Back to the Roots Amiga-News 234
u6663...@spawnkill.ip-mobilphone.net
----------------------------------------
Hello Amiga friends,
does Microsoft still support Amiga freaks? Of course!
In a surprising move Microsoft allowed us to include the
golf simulations from Access Software, a company which
they acquired two years ago. Enjoy Leaderboard and World
Class Leaderboard! "Links" will come online soon, too.
Now you can ask yourself "Where do you want to play Golf
today?"
Please visit BTTR for a full list of all games which have
been added or you'll miss masterpieces like Realms,
Thexder, Mixed-Up Mother Goose, Super Skidmarks CD32 and
many others.
As usual many scene-demos, music files and pictures have
been added to our archive. Enjoy them all!
Respects from yours
Back to the Roots Team
Bobic + Hippie2000
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Rick Jones
> Back to the Roots Amiga-News 234
> ----------------------------------------
> Hello Amiga friends,
>
> Please visit BTTR for a full list of all games which have
> been added or you'll miss masterpieces like Realms,
> Thexder, Mixed-Up Mother Goose, Super Skidmarks CD32 and
> many others.
>
> As usual many scene-demos, music files and pictures have
> been added to our archive. Enjoy them all!
The biggest fault I have seen with B2R when I have looked there is
that all of the files are in adf format. That's almost useless for a
real Amigan. Have they changed anything and made the files available in
a more friendly format?
--
Rick Jones
Remove the Extra Dot to e-mail me
Bill Brownson
Rick,
1. you might try searching aminet for adf, seems like there are quite a
few
programs to read adf files on real amigas.
2. try fms device (somewhere on aminet)
3. try vodoo-x it reads non-ndos adfs and allows extacting individual
files.
Remember that an adf is (a)miga (d)isk (f)ile and it would be strange,
indeed
if an amiga could not read or use them.
Bill Brownson
Dirk Stoecker
> > The biggest fault I have seen with B2R when I have looked there is
> > that all of the files are in adf format. That's almost useless for a
> > real Amigan. Have they changed anything and made the files available in
> > a more friendly format?
ADF/ADZ is one of the best disk formats nowadays (due to the fact, that it
is only a raw image). All the others have serious flaws.
> 3. try vodoo-x it reads non-ndos adfs and allows extacting individual
> files.
Well, it normally reads only DOS-ADF's. Thought some of these are with
alien filesystems like SanityOS-FS, FAT-FS, and some Game or Demo FS's.
But they are still valid filesystems (Even C64 disks and tapes can be
read with current version :-).
There are many games which do not have this form and these cannot be
extracted with Voodoo-X at all.
P.S. The xadUnDisk tool can be used to write the ADF's back to disk (which
is installed in case you can use Voodoo-X). Or next version Voodoo-X 2.
Ciao
__
____ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ ____
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|____| _|_ |____| _|_ _|_ |____| I hope AMIGA never stops making fun!
Ross Vumbaca
Dirk Stoecker wrote:
> > 3. try vodoo-x it reads non-ndos adfs and allows extacting individual
> > files.
>
> Well, it normally reads only DOS-ADF's. Thought some of these are with
> alien filesystems like SanityOS-FS, FAT-FS, and some Game or Demo FS's.
> But they are still valid filesystems (Even C64 disks and tapes can be
> read with current version :-).
> There are many games which do not have this form and these cannot be
> extracted with Voodoo-X at all.
>
> P.S. The xadUnDisk tool can be used to write the ADF's back to disk (which
> is installed in case you can use Voodoo-X). Or next version Voodoo-X 2.
I don't why people bother. If you want to write an ADF back to disk,
regardless of it's logical format, you use the simple yet effective
"transdisk" that comes with all the Amiga emulators e.g UAE (the people
who invented ADF).
Regards,
Ross..
Bill Brownson
Ross,
three points:
1. We were talking about people with real Amigas using adf files
2. adf files were not invented by the uae authors.It was originally
used
on real amigas using the fms.device to allow virtual floppy
drives.
You can transfer an adf file to the fms device by renaming it to
Unit0, Unit1 etc.
If I remember right, that is from Matt Dillon and was over 8
years
ago.
3. On a real amiga, image2disk (aminet) is probably the easiest way
to
create adf files
Bill Brownson
Jesper Andersen
"Bill Brownson" <brow...@lipan.net> skrev i en meddelelse
news:872499330874.N...@news.lipan.net...
But the transdisk program IS an amiga executable! And you can use it to
write .adf files back to real amiga floppies.
Jesper
Bill Brownson
Jesper,
writing adf's to disk is one way to use adf files. The point is that
unless an adf contains a custom boot block, a large number of these adf
files can be transfered to a hard disk without using a floppy. voodoo-x
will do this. There is also a file.device somewhere on aminet. It
allows you mount file0: and appears on the workbench as a floppy. The
fms.device will also allow you to do this.
These all allow access to adf file from the hard disk.
Bill Brownson
Bill Brownson
John Burns
Doh, obviously you don't use a real Amiga or understand what an adf file is..
The adf format is not an Amiga native one but a system used for emulating amiga disks
on PCs. adf is in fact no different to DMS or similar programs and as such whilst
readable on an Amiga can hardly be called native.
Bill Brownson
Doh,
I do use an real amiga, and I can document the fact. The adf format is
not a
compressed format like DMS. ADF is not native (in the sense that
amiga's came with it), but it most certanly was developed on the amiga.
Check out Fred Fish 294, FMS device by Matt Dillon, first distributed on
12/11/89. That date preceeds and UAE be several years.
You might also check out FF 134(1988) for a program called Library with
my name on it.
I dont think that that version will work with Fast Memory.
Bill Brownson
Ross Vumbaca
Bill Brownson wrote:
> Ross,
>
> three points:
>
> 1. We were talking about people with real Amigas using adf files
>
> 2. adf files were not invented by the uae authors.It was originally
> used
> on real amigas using the fms.device to allow virtual floppy
> drives.
> You can transfer an adf file to the fms device by renaming it to
> Unit0, Unit1 etc.
> If I remember right, that is from Matt Dillon and was over 8
> years
> ago.
ADF itself is nothing special, just a disk image, perhaps what I should
have said is that the name was made up by the UAE authors (unless that
is wrong too).
> 3. On a real amiga, image2disk (aminet) is probably the easiest way
> to
> create adf files
My point was in relation to games, the majority of the disks on bttr are
games, and there would not be much point in accessing them as a mounted
device, especially non-dos disks.
Regards,
Ross..
--
*TO E-MAIL ME: Reverse the order of the domain name in my e-mail
address.*
Ross Vumbaca, a 'poor' Uni student at USyd.edu.au
http://members.optushome.com.au/rossv1
Flagship: Amiga 3000 (030/25), GVP Spectrum, C= A2065,
12Mb Fast/2Mb Chip, HD FDD, 9.1G-UW-SCSI (connected to A3000 SCSI),
Kickstart 3.1 (40.68), OS 3.9, Linux m68k 2.2 (Debian 2.2r0).
A pc.
--
Marcin
> Remember that an adf is (a)miga (d)isk (f)ile and it would be strange,
> indeed
> if an amiga could not read or use them.
Not to mention, that they are created on Amiga, since it's extremely
difficult to make PC read Amiga disks.
