copy disk games

[mark]

i don't remember but can disk games be copied? if so, how?

[Nukey Shay]

It depends on the disk. Some disks (even some commercial ones), can be copied directly through Atari Dos. However, the majority of commercial titles used forms of copy-protection to hinder piracy. Many of them simply encorporated "bad sectors" on a disk...that is to say that the drive would timeout when attempting to read from them. The actual disk's boot program would safely skirt around these and/or verified that they exist. These can be created on any disk by using a sector writing routine. Basically, you'd slow the drive down so that the data would not be written correctly, and the sector would fail. This can be done by opening the drive and slowing down the RPM's via the drive speed adjust screw (located near the back of a 1050 drive...it's a tiny eyeglass-type screw on top of a small square box (it was colored blue on mine). By using a Dos that would report drive speed (like Dos 2.5F), you would be able to see the drive speed on the screen as you adjust the screw. Dos 2.5F would also write a given sector or a group of them. So the best way would be by running a disk analyser program to find all of the bad sectors for you, which you would have to re-create on the target disk.

Another method of copy-protection is so-called "phantom" sectors. These would give different results each time that the sector is read...so the software would just load the same sector twice. If the data matched, it would stop running.

Another method is a hardware modification to the drive itself that can analyze and create these methods on it's own (like the popular Happy Computer modification). The drawback is that the programs would only execute on a "Happy-equipped" drive.

The best way around any software copy-protection lies in altering the boot program itself (so it no longer does these checks). These are commonly known as "cracks", and you can sometimes find disk compilations of many of them (like the popular Backup Master series). After doing a direct Dos copy, you would apply the crack to the target disk.

[mark]

thanks for the reply Nukey. i ask this because i was wondering if anyone could copy games like zaxxon, choplifter, miner, robotron, or others for me. i didn't know how copying worked or how easy it is or how to do it.

 

i remember my dad copying disks back when but don't know what ones.

 

can games be copied? what kind of disks can't be copied and what can?

 

could games be copied somehow through the internet? what is atariDos?

[Goochman]

AtariDos is what you need to perform disk operations on the Atari computer series - similar to MS DOS on IBM's

 

Disk copying can be as simple as loading Atari DOS and doing a Disk Copy (option J).

 

Most commercial software had some protection which made it more difficult but most stuff was 'cracked' to have this removed. All the games you mentioned are available in unprotected form.

[Nukey Shay]

Yeah...with the advent of hardware like SIO2PC (which is available right here in AA's store), copying disks yourself is pretty irrelivant. Nearly everything ever written can be found archived someplace. You'd mount a downloaded disk image on the PC, and load it right up in the Atari computer (or use Dos to save it on an actual floppy).

 

BTW Atari Dos is the Disk Operating System that was included with the floppy disk drives. The disk contained both Dos.sys, which allows the computer to "speak" to the drive...and Dup.sys, which is the utility package needed to format and copy files and entire disks. For compatability's sake, most commercial software was written with the regular single-sided single-density Dos in mind. Dos 2.0 is the most common, while Dos 2.5 is the version that you'd need for Atari's "enhanced"-density disks. Dos 3 is incompatable with most everything...avoid it.

[oesii]

Nukey's description of writing bad sectors seemed incomplete. I remember recreating bad sectors on disks by attaching a piece of tape and yanking at the right time when the disk write program let you know you were at the sector. Anyone else remember this hairbrained scheme? My only defense is that I was 11

[Nukey Shay]

Yup...in effect you are slowing down the drive motor to create the bad sector. Since you can do this by turning a screw (and not putting undue stress on the drive itself), I didn't want to go into that method.

 

Definately not recommended if you need to create large numbers of bad sectors

[mark]

im interested in copying any games i can in disk form. do i need an orignal copy of the game or is there a way to do this from the internet?

 

i've never copied any atari game nor do i have atari dos (i think). do i need 2 disk drives?

 

i do have a disk that says "atari 800/810 DOS 2 DISK OS" would that be atari dos?

