Apple II disk Grrr.....

[BarryB]

The drive is a flippy modded Panasonic JU-475-5 bought from SPS. The disk is Infocom's Infidel on 5.25" and Apple DOS 3.3, 16 sector according to the label on the disk but get this issue everytime I dump using dtc -p -fname -i0 -i8 -l8:

Code: Select all

00.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 000, sec: 16
02.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
04.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <error>, trk: 002, sec: 16, mis: 12
06.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
08.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
10.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
12.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
14.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
16.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
18.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
20.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
22.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
24.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
26.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
28.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
30.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
32.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
34.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
36.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
38.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
40.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
42.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
44.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
46.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
48.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
50.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
52.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
54.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 027, sec: 16
56.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 028, sec: 16
58.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 029, sec: 16
60.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 030, sec: 16
62.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 031, sec: 16
64.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 032, sec: 16
66.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 033, sec: 16
68.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: OK, trk: 034, sec: 16
70.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
72.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
74.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
76.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
78.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
80.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>
82.0    : Apple DOS 3.3: <unformatted>

Tried -i8a, -dd1, -dd0 and taking the 'OP' jumper off the drive but get the same issue. I've read in the manual that the Panasonic has dificulty with A2 and the sample command: dtc -f<streamname> -i0 -f<imagename> -x0 -i8 -l8 -dd1 gives the same result.

So, is my Panasonic just not able to read A2 disks?

*Edit* Previous dump log was incorrect, inserted correct log!

[spags]

I don't know but maybe not. I have a few 5.25 drives that I use to get around similar problems to what you see here. When I do get this problem from one drive, it is not unusual to find that one of the other drive(s) is able to pick up other parts of the disk (or sometimes almost all of the disk).

I don't know how the software decides that the track is unformatted but maybe it is worthwhile looking at the GUI scatterplot to see if it really looks unformatted (or if there is a hint of something there). I believe they used software copy protection in Infocom titles but there would still be flux. Unfortunately I haven't had the pleasure of working on such disks so I can't give any meaningful info.

[BarryB]

Only one Infocom game title I think, Zork Quest: Assault On Egreth Castle on the C64, was ever protected and that used XEMAG but that wasn't the usual Infocom text adventure rather part of the Infocomics series!

Seeing as this is the only Apple II disk I have and I don't collect Apple stuff anyway, then i'm not going to worry if it dumps or not! Certainly not going to the extreme of buying another drive in the 'hope' it will dump for just one disk! I never use the gui, for some reason I can't get on with it so use dtc in a command window!

The fact the KF Manual says the Panasonic has difficulty with Apple II disks suggests this is the real issue so not going to waste anymore time on it.

[SomeGuy]

Try making just a Preservation stream dump, and feed it to the HxC disk tool. (See the "HxCFloppyEmulator software" Download link here: http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/ )

I've seen many cases where the Kroflux software will fail to decode a disk image, yet other tools will happily succeed.

[BarryB]

Yep, use that to check some Amiga dumps to see if they use IBM/ST format tracks.

Seeing as the disk is notchless it should be authentic and not be modified, unless a duplication error occurred? I do have one C64 flippy disk that's blank on side 0 but another copy I have is OK on side 0.

HxC shows I have 'something' on every even track up to Track 68 (34), but only shows T0 as having 16 sectors with data, T4 shows missing sectors/no data and rest show no data! But using dtc to make an image it shows 16 sectors on Tracks 27-34 yet HxC doesn't? Maybe my drive needs some jumpers changing? The one I changed labelled 'OP' was for 'Dual Mode (high density positive)', but made no difference if on or off!

Have uploaded original dump for analysis in APPLE2/BarryB.

[spags]

According to http://computist.applearchives.com/computist/, various Infocom Apple // titles used copy protection, including the one you are working on. I don't know how the software works but maybe that has something to do with it?

The info on that page for Infidel says it is the same protection used in Starcross, which certainly says the first track is normal, but the remaining tracks are protected by changing Start Of Data marks. This sort of happens to correspond with your first good track and then mostly weirdness from there (except for that chunk of good reads in the middle of the disk). It does sound like Stream is the way to go.

[BarryB]

Think I only dumped Side 0, should I dump it again as a flippy disk like C64?

Good to know it's protection, having never dealt with Apple disks until now I have no idea of any formats or protections. So looks like the dump is 'normal' for Apple Infocom disks and the 'good tracks' 27-34 are not used as from those articles Infidel only used tracks 0-26.

I know of AppleWin emulator that supports various images and found a DSK image of Infidel that works, so how to convert streams to DSK to test the disk?

[SomeGuy]

It is not possible to convert copy protected stream files to DSK images. DSK files only contain the contents of each sector and assume a perfect normal 140k disk. You would have to crack the software and remove all protection first. Likely that is what the image you found is, an unprotected version.

I am not aware of any Apple II emulators that support Kryoflux stream files.

[spags]

Yes, for your purposes I believe you will want to convert it to a NIB disk image.

[BarryB]

I was thinking DSK was like SamDISK that creates DSK imaged WITH copy protection, obviously A2 DSK images are not the same.

So how do we convert streams to NIB as not yet found anything that can do this?