> Bill Brownson
--
Marcin "GumBoy" Graziowski
Private Amiga Portal redaction member
http://www.ppa.o.k.pl
Marcin
> The biggest fault I have seen with B2R when I have looked there is
> that all of the files are in adf format. That's almost useless for a
> real Amigan.
Why?
Can't you unpack the ADFs using Amiga? That's not a problem for most
users. If you don't mind DMS, why should you ADF?
> Have they changed anything and made the files available in
> a more friendly format?
Nope. I don't think so. They propably adress the page mainly to UAE
users.
CebollinO
well,take care with archives in b2r.......there are virus.
Ive found 4 example a NICE and BEAUTIFUL ebola virus inside fussball total
best regards 4 the group
CebollinO
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Hidehiko Ogata
> I don't why people bother. If you want to write an ADF back to disk,
> regardless of it's logical format, you use the simple yet effective
> "transdisk" that comes with all the Amiga emulators e.g UAE (the people
> who invented ADF).
Or ITD of the WHDLoad suite, even. AFAIK uncompressed ADF is nothing
more than a straight dump of the standard floppy disk format (i.e.
512bytes*11blocks*80tracks*2sides).
--
// }{idehiko ()gata "Life! Don't talk to me about life."
\X/ Amiga since '86 - Marvin the paranoid android
RIP Douglas Adams 1952-2001
Mika Hanhijärvi
AdfBlitzer is much better because it's easier to use. It has GUI :)
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Mika Hanhijärvi
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Dirk Stoecker
As the original poster said: Voodoo-X allows to read the disk without
writing back to floppy first. Nowadays, where usually everyone uses
harddisks and CD it is really a mess to write a disk first before beeing
able to read it. And after writing a SanityOS-disk back to disk you are
still unable to read it's contents.
And about xadUnDisk. It comes with OS3.9, so why bothering about transdisk
which comes with emulators, which noone needs if he has a real Amiga :-)
And which BTW cannot write DMS as well.
Mika Hanhijärvi
No it's not useless for real Amiga users. I think it's just as easy to
write adf-file to flopydisk as it is easy to to write dms files. You
just need a small tool. One quite good tool is AdfBlitzer, you can
download it from Aminet.
Mika Hanhijärvi
ADF is not compressed diskimage like DMS.
Angus Manwaring
>> u6663...@spawnkill.ip-mobilphone.net wrote:
>> The biggest fault I have seen with B2R when I have looked there is
>> that all of the files are in adf format. That's almost useless for a
>> real Amigan. Have they changed anything and made the files available in
>> a more friendly format?
>No it's not useless for real Amiga users. I think it's just as easy to
>write adf-file to flopydisk as it is easy to to write dms files. You
>just need a small tool. One quite good tool is AdfBlitzer, you can
>download it from Aminet.
But am I right in thinking that AdfBlitzer can't write to virtual floppies
like FF0: etc?
All the best,
Angus Manwaring. (for e-mail remove ANTISPEM)
I need your memories for the Amiga Games Database: A collection of Amiga
Game reviews by Amiga players http://www.angusm.demon.co.uk/AGDB/AGDB.html
Bill Brownson
Angus,
Sorry, but you are wrong. (if you don't want an answer.... ;<) ) there
is no difference between and adf file and a virtual floppy like ff0:
except the name. use {image2disk|adfblitzer|whatever} and write to
unit0 with no extension, and it is ff0: and can be accessed as a virtual
floppy.
Bill Brownson
Paul Copsey
Bill Brownson <brow...@lipan.net> wrote:
> On 21 Nov 2001 23:57:55 +0000, "Angus Manwaring" wrote:
>> But am I right in thinking that AdfBlitzer can't write to virtual floppies
>> like FF0: etc?
> Sorry, but you are wrong. (if you don't want an answer.... ;<) ) there
> is no difference between and adf file and a virtual floppy like ff0:
> except the name. use {image2disk|adfblitzer|whatever} and write to
> unit0 with no extension, and it is ff0: and can be accessed as a virtual
> floppy.
Or find where the virtual floppy files are stored, and dump the adf in
there, rename to suit, and mount the disk.
Paul
John Burns
Sorry Bill, maybe I was being unfair in my comment about what machine you're
using. However, my point still stands that adf is not an Amiga native format as
you yourself agree. Let's face it we can read PC formatted disks but that doesn't
make them any more native than adf. I never said that adf's were compressed and
my analogy with DMS was merely that they both create disk images, granted albeit
in different ways. I also agree with the lineage of adf but in these modern times
this is what adf files are mostly used for.
Bill Brownson
No problem. My only concern is that people think that adf's are only for
the emulators. They are perfect for the amiga users also, if amiga
users would learn to use them. They are ideal for transfering an entire
diskette. I have replaced 3.5" drive several times, and each time it is
more expensive.
There is a hack on aminet somewhere to use an image from the Dungeon
Master and effectivly boot from it. I wish someone would come up with a
generalized method of effectivly booting from and adf without having to
transfer them to floppies.
Bill Brownson
Tim
"Hidehiko Ogata" <h...@aqu.bekkoame.ne.jp> wrote:
> .....[snip]..... AFAIK uncompressed ADF is nothing
> more than a straight dump of the standard floppy disk
> format (i.e. 512bytes*11blocks*80tracks*2sides).
If I remember correctly, the DMS format did have some problems with
certain disks (DMS did have a few quirks). Using something else, e.g.
ADF, that's virtually nothing more than a straight dump, bypasses any
such problems. I don't think DMS has been updated in ages.
It also allows you, when suitable, to avoid using floppies completely
(that's possible with unpacking DMS archives, too, but a bit
fiddlier). Many people have floppies that have died of old age, by
now. And trying to buy blank DSDD floppies is very difficult (around
here, at least).
Aaron Brigati
news:87251287222548....@news.lipan.net...
> There is a hack on aminet somewhere to use an image from the Dungeon
> Master and effectivly boot from it. I wish someone would come up with a
> generalized method of effectivly booting from and adf without having to
> transfer them to floppies.
Why not unpack the disk images to RAD: and boot from that?
(I'd give it a shot but my Amiga's all torn apart for repair right now. :/ )
Jesper Andersen
> writing adf's to disk is one way to use adf files. The point is that
> unless an adf contains a custom boot block, a large number of these adf
> files can be transfered to a hard disk without using a floppy. voodoo-x
> will do this. There is also a file.device somewhere on aminet. It
> allows you mount file0: and appears on the workbench as a floppy. The
> fms.device will also allow you to do this.
>
> These all allow access to adf file from the hard disk.
>
> Bill Brownson
I thought you meant that the transferdisk was a PC exe. Sorry :)
Bill Brownson
No problem. Once we all agree on what we are talking about there really
is no argument except about the BEST way to accomplish what we want.
Bill Brownson
Ross Vumbaca
Mika Hanhijärvi wrote:
> AdfBlitzer is much better because it's easier to use. It has GUI :)
GUIs are for wimps! ;)
Marcin
wrote:
> > But the transdisk program IS an amiga executable! And you can use it to
> > write .adf files back to real amiga floppies.
>
> AdfBlitzer is much better because it's easier to use. It has GUI :)
Well, my transdisk also has GUI. Made in Argue by on of my friends :)
Marcin
> There is a hack on aminet somewhere to use an image from the Dungeon
> Master and effectivly boot from it. I wish someone would come up with a
> generalized method of effectivly booting from and adf without having to
> transfer them to floppies.
BTW Has anyone tried to use ADF as disk images for WHDLoad just by
giving them proper names?
