Author: Steve (31-101.72-24-cpe.cableone.net)
Date: 12-16-2005 06:20
This is completely wrong.
In first place slowing down the drive (disregarding how you do it) cannot, and wasn’t designed, to copy tracks with 34 sectors.
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Ouch!! Really!!! OK, I just went and grabbed my copies of the ORIGINAL Happy 810, 1050 and autospeed mod documentation from my bookshelf……and guess what!!
The Autospeed mod docs say that that IS EXACTLY what is it for!!
“It is now possible to copy disks with more than 19 sectors per track”
Whoops, you’re bad!!
Do I need to mail you one of my 1-1 copies of The Seven Cities of Gold or M.U.L.E.?
Both have 34 sectors per track………………………
And yes, they were SMALL sectors the total data was equivalent to about 24 full sectors.
My BACKUPS of them are identical to the original with HUGE TRACKS INTACT….
Unbroken, un-copyable on a normal 810,,, but TOTALLY RUNABLE on a normal 810.
They were made on my 810 Happy with the drive motor turned down to 270RPM using Happy 5.6 in H.W.A. and /skew align/ mode.
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Protections with many sectors don’t have full sized sectors, the sectors are short or overlapped. They are not created slowing down the drive. Furthermore, those tracks on Electronic Arts disk you mention didn’t exist at that time. During the days of the Happy 810 ECA used skew alignment as protection.
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Awww,,, that’s “EOA” not ECA.. but since I typoed the drive speed in my first message as “170” RPM instead of “270” I let you go with that one…
BUT…….. The autospeed mod was released for the 810 AFTER these types of games hit the market. And specifically for that purpose. THE DOCS STATE THIS…
Skew align mode was just one of the methods they used…. EOA invented the 34 sector track.
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You can’t slow down the drive enough to write 34 sectors.
Slow-down mods were designed for formatting tracks with 20 full sectors. But even for this they are not very reliable. That was the main reason that the feature was discontinued in later Happy models.
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Negative,,,, it was done because it was CHEAPER for him and less complicated of an install for the user not to implement it in the 1050.
Since he had to go with the PDB system anyway it was easier to just use the PDB system to virtually "re-map" the disks sectors.
This is not the first time he chose the cheesy way out… Didn’t you ever wonder WHY he didn’t make the HBP work with a RAMDISK (like the sector copier would????)
Easy,,,, because if he did that,,,, you wouldn’t buy a second Happy Drive upgrade!
God forbid we be spared those 3 disk swaps every copy!!!!
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Not all disks that require a PDB need to be run on a Happy drive, actually most do not.
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Sure, that’s because on those disks, the PDB file is just setting copy options at the time of copy just like we USED to do MANUALLY with the old Happy software.
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And of course that this was not related in anyway to pressure or threats from the software industry. Disk that require a Happy at runtime have protections that simply they are not possible to copy with the Happy hardware (not even with a slow-down mod).
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Cough...Cough.... WRONG!
The 810 Happy with Autospeed mod will make a 1-1 copy of TSCOG or M.U.L.E.
Didn’t you EVER wonder WHY certain games that WERE PREVIOUSLY EASY to copy with an 810 Happy COULD NOT BE COPIED on a 1050 WITHOUT a PBD FILE???!?! (like TSCOG or M.U.L.E)??
The 1050 Happy WILL NOT make a 1-1 copy of MULE it will only make a PDB copy that will only run on the HAPPY drive. The 810 WILL>>>>>>>>>>
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Happy could have decided to enhance the hardware to cope with these new protections. But by that time the 8-bit was slowly dying and then Happy produced the Discovery Cartridge for the Atari ST. The Discovery Cartridge can copy all Atari 8-bit disks that I know.
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Let’s set the record straight here,,,,,,
In 1984 the owner of Happy Computers Incorporated came to a monthly meeting of our local computer group, L.A.C.E. (The Los Angles Atari Computer Enthusiast).
The PDB system was a LEGAL compromise!!! It HAD to be developed because he was facing legal pressure from the industry…primarily Sierra and EOA….
Also, the Happy hardware was physically capable of copying EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF ATARI SOFTWARE THAT WAS EVER MADE! with the exception of 2…
The first was Alternate Reality The Dungeon; (Due to the week bit technology)
And the second was "The Richman's 80 column word processor" (reason unknown)
And this word processor was the ONLY piece of Atari software that has NEVER been broken. It cannot be found on ANY FTP site. When you bought a copy, you got 3 from the manufacturer.
I have my originals. The disks have a Crescent –Moon shaped Laser burn in the media………….. very …. Very…… weird…
The copy protection will deliberately DESTROY THE DISK if used in a Happy drive… That’s how I lost copy #1… ;(
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