Archiver with Bitwriter add-on. I'd like to learn how to use Kryoflux instead.

[malers]

Whats the difference between xfd, ipf and adf formats?

 

XFD - High level "sector image" format for Atari 8-bit. The contents of each block on a legally formatted disk.

ADF - Same as XFD, but for the Amiga format.

IPF - Mastering format, similar to how the disks were originally mastered. Intended to contains and describe any copy protection on a disk.

 

Can KyroFlux be used for backing up protected atari disks?

 

 

Yes, as long as the disk doesn't have any physical protection (physical holes, etc.), you can back up to KryoFlux's low level "stream format". This contains any copy protection on the disk. You should know though that there are fundamental problems writing this kind of "raw read" back to disk (no matter what device you use) - kind of similar to the sort of problems you get copying VHS tapes. However, once you have the data in stream format, it is possible to use it in emulators, it is also possible to write it with some technical know-how (you need to know "how" to write it). That's just the problem you get with copy protection, whatever device you use to read it.

 

Thanks for the information.

 

Could XFD also contain information about copy protections?

 

Writing back an IPF to a disk seems to be difficult. But, I read a lot of success-stories in AMIGA forums about duplicating copy protected disks. And they seem to do it with IPF-Format.

 

My intend is the same as Bryans. I would like copy my original games like Archon II, which has a 34 sectors track as protection.

[fiath]

Could XFD also contain information about copy protections?

 

I don't really know much about the XFD format, but given it is a "sector"-based image format, I wouldn't think so.

 

Writing back an IPF to a disk seems to be difficult. But, I read a lot of success-stories in AMIGA forums about duplicating copy protected disks. And they seem to do it with IPF-Format.

 

 

Writing IPF images is easy (using KryoFlux). Producing the IPFs in the first place is hard. The Software Preservation Society currently does that for Amiga, Spectrum, Amstrad and Atari ST. There are no IPF images for 8-bit Atari yet (at least not from Softpres).

[malers]

I don't really know much about the XFD format, but given it is a "sector"-based image format, I wouldn't think so.

 

 

 

Writing IPF images is easy (using KryoFlux). Producing the IPFs in the first place is hard. The Software Preservation Society currently does that for Amiga, Spectrum, Amstrad and Atari ST. There are no IPF images for 8-bit Atari yet (at least not from Softpres).

 

Thanks.

Then, in my opinion, Kryoflux is not off high value for Atari 8 Bit world. I hope, that the The Software Preservation Society will support producing IPFs for Atari 8 Bit soon. Is it a manual process which they do for Amiga, Spectrum,.... or is it already sth automatical? And must it be done for each disk?

Edited April 10, 2012 by malers

[fiath]

Then, in my opinion, Kryoflux is not off high value for Atari 8 Bit world. I hope, that the The Software Preservation Society will support producing IPFs for Atari 8 Bit soon. Is it a manual process which they do for Amiga, Spectrum,.... or is it already sth automatical? And must it be done for each disk?

 

That's kinda the problem actually. SPS can't start producing IPF's for Atari 8-bit until we have enough images to do the appropriate research for the platform. We can't do that alone. We have some help, but we need lots of support for the each community in order to get things rolling.

 

As to whether KryoFlux is useful for Atari 8-bit, it really depends what you want to use it for. For writing images, then yes, clearly it is not appropriate for that at this time. However, if you want bit-for-bit images of what is on the disks for preservation purposes, then I think it is ideal - that is the very reason it was created.

 

For a supported platform, creating IPFs is mostly automatic - mainly it is a process of verification and double-checking - and that requires a lot of technical knowledge and familiarity with our tool chain. Of course, the initial support for the platform needs to be done, and any formats and copy protection not seen before would need more work.

Edited April 10, 2012 by fiath

[malers]

 

That's kinda the problem actually. SPS can't start producing IPF's for Atari 8-bit until we have enough images to do the appropriate research for the platform. We can't do that alone. We have some help, but we need lots of support for the each community in order to get things rolling.

 

As to whether KryoFlux is useful for Atari 8-bit, it really depends what you want to use it for. For writing images, then yes, clearly it is not appropriate for that at this time. However, if you want bit-for-bit images of what is on the disks for preservation purposes, then I think it is ideal - that is the very reason it was created.

 

For a supported platform, creating IPFs is mostly automatic - mainly it is a process of verification and double-checking - and that requires a lot of technical knowledge and familiarity with our tool chain. Of course, the initial support for the platform needs to be done, and any formats and copy protection not seen before would need more work.

 

What could I personally do to support SPS to support Atari 8 Bit on their side? I already wrote a request to SPS, asking about status on A8 plattform...