Without writing them to any drive and installing the game with WHDLoad
then.
> Bill Brownson
Marcin
> Why not unpack the disk images to RAD: and boot from that?
> (I'd give it a shot but my Amiga's all torn apart for repair right now. :/ )
Because RAD: wont boot NDOS disk for example ;)
Gl...@canit.se
+Aaron Brigati <abri...@catsden.net> wrote
That work sometimes, but often NDOS games are hardcoded to DF0:
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Tim
>> Why not unpack the disk images to RAD: and boot from that?
>> (I'd give it a shot but my Amiga's all torn apart for repair
>> right now. :/ )
On 23 Nov 2001 20:01:29 +0200,
"Marcin "GumBoy" Graziowski" <sirh...@interia.pl> wrote:
> Because RAD: wont boot NDOS disk for example ;)
I'm sure that I managed to unpack an NDOS DMS file to one of the RAD:
alternatives, and boot from it.
(This is ages ago, so I can't really remember anything specific.)
Darklord JonnyDigital
many ISP's spam filters. Much of the spam sent nowadays has a three or
four digit number at the end to the subject lines.
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no-...@nospam.com
>"Bill Brownson" <brow...@lipan.net> wrote in message
>news:87251287222548....@news.lipan.net...
>> There is a hack on aminet somewhere to use an image from the Dungeon
>> Master and effectivly boot from it. I wish someone would come up with a
>> generalized method of effectivly booting from and adf without having to
>> transfer them to floppies.
>
See the updated FAQ for coolness with HFM. :-)
Marcin
> > Because RAD: wont boot NDOS disk for example ;)
>
> I'm sure that I managed to unpack an NDOS DMS file to one of the RAD:
> alternatives, and boot from it.
Are you really sure?
I have never managed to boot RAD: with NDOS bootblock. It boots as the
normal DOS bootblock and then say "Not a DOS disk in drive RAD:".
Maybe you managed to do so on one of the RAD: alternatives, but are you
sure about the RAD: itself (not an any replacement)?
Darklord JonnyDigital
<sirh...@interia.pl> said:
> Can't you unpack the ADFs using Amiga? That's not a problem for most
> users. If you don't mind DMS, why should you ADF?
Personally, the only problem I would have with ADFs is that they are
sometimes too large to bring over to my Amiga on a 720k disk - even when
zipped. A DMS file has much the same problem, although it does have the
useful ability to split and combine an ADF quite easily.
The only problem I can see with an ADF on a real Amiga - I'm
sure someone's mentioned it already - is that you need to have an actual
floppy disk to unpack the game onto, when it may be more suitable to
unzip it to the Amiga's hard drive.
Read DMS_Sucks.txt on Aminet, I forget what directory it's on
(docs/misc?). It's on Aminet Set 3, IIRC.
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Stot
hard drive as a floppy drive. You can have 15 880k floppies, 15 1.76mb
floppies, 15 720k PC floppies and 15 1.44mb PC floppies all mounted on your
desktop at once. :)
Stot
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Nathan
Darklord JonnyDigital wrote:
> The only problem I can see with an ADF on a real Amiga - I'm
> sure someone's mentioned it already - is that you need to have an actual
> floppy disk to unpack the game onto, when it may be more suitable to
> unzip it to the Amiga's hard drive.
Nope. Just download Transdisk (or equivalent - that's just what
I always used), mount a RAD: device and extract the files to that.
Guaranteed way to extract the disks successfully without the
pain/slowness/errors resulting from real floppy-disks.
On my real Amiga I always preferred ADF/ADZ over DMS. ..Used nice
standard publicly documented formats (raw sector-dump + zip), and
always widely supported.
Nathan.
Nathan
Marcin GumBoy Graziowski wrote:
> On Sun, 25 Nov 2001 00:02:34 +1030, Tim wrote:
>>I'm sure that I managed to unpack an NDOS DMS file to one of the RAD:
>>alternatives, and boot from it.
>
> Are you really sure?
> I have never managed to boot RAD: with NDOS bootblock. It boots as the
> normal DOS bootblock and then say "Not a DOS disk in drive RAD:".
Yup.
RAD: can *not* boot non-dos disks. I use it a lot. Used it for
all of my ADF -> Virtual Disk -> ADZ conversions, to avoid the
unreliable nature of genuine disks. (Great for setting stuff up
to burn to CD on my (real) A4000.)
And sure enough, if the Amiga was ever reset when one of those
NDOS RAD: disks was mounted, the OS just sat there and complained.
If there's a way to boot them (and I understand there is) then it's
*not* via the standard commodore RAD: device.
Nathan.
Tim
On Sun, 25 Nov 2001 00:02:34 +1030, Tim wrote:
>> I'm sure that I managed to unpack an NDOS DMS file to one of the RAD:
>> alternatives, and boot from it.
On 25 Nov 2001 19:38:17 +0200,
"Marcin "GumBoy" Graziowski" <sirh...@interia.pl> wrote:
> Are you really sure?
> I have never managed to boot RAD: with NDOS bootblock. It boots as the
> normal DOS bootblock and then say "Not a DOS disk in drive RAD:".
>
> Maybe you managed to do so on one of the RAD: alternatives, but are you
> sure about the RAD: itself (not an any replacement)?
I'm fairly sure that I did manage to do what I said. And only with a
RAD: alternative. Certainly never with the real RAD: I never even
got the real RAD: to be bootable, with any format of disk.
th...@math.tu-berlin.de
> I'm fairly sure that I did manage to do what I said. And only with a
> RAD: alternative. Certainly never with the real RAD: I never even
> got the real RAD: to be bootable, with any format of disk.
A RAD: *is* bootable provided you don't install a patch to prevent it
from being reset resident. You just have to make sure that a) the
floppy image contains no "raw MFM data", hence consists of valid AmigaOs
encoded data, and b) it does have a boot block. a) and b) are requirements
for any reset resident RAM disk, though, and RAD: is in no way different.
Various patches exist that move the RAD: from auto-config memory
(chip memory in worst case) to fast, non-autoconfiguring memory. Then RAD:
is no longer reset resident, and therefore not bootable.
So long,
Thomas
Tim
>> I'm fairly sure that I did manage to do what I said. And only with a
>> RAD: alternative. Certainly never with the real RAD: I never even
>> got the real RAD: to be bootable, with any format of disk.
On 27 Nov 2001 17:32:33 CET, th...@math.tu-berlin.de wrote:
> A RAD: *is* bootable provided you don't install a patch to prevent it
> from being reset resident. You just have to make sure that a) the
> floppy image contains no "raw MFM data", hence consists of valid AmigaOs
> encoded data, and b) it does have a boot block. a) and b) are requirements
> for any reset resident RAM disk, though, and RAD: is in no way different.
>
> Various patches exist that move the RAD: from auto-config memory
> (chip memory in worst case) to fast, non-autoconfiguring memory. Then RAD:
> is no longer reset resident, and therefore not bootable.
If I remember correctly, and this was ages ago, I could sometimes get
it survive, if I specified chip RAM. But using fast RAM was out of
the equation (most likely due to how my accelerator resets itself at
reboot).
Using something else other than "RAD:" such as StatRAM: (I think) did
allow me to keep a recoverable RAM drive after a reboot. But the
Workbench supplied one wasn't going to do so.
Marcin
> Nope. Just download Transdisk (or equivalent - that's just what
> I always used), mount a RAD: device and extract the files to that.