 

please excuse all the questions, i know nothing about operating anything on my 800 except for games, i just have a love for the computer and atari

[Nukey Shay]

You don't need two drives to copy disks, but it certianly makes the process quicker if you do. When you only have one drive, the original disk's data is put into available Ram in the computer...and then the screen prompts you to put the destination disk in the drive to write. The number of times you need to "swap" disks (putting each of them into the drive) depends on how much Ram you have in the computer...since a single-density disk can contain up to 88K of data. Passing data to Ram also occurs if you have two drives...but since you don't need to physically swap disks, you wouldn't notice it as much.

 

The disk you have appears to be the Atari Dos 2.0 master disk (the one that came with an Atari 810 drive). You can verify this yourself by turning the drive on, inserting the disk, and turning on the Atari computer connected to the drive. You should hear a series of "bleeps" on the monitor's speaker, this is Dos.sys being loaded into the computer. This part of Dos is always in memory after you boot a Dos disk...reducing Ram by about 6k or so. If the Basic cartridge is not inserted (or enabled on the XL series), the file Dup.sys will automatically load. If Basic is present, you will need to type DOS to get the file to load. This is the menu that you do the disk copying from.

 

Formatting disks:

Disks that you buy in stores cannot be directly used with the Atari drive...you need Dos to organize the disk into sectors that the computer can use. In the Dos menu, there is an option to format the disk. Insert the new disk in the drive and select it (you will also need to type the drive number (1) and confirm that you want to format (y)...since formatting a disk WILL destroy any data that was previously on the disk). Once the screen refreshes, the disk is ready to be used. If you are going to be copying an entire disk to it, you can skip the next 2 steps...

 

Dos.sys / Dup.sys

The disk you just created is completely blank (save for a couple of sectors that contain the disk directory). If you want the ability to "boot" that disk, you need to write the Dos files to it. There is another option on the screen to do this (write Dos files). If you select it, the two files on your master disk will be written to the new disk (in effect, creating another master disk). If you don't plan on using the Dos menu program with the new disk, you may delete Dup.sys to free up a bit more space.

 

Autorun.sys

When you boot a disk and Dos is loaded, the computer will automatically search for this file on the drive. If it exists, it is automatically loaded and executed. This file must be written in machine language.

 

Disk copying

If you are copying an entire disk, there is an option called "duplicate disk" in the menu. This method will copy the files that Dos recognises in the disk's file directory. This method of disk copying will not work if the disk directory cannot be found or displayed correctly (you can check to see if Dos can recognise it on the source disk by choosing the first option in the menu...if the directory is garbled or missing, the duplicate disk option will not work).

 

Sector copying

Since commercial disks usually contain their own version of Dos (one that Atari Dos cannot pull a directory from), you need to use this method of duplicating the disk. The Atari Dos menu normally does not contain this method of copying, but there are a few Dos versions that can (like Dos 2.5F)...as well as other disk copy programs (like Scanalyzer). This method of duplication ignores the file directory completely...and copies each sector to the target disk (there are 720 sectors on a 88k single-density disk). Keep in mind that if you are copying commercial software disks that contain "anti-piracy" methods explained in the previous post, you would need to create those as well (or use a crack that removes the routines). Since the actual method can vary from disk to disk, this could take a while

 

SIO2PC and Disk Images

There is a wealth of software that is already copied, cracked, unprotected, whatever you choose to call it...normally in the form of disk images. These are files that you can download directly to your PC and load into an emulator...and contain the entire disk's contents. But how to use them on an actual Atari computer? That's where the SIO2PC adapter comes in. It plugs into your PC's COM port, and you attach a cable to it to plug into the Atari computer. Basically, it treats your PC as a disk drive...allowing you to boot up the Atari computer from a disk image selected on the PC. Since you can "daisy chain" Atari equipment, you can plug this cable to the back of an actual Atari floppy drive and use the Duplicate Disk to create a floppy disk that will work just like the original. Highly recommended!

 

Whew! I need a vacation

[krisjohn]

The editiorial in the current www.retrogamingradio.com show discusses copy protection at length (from a historical more than technical perspective). Download the show and have a listen. There's been a bit of a discussion on the forums too...