> Guaranteed way to extract the disks successfully without the
> pain/slowness/errors resulting from real floppy-disks.
And whole operation is much more faster than in case of DMS. Even with
Verification flag turned on.
> Nathan.
Marcin
[SNIP HERE]
> And sure enough, if the Amiga was ever reset when one of those
> NDOS RAD: disks was mounted, the OS just sat there and complained.
>
> If there's a way to boot them (and I understand there is) then it's
> *not* via the standard commodore RAD: device.
So it is as I said :)
No possibility of booting NDOS disk via RAD:
> Nathan.
Jean-François Fabre
Tim wrote:
If the game uses only the OS to read tracks, and if it does it properly
(e.g. Rocket Ranger), then it is possible.
If the game uses trackdisk.device (hardcoded), it is possible to hack
the prog to replace it by e.g. ramdrive.device with a hex editor.
If the game uses custom register hardware banging (dskdat) to read
tracks, then even if disk has got DOS tracks or even DOS files (Sensible
Soccer), then you need a patch (check www.whdload.de)
Jff
Kieron Wilkinson
not protected (but then it would not be on ADF anyway ;)
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"Aaron Brigati" <abri...@catsden.net> wrote in message
news:9tj5j4$mte$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
Kieron Wilkinson
surprising since most DD floppies are bound to be 5+ years old. ;)
--
Kieron Wilkinson
CAPS - The Classic Amiga Preservation Society
http://www.caps-project.org
"Tim" <T...@localhost.invalid> wrote in message
news:vnlpvt889dk17qrf3...@4ax.com...
Kieron Wilkinson
Actually thinking about it, RAD doesn't like track-loading disks either I
seem to recall. Shame that, would have been great for downloading demos. :)
Just workbench legal disks then.
--
Kieron Wilkinson
CAPS - The Classic Amiga Preservation Society
http://www.caps-project.org
"Kieron Wilkinson" <ca...@caps-project.org> wrote in message
news:9u6k3u$kgk$1...@plutonium.btinternet.com...
Kieron Wilkinson
doesn't. Quite a few of the WHD installs read more or less information than
the actual disk and many read disks in special ways to get data that ADF
cannot hold (i.e. for protected disks).
--
Kieron Wilkinson
CAPS - The Classic Amiga Preservation Society
http://www.caps-project.org
"Marcin GumBoy Graziowski" <sirh...@interia.pl> wrote in message
news:87271201499434....@news.tpi.pl...
Marcel DeVoe
> And the ones you can get are usually very unreliable, but then that is not
> surprising since most DD floppies are bound to be 5+ years old. ;)
I find DD floppies to be *quite* reliable compared to HD floppies.
Mine still work quite well. I have some original games, some cover disks
and even some Fred Fish disks that are at *least* 10 years old or more
that I still can read no problem.
I think the reliability problem that most people have is the old drives at
fault and not the disks themselves or when you mistreat the floppies
such as storing them in a hot attic or in a damp basement. You wouldn't
do that with your old audio cassetes either. I keep my floppies in shoe
boxes in the closet of my living space at normalised temperatures and
humidity.
--
Marcel J. DeVoe - mde...@shore.net - Team *AMIGA*
A4091scsi CV64 96 megs CDRW M1764-17" Catweasel FUSION/Emplant
A4000/060 CyberStorm MKII overclocked 66mhz - see "How to Overclock!"
and "DIY A4000 Tower for $45" @ http://www.shore.net/~mdevoe
Kieron Wilkinson
"Marcel DeVoe" <mde...@shore.net> wrote in message
news:3gHN7.162$df.2...@news.shore.net...
> In comp.sys.amiga.misc Kieron Wilkinson <ca...@caps-project.org> wrote:
> > And the ones you can get are usually very unreliable, but then that is
not
> > surprising since most DD floppies are bound to be 5+ years old. ;)
>
> I find DD floppies to be *quite* reliable compared to HD floppies.
Do you mean using generally or using HD floppies as DD floppies? I have
heard of the later quite a bit (did have not any problems myself, but then I
did not do that very much - only when I was desperate for a blank disk...) -
but what I actually meant was the reliability compared to other mediums,
Hard Disk, CD etc.
> Mine still work quite well. I have some original games, some cover disks
> and even some Fred Fish disks that are at *least* 10 years old or more
> that I still can read no problem.
For part of my CAPS collection I have some floppies that are just about 15
years old, and seem to be perfectly fine. (this is very good for what we are
doing at CAPS thank goodness) and I make sure to keep them *well* away from
anything that might adversly effect them.
Anyway, my quote of 5 years is apparently the reliable life span on a normal
floppy disk, something that I read somewhere. Admitedly this is probably for
disks assumed to be:
1) In active use
2) Used for writing as well as reading
It is great that many disks are lasting this long, I hope they last longer,
but ultimately it will not be forever. I have had a few disks that have been
always kept as carefully as I can, but have still died over the years.
<plug> This is why CAPS exists </plug>
> I think the reliability problem that most people have is the old drives at
> fault and not the disks themselves or when you mistreat the floppies
> such as storing them in a hot attic or in a damp basement. You wouldn't
> do that with your old audio cassetes either. I keep my floppies in shoe
> boxes in the closet of my living space at normalised temperatures and
> humidity.
Bad drives, good point. I had not thought of that. A silly story in fact,
when I was dumping my original disk collection (yes, for CAPS ;) I was also
playing the games to make sure they worked. I was really shocked to find
that in a half of one disk box - all the disks were really faulty. I thought
that I must have left the box near a magnet or something. Anyway, I tried
one on my A1200 (not on the A500 I was playtesting them on) and it worked
fine! - I eventually realised that it was in fact my drive. After that they
all played fine! A big relief, there are a couple of semi-rare ones in that
box!
Casper
RJ> The biggest fault I have seen with B2R when I have looked there is
RJ> that all of the files are in adf format. That's almost useless for a
RJ> real Amigan. Have they changed anything and made the files available in
RJ> a more friendly format?
Converting ADF back to an Amiga format is a very simple thing.
Check Aminet for several utilities that will do this very quickly.
Also, a curious thing is that an ADF image is the exact same
size as an Amiga Hard Floppy. For instance if you use HFM
to make Amiga Hard Floppies usnig the fmsdisk.device they
number themselves unit0, unit1, unit2, etc. for each one you
format and mount.
Now take an ADF image and change the name of it to
unit0, unit1, etc., or whatever and mount it using HFM.
You will have a hard floppy that is just like an Amiga disk. :)
Anyway, there are several utilities on Aminet that will write
ADF disk images back to Amiga Floppies or hard floppies.
regards,
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted with Amiga NewsRog
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Casper
S> I use VirtualFloppy to unpack any ADFs I need to. It mounts a file on your
S> hard drive as a floppy drive. You can have 15 880k floppies, 15 1.76mb
S> floppies, 15 720k PC floppies and 15 1.44mb PC floppies all mounted on your
S> desktop at once. :)
S> Stot
Indeed! :) VirtualFloppy is very cool!
Iggy Drougge
: "RJ" == "Rick Jones" writes:
: RJ> The biggest fault I have seen with B2R when I have looked there is
: RJ> that all of the files are in adf format. That's almost useless for a
: RJ> real Amigan. Have they changed anything and made the files available in
: RJ> a more friendly format?
: Converting ADF back to an Amiga format is a very simple thing.
: Check Aminet for several utilities that will do this very quickly.
: Anyway, there are several utilities on Aminet that will write
: ADF disk images back to Amiga Floppies or hard floppies.
They haven't worked very well in my experience, though. Some disks work,
some not. I suppose they might work with the original Transdisk bundled
with UAE, but that prog takes three hours to write a single disk!
I really can't see why anyone would use that ADF format. It's big, without
built-in compression. Why can't they use DMS like everyone else?
--
En ligne avec Tin 1.4.
Darren Carter
> : Anyway, there are several utilities on Aminet that will write
> : ADF disk images back to Amiga Floppies or hard floppies.
>
> They haven't worked very well in my experience, though. Some disks work,
> some not. I suppose they might work with the original Transdisk bundled
> with UAE, but that prog takes three hours to write a single disk!
> I really can't see why anyone would use that ADF format. It's big, without
> built-in compression. Why can't they use DMS like everyone else?
>
> --
Try ADFBlitzer.... never had a problem with it.
Iggy Drougge
: <snip>
: Try ADFBlitzer.... never had a problem with it.
Didn't work out on Turrican, which is what I really feel like pirating.
Bloody emu-kiddies.
--
En ligne avec Tin 1.4.2.
Kieron Wilkinson
"Iggy Drougge" <opt...@canit.se> wrote in message
news:XtpX7.2289$O5....@nntpserver.swip.net...
> Casper <cas...@netnet.net> skrev:
> They haven't worked very well in my experience, though. Some disks work,
> some not. I suppose they might work with the original Transdisk bundled
Well that is probably because your disk either has copy protection that the
ADF format does not support (see CAPS in sig) or the disk is bad or the adf
util is knackered.
> with UAE, but that prog takes three hours to write a single disk!
> I really can't see why anyone would use that ADF format. It's big, without
> built-in compression. Why can't they use DMS like everyone else?
Because DMS is a hacked about non-standard, with many version from different
cracking groups each one hacked about from another. It has bugs and
sometimes assumes that tracks are empty (when they are not) and as such does
not bother to store them.
I do not think that "everybody else" uses DMS. Only those *few* who do not
know why DMS is a bad thing to use.
ADF is actually more "Amiga" like. Think of ROM images for a second, they
are the exact data image of what was on a ROM chip, and are usually
compressed with ZIP or something. ADF's are just the same for the Amiga.
This has nothing to do with emulation, just preservation and storage.
Anyway, use what you like using, I use ADF's and I know many other Amiga
users that use ADF too, there is an interesting thread on The English Amiga
Board (http://eab.abime.net/) about this exact same thing, hang on... :
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?s=98aef3fb0f3a99e5bec19d2c2b3f90b6&threa
did=1834&highlight=disk+images
You might like the first post: "Screw ADFs: Good ole DMS format, nothing
else." :))
But you will be able to see the arguments against DMS and why *technically*
it really should not be used anymore unless you have stuff in that format
already.
Kieron Wilkinson
> Didn't work out on Turrican, which is what I really feel like pirating.
> Bloody emu-kiddies.
Is that an original disk? If so, you probably will not be able to use DMS
anyway. You could always help CAPS (see site in sig) and you will get a real
image of your original disk.
Anyway, Factor 5 have backup on their site, but I think you need to own the
actual game:
These are using ADF ext, which is a format design specifically to backup the
Factor 5 original games, but is not much good for any copy protection that
is different to the one used by Factor 5. I do not know if these images can
be written back to disk however.
p.s. As I said in the other post, IMO it is not a Emu thing, it is a
preservation / storage thing. ADF is bigger in the Amiga world than DMS, as
far as I can tell - and rightly so.
Iggy Drougge
: "Iggy Drougge" <opt...@canit.se> wrote in message
: news:f7FZ7.3280$O5....@nntpserver.swip.net...
:> Didn't work out on Turrican, which is what I really feel like pirating.
:> Bloody emu-kiddies.
: Is that an original disk? If so, you probably will not be able to use DMS
: anyway. You could always help CAPS (see site in sig) and you will get a real
: image of your original disk.
DMS is what's always been used in the pirate world.
: Anyway, Factor 5 have backup on their site, but I think you need to own the
: actual game:
: These are using ADF ext, which is a format design specifically to backup the
: Factor 5 original games, but is not much good for any copy protection that
: is different to the one used by Factor 5. I do not know if these images can
: be written back to disk however.
Then what good are they?
: p.s. As I said in the other post, IMO it is not a Emu thing, it is a
: preservation / storage thing. ADF is bigger in the Amiga world than DMS, as
: far as I can tell - and rightly so.
True, ADF is bigger, since it's uncompressed. ;-)
But frankly, the only reason for ADF to be bigger would be because it's
big in the emu world. It was after all created for UAE, it's not even a
native format. The only time I've seen it appear in an Amiga setting was
in the Demos drawer of an AmigActive CD, and I can't for the life of me
understand why they used ADF instead of DMS.
Iggy Drougge
: "Iggy Drougge" <opt...@canit.se> wrote in message
: news:XtpX7.2289$O5....@nntpserver.swip.net...
:> Casper <cas...@netnet.net> skrev:
:> They haven't worked very well in my experience, though. Some disks work,
:> some not. I suppose they might work with the original Transdisk bundled
: Well that is probably because your disk either has copy protection that the
: ADF format does not support (see CAPS in sig) or the disk is bad or the adf
: util is knackered.
I'm attempting to write an ADF image onto a disk. I've tried several
disks, several Amigas and several drives. And several utilities. I haven't
tried transdisk yet, since it takes half a day (literally!) and makes
terrible sounds.
:> with UAE, but that prog takes three hours to write a single disk!
:> I really can't see why anyone would use that ADF format. It's big, without
:> built-in compression. Why can't they use DMS like everyone else?
: Because DMS is a hacked about non-standard, with many version from different
: cracking groups each one hacked about from another. It has bugs and
: sometimes assumes that tracks are empty (when they are not) and as such does
: not bother to store them.
That's bad.
: I do not think that "everybody else" uses DMS. Only those *few* who do not
: know why DMS is a bad thing to use.
Then what do they use? Consider that the ADF format is mostly used to
store disks produced before 1995, and the the ADF format was invented
after 1995.
: ADF is actually more "Amiga" like. Think of ROM images for a second, they
: are the exact data image of what was on a ROM chip, and are usually
: compressed with ZIP or something. ADF's are just the same for the Amiga.
: This has nothing to do with emulation, just preservation and storage.
But DMS isn't about preservation and storage, it's about cramming disks
onto other disks or sending them across telephone lines, to be recreated
at the other end.
: Anyway, use what you like using, I use ADF's and I know many other Amiga
: users that use ADF too, there is an interesting thread on The English Amiga
: Board (http://eab.abime.net/) about this exact same thing, hang on... :
: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?s=98aef3fb0f3a99e5bec19d2c2b3f90b6&threa
: did=1834&highlight=disk+images
: You might like the first post: "Screw ADFs: Good ole DMS format, nothing
: else." :))
Yes, I agree. At least until something better, with wide support, comes
along.
: But you will be able to see the arguments against DMS and why *technically*
: it really should not be used anymore unless you have stuff in that format
: already.
No, I really didn't. It seemed to be a matter of opinion. And the fact
remains, that everyone's used DMS without any particular problems. And I
still can't get my Turrican 2 disk right. For your sake, I'm going to try
it one more time. This time, it's the one from Factor5's homepage. It's
the same size as the old archive I had. A ZIP archive, mind you. So I
first have to unzip it. Now, how can a 2166784 byte file become a single
DD disk?
10.Tröttis:MP3> ll :T2.adf
total 2116
-rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody 2166784 Okt 23 1997 :T2.adf
10.Tröttis:MP3> adf2disk ?
SOURCE/A,DEVICE,UNIT/N,VERIFY/S: :T2.adf device trackdisk.device unit 2
Diskimage must be 901120 Bytes
Hm. Didn't work this time either.
--
En ligne avec Tin 1.4.2.
Ross Vumbaca
Iggy Drougge wrote:
> : Well that is probably because your disk either has copy protection that the
> : ADF format does not support (see CAPS in sig) or the disk is bad or the adf
> : util is knackered.
>
> I'm attempting to write an ADF image onto a disk. I've tried several
> disks, several Amigas and several drives. And several utilities. I haven't
> tried transdisk yet, since it takes half a day (literally!) and makes
> terrible sounds.
What are you talking about? It writes 80 tracks, and takes about 1.5
seconds per track. It is the same as formatting or copying a floppy
disk, it makes no sounds, except for the head stepping to the next
track. If anything else happens, then there is a problem with your Amiga
hardware, or you're running some weirdo software that is clashing, or
you're not using the real version of transdisk, maybe a modified one?
Btw, don't bother arguing for DMS. It is a customis, and can be
unreliable as you've read. An ADF is an image, nice and simple. That is
the best way to image anything. You can zip/lha it if you want to shrink
it.
Regards,
Ross..
Kieron Wilkinson
Haha, doesn't that tell you something?
> : Anyway, Factor 5 have backup on their site, but I think you need to own
the
> : actual game:
>
> : http://www.factor5.com/
>
> : These are using ADF ext, which is a format design specifically to backup
the
> : Factor 5 original games, but is not much good for any copy protection
that
> : is different to the one used by Factor 5. I do not know if these images
can
> : be written back to disk however.
>
> Then what good are they?
It is an attempt to get all the information off an *original* disk with copy
protection, it is not great, but it works for the Factor 5 games. They may
be writeable back to disk, but the tools probably have not been written yet.
> True, ADF is bigger, since it's uncompressed. ;-)
Then LHA/LZX it, in fact the best way is GZipping it, give you a standard
adz file. There are standard tools to do this. Probably even some disk
dumper tools support it.
> But frankly, the only reason for ADF to be bigger would be because it's
> big in the emu world. It was after all created for UAE, it's not even a
> native format. The only time I've seen it appear in an Amiga setting was
> in the Demos drawer of an AmigActive CD, and I can't for the life of me
> understand why they used ADF instead of DMS.
Probably because they realised that DMS is a pile of crap.
No it was not created for UAE! And yes it is a native format! Ever heard of
FMS? That was made about 1992, before UAE even worked at all.
I think what you are failing to understand is that ADF is not a "file
format" as such, it is just a raw dump of an Amiga formatted floppy disk,
there is no "header" information like most file format.
Take a normal 880Kb Amiga disk, they have:
80 tracks
2 heads (each side of the disk)
11 sectors per track
512 bytes per sector
So, 80*2*11*512 = 901120 bytes = 880Kb floppy disk.
901120 bytes look familiar? Yes, that is right, it is the size of a ADF.
There is no extra "file format" information here, just raw data. ADF was
never "invented" in fact, if you want to call it invented then I suppose it
much have been 1983/4 when the first Amiga prototype was built.
ADF == Amiga formatted floppy disk
What do you think DMS is? It is basically has ADF style tracks, with hacky
compression and tricks to see if the track needs to be stored or not, which
is sometimes wrong anyway. Compressed ADFs also have the potential to be
smaller than DMS files too with the right compressor?
Don't like having to do two steps? Well fine, the Unix community (the oldest
computing community) have been doing that since forever with TAR and GZip.
Emulation is *just* a nice side effect.
For more information about Amiga disk formats and ADF see:
http://perso.club-internet.fr/lclevy/adflib/adf_info.html
Kieron Wilkinson
different
> : cracking groups each one hacked about from another. It has bugs and
> : sometimes assumes that tracks are empty (when they are not) and as such
does
> : not bother to store them.
>
> That's bad.
Very bad ;)
> : I do not think that "everybody else" uses DMS. Only those *few* who do
not
> : know why DMS is a bad thing to use.
>
> Then what do they use? Consider that the ADF format is mostly used to
> store disks produced before 1995, and the the ADF format was invented
> after 1995.
No, see my other mail, ADF format was never really invented, it just has
been with the Amiga as long as the Amiga has been about. It is not a file
format, the only "format" about it is the fact that you know it has 80
tracks 2 heads, 11 sectors and 512 bytes in each sector. But that is an
Amiga floppy disk primarily.
> But DMS isn't about preservation and storage, it's about cramming disks
> onto other disks or sending them across telephone lines, to be recreated
> at the other end.
So use ADF + LHA, ZIP or whatever, the compression ensures the integrity is
good.
Don't get me wrong, DMS was okay in it's day, especially in the way it
knackered up countless amounts of pirated Amiga disks.
The only way people ever used DMS is because:
1) DMS ripped disks on the fly - track by track
2) Most people on had 512Kb/1Mb memory
3) Most people did not have hard disks
4) ADF would not fit on a disk or in RAM unless it was compressed first.
5) There were no (and probably still are not) any ADF readers that rip &
compress track by track - there is no point - the compression cannot be as
good this was, especially compressors with bigger (2/8/16 Kb) dictionary's.
> : You might like the first post: "Screw ADFs: Good ole DMS format, nothing
> : else." :))
>
> Yes, I agree. At least until something better, with wide support, comes
> along.
If you fit the above criteria (points 2 & 3) then fine, I see your uses for
DMS.
> : But you will be able to see the arguments against DMS and why
*technically*
> : it really should not be used anymore unless you have stuff in that
format
> : already.
>
> No, I really didn't. It seemed to be a matter of opinion. And the fact
> remains, that everyone's used DMS without any particular problems. And I
Not everyone plays games until the end. How do you know DMS has not
knackered your disk - you don't. Transferring ADF's around would in fact be
worse if you did not compress it first though.
But at least ADF is in my control and I know bugs cannot exist in a raw
dump, just the programs that might have made it, which is also less likely
since ADF dumpers are typically about 100 lines of code.
> still can't get my Turrican 2 disk right. For your sake, I'm going to try
> it one more time. This time, it's the one from Factor5's homepage. It's
> the same size as the old archive I had. A ZIP archive, mind you. So I
Well that is WHY then!! This is an "ADF ext" disk NOT a normal ADF one.
> first have to unzip it. Now, how can a 2166784 byte file become a single
> DD disk?
Because ADF ext stores information about the copy protection, not just the
raw data.
> 10.Tröttis:MP3> ll :T2.adf
> total 2116
> -rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody 2166784 Okt 23 1997 :T2.adf
> 10.Tröttis:MP3> adf2disk ?
> SOURCE/A,DEVICE,UNIT/N,VERIFY/S: :T2.adf device trackdisk.device unit 2
> Diskimage must be 901120 Bytes
>
> Hm. Didn't work this time either.
Yes, try actually writing an ADF file with adf2disk, not an "ADF ext" disk -
they are *completely* different - I expect your last ADF writer was "trying"
to write the data past the end of the disk (and writing garbage since it is
not an ADF file anyway).
You need a cracked version of Turrican 2, not one from an original. ADF ext
*was* invented for emulators, by the UAE team. Same goes for ADF ext2 which
was aimed at overcoming the shortfalls of ADF ext - however, still not
generic enough for any copy protection.
However most CAPS files will be able to be written back to disk, and I
believe we have some of the Turrican games, so to get an *original* disk of
Turrican, watch our pages. We are here for the Amiga community first, to
repair collectors original disks by preservation, emulation is just a nice
side effect.
Iggy Drougge
:> DMS is what's always been used in the pirate world.
: Haha, doesn't that tell you something?
They, if anyone, should know what it takes to pack and transfer disks.
:> : Anyway, Factor 5 have backup on their site, but I think you need to own
: the
:> : actual game:
:>
:> : http://www.factor5.com/
:>
:> : These are using ADF ext, which is a format design specifically to backup
: the
:> : Factor 5 original games, but is not much good for any copy protection
: that
:> : is different to the one used by Factor 5. I do not know if these images
: can
:> : be written back to disk however.
:>
:> Then what good are they?
: It is an attempt to get all the information off an *original* disk with copy
: protection, it is not great, but it works for the Factor 5 games. They may
: be writeable back to disk, but the tools probably have not been written yet.
So what good are they?
:> True, ADF is bigger, since it's uncompressed. ;-)
: Then LHA/LZX it, in fact the best way is GZipping it, give you a standard
: adz file. There are standard tools to do this. Probably even some disk
: dumper tools support it.
Doesn't seem to have very widespread support. Everyone's got DMS and LhA,
who's got gzip or ADF diskdump tools?
Even the mighty Xadundisk doesn't recognise it.
:> But frankly, the only reason for ADF to be bigger would be because it's
:> big in the emu world. It was after all created for UAE, it's not even a
:> native format. The only time I've seen it appear in an Amiga setting was
:> in the Demos drawer of an AmigActive CD, and I can't for the life of me
:> understand why they used ADF instead of DMS.
: Probably because they realised that DMS is a pile of crap.
I suppose it might be /for emulator purposes/.
: No it was not created for UAE! And yes it is a native format! Ever heard of
: FMS? That was made about 1992, before UAE even worked at all.
I've heard of FMS. What's that got to do with ADF?
: I think what you are failing to understand is that ADF is not a "file
: format" as such, it is just a raw dump of an Amiga formatted floppy disk,
: there is no "header" information like most file format.
Oh, that's why Xadundisk doesn't recognise it. Oh, wait, it didn't work
anyway.
: Take a normal 880Kb Amiga disk, they have:
: 80 tracks
: 2 heads (each side of the disk)
: 11 sectors per track
: 512 bytes per sector
: So, 80*2*11*512 = 901120 bytes = 880Kb floppy disk.
: 901120 bytes look familiar? Yes, that is right, it is the size of a ADF.
What a waste of space.
: There is no extra "file format" information here, just raw data. ADF was
: never "invented" in fact, if you want to call it invented then I suppose it
: much have been 1983/4 when the first Amiga prototype was built.
: ADF == Amiga formatted floppy disk
But in a big file.
: What do you think DMS is? It is basically has ADF style tracks, with hacky
: compression and tricks to see if the track needs to be stored or not, which
: is sometimes wrong anyway. Compressed ADFs also have the potential to be
: smaller than DMS files too with the right compressor?
But then you have to decompress them. DMS does it all for you.
: Don't like having to do two steps? Well fine, the Unix community (the oldest
: computing community) have been doing that since forever with TAR and GZip.
The UNIX community is a documented case of large scale masochism. And the
TAR/GZip method doesn't work very well IME. It works, but it's unbearably
slow in comparison to an LhA listing.
: Emulation is *just* a nice side effect.
It is the purpose of it all.
: For more information about Amiga disk formats and ADF see:
: http://perso.club-internet.fr/lclevy/adflib/adf_info.html
Very much about Amiga floppy formats, very little about ADF.
Iggy Drougge
: Iggy Drougge wrote:
:
:> : Well that is probably because your disk either has copy protection that the
:> : ADF format does not support (see CAPS in sig) or the disk is bad or the adf
:> : util is knackered.
:>
:> I'm attempting to write an ADF image onto a disk. I've tried several
:> disks, several Amigas and several drives. And several utilities. I haven't
:> tried transdisk yet, since it takes half a day (literally!) and makes
:> terrible sounds.
: What are you talking about? It writes 80 tracks, and takes about 1.5
: seconds per track. It is the same as formatting or copying a floppy
: disk, it makes no sounds, except for the head stepping to the next
: track. If anything else happens, then there is a problem with your Amiga
: hardware, or you're running some weirdo software that is clashing, or
: you're not using the real version of transdisk, maybe a modified one?
Now I can't even find transdisk anymore. Oh well, good riddance. But I
used ADFblitzer and others on several systems. No such luck.
: Btw, don't bother arguing for DMS. It is a customis, and can be
: unreliable as you've read. An ADF is an image, nice and simple. That is
: the best way to image anything. You can zip/lha it if you want to shrink
: it.
Then you would have to de-ZIP (I've never seen an LhA packed ADF file) it
before writing it.
I find it rather peculiar that only the emulator community have found DMS
to be so severely lacking that it shouldn't still be used. In the heyday
of disk-swapping, DMS served its purpose quite well. The people insisting
on using ADF are usually people insisting on using UAE.
Iggy Drougge
:> : Because DMS is a hacked about non-standard, with many version from
: different
:> : cracking groups each one hacked about from another. It has bugs and
:> : sometimes assumes that tracks are empty (when they are not) and as such
: does
:> : not bother to store them.
:>
:> That's bad.
: Very bad ;)
Not so bad. It's served the cracking groups quite well.
:> : I do not think that "everybody else" uses DMS. Only those *few* who do
: not
:> : know why DMS is a bad thing to use.
:>
:> Then what do they use? Consider that the ADF format is mostly used to
:> store disks produced before 1995, and the the ADF format was invented
:> after 1995.
: No, see my other mail, ADF format was never really invented, it just has
: been with the Amiga as long as the Amiga has been about. It is not a file
: format, the only "format" about it is the fact that you know it has 80
: tracks 2 heads, 11 sectors and 512 bytes in each sector. But that is an
: Amiga floppy disk primarily.
So if you dialed an Amiga BBS five or seven years ago, it would be smack
full of ADF files?
And I suppose that's why all the oldest ADF tool on Aminet is 245 weeks
old?
:> But DMS isn't about preservation and storage, it's about cramming disks
:> onto other disks or sending them across telephone lines, to be recreated
:> at the other end.
: So use ADF + LHA, ZIP or whatever, the compression ensures the integrity is
: good.
Very bothersome. And all ADF files I find are zipped, for some reason.
Who the hell uses ZIP? That's even more marginal than LZX.
: Don't get me wrong, DMS was okay in it's day, especially in the way it
: knackered up countless amounts of pirated Amiga disks.
: The only way people ever used DMS is because:
: 1) DMS ripped disks on the fly - track by track
: 2) Most people on had 512Kb/1Mb memory
: 3) Most people did not have hard disks
: 4) ADF would not fit on a disk or in RAM unless it was compressed first.
: 5) There were no (and probably still are not) any ADF readers that rip &
: compress track by track - there is no point - the compression cannot be as
: good this was, especially compressors with bigger (2/8/16 Kb) dictionary's.
Otherwise, they'd have used all the ADF tools, or rather wait until they
showed up four years ago.
:> : You might like the first post: "Screw ADFs: Good ole DMS format, nothing
:> : else." :))
:>
:> Yes, I agree. At least until something better, with wide support, comes
:> along.
: If you fit the above criteria (points 2 & 3) then fine, I see your uses for
: DMS.
I have 64 MB memory and 20 GB HD. I still use DMS. It works everywhere,
even on toy machines.
:> : But you will be able to see the arguments against DMS and why
: *technically*
:> : it really should not be used anymore unless you have stuff in that
: format
:> : already.
:>
:> No, I really didn't. It seemed to be a matter of opinion. And the fact
:> remains, that everyone's used DMS without any particular problems. And I
: Not everyone plays games until the end. How do you know DMS has not
: knackered your disk - you don't. Transferring ADF's around would in fact be
: worse if you did not compress it first though.
You said it.
: But at least ADF is in my control and I know bugs cannot exist in a raw
: dump, just the programs that might have made it, which is also less likely
: since ADF dumpers are typically about 100 lines of code.
What's the difference? Either DMS or the ADF dumper knacks up your disk.
:> still can't get my Turrican 2 disk right. For your sake, I'm going to try
:> it one more time. This time, it's the one from Factor5's homepage. It's
:> the same size as the old archive I had. A ZIP archive, mind you. So I
: Well that is WHY then!! This is an "ADF ext" disk NOT a normal ADF one.
I'm so happy for you. Now where's my pirate copy?
:> first have to unzip it. Now, how can a 2166784 byte file become a single
:> DD disk?
: Because ADF ext stores information about the copy protection, not just the
: raw data.
I just want the game, don't care much for the copy protection data.
:> 10.Tröttis:MP3> ll :T2.adf
:> total 2116
:> -rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody 2166784 Okt 23 1997 :T2.adf
:> 10.Tröttis:MP3> adf2disk ?
:> SOURCE/A,DEVICE,UNIT/N,VERIFY/S: :T2.adf device trackdisk.device unit 2
:> Diskimage must be 901120 Bytes
:>
:> Hm. Didn't work this time either.
: Yes, try actually writing an ADF file with adf2disk, not an "ADF ext" disk -
: they are *completely* different - I expect your last ADF writer was "trying"
: to write the data past the end of the disk (and writing garbage since it is
: not an ADF file anyway).
They are completely different, that's why they have the .ADF extension,
right? ;-)
: You need a cracked version of Turrican 2, not one from an original. ADF ext
: *was* invented for emulators, by the UAE team. Same goes for ADF ext2 which
: was aimed at overcoming the shortfalls of ADF ext - however, still not
: generic enough for any copy protection.
I'm very tired of playing the Atari version by now.
: However most CAPS files will be able to be written back to disk, and I
: believe we have some of the Turrican games, so to get an *original* disk of
: Turrican, watch our pages. We are here for the Amiga community first, to
: repair collectors original disks by preservation, emulation is just a nice
: side effect.
I'd love to have a repaired copy of Jaguar XJ220, but where are the
downloads?
Matthew Garrett
> Kieron Wilkinson <ca...@caps-project.org> skrev:
>: It is an attempt to get all the information off an *original* disk with copy
>: protection, it is not great, but it works for the Factor 5 games. They may
>: be writeable back to disk, but the tools probably have not been written yet.
>
> So what good are they?
They're perfect copies of the original (copy-protected) disks. If you
want to write them back to floppy, they're probably not a great deal of
use.
>: No it was not created for UAE! And yes it is a native format! Ever heard of
>: FMS? That was made about 1992, before UAE even worked at all.
>
> I've heard of FMS. What's that got to do with ADF?
An ADF is simply a sector by sector dump of an Amiga floppy. FMS stores
disk images as files which are equivilent to a sector by sector dump of
an Amiga floppy (why make things any harder than they need to be?). The
"format" (calling it a format isn't terribly accurate) is simply a raw
representation of the contents of the floppy.
>: I think what you are failing to understand is that ADF is not a "file
>: format" as such, it is just a raw dump of an Amiga formatted floppy disk,
>: there is no "header" information like most file format.
>
> Oh, that's why Xadundisk doesn't recognise it. Oh, wait, it didn't work
> anyway.
Are you being wilfully awkward here?
>: ADF == Amiga formatted floppy disk
>
> But in a big file.
Just like FMS, which was released in 1989. The ADF "format" has been
around for over 11 years.
>: What do you think DMS is? It is basically has ADF style tracks, with hacky
>: compression and tricks to see if the track needs to be stored or not, which
>: is sometimes wrong anyway. Compressed ADFs also have the potential to be
>: smaller than DMS files too with the right compressor?
>
> But then you have to decompress them. DMS does it all for you.
If your shell has decent piping, a combination of gzip and a trivial app
that takes data on the standard input and writes it on standard out
would do this in a single step. DMS also has the disadvantage that it
only compresses on a track by track basis, while a gzipped ADF will be
based on the entire file. As a result, DMS files will generally be
bigger.
>: Don't like having to do two steps? Well fine, the Unix community (the oldest
>: computing community) have been doing that since forever with TAR and GZip.
>
> The UNIX community is a documented case of large scale masochism. And the
> TAR/GZip method doesn't work very well IME. It works, but it's unbearably
> slow in comparison to an LhA listing.
In what way?
>: For more information about Amiga disk formats and ADF see:
>: http://perso.club-internet.fr/lclevy/adflib/adf_info.html
>
> Very much about Amiga floppy formats, very little about ADF.
Because, oddly enough, they're the same thing.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-comp.s...@srcf.ucam.org
Ross Vumbaca
Iggy Drougge wrote:
> : What are you talking about? It writes 80 tracks, and takes about 1.5
> : seconds per track. It is the same as formatting or copying a floppy
> : disk, it makes no sounds, except for the head stepping to the next
> : track. If anything else happens, then there is a problem with your Amiga
> : hardware, or you're running some weirdo software that is clashing, or
> : you're not using the real version of transdisk, maybe a modified one?
>
> Now I can't even find transdisk anymore. Oh well, good riddance. But I
> used ADFblitzer and others on several systems. No such luck.
That doesn't change the fact that your bad experience with ADFs are a
problem with your machine or setup. Have you seen the source code for
transdisk? It's dead simple. Like copying a disk (your Amiga can do that
right?)
> Then you would have to de-ZIP (I've never seen an LhA packed ADF file) it
> before writing it.
That's the price you pay for shrinking the file to speed up transfers
across networks. Something which we tend to do with all files.
> I find it rather peculiar that only the emulator community have found DMS
> to be so severely lacking that it shouldn't still be used. In the heyday
> of disk-swapping, DMS served its purpose quite well. The people insisting
> on using ADF are usually people insisting on using UAE.
You don't know the whole story. The original users of UAE wanted to use
DMS, but DMS was hacky, closed, no one knew how to decode them. They
used an alternative solution. Simple and effective. Eventually it was
understood how to decode DMS, and there are now utilities which will
convert DMS to ADF (i.e decompress them to a disk). Also, if you were to
take a look at any version of UAE that is up-to-date, you will find that
it is capable of reading DMS' as if they were ADFs. So the "emulation
community" has no problems there, since they *can use* DMS if they want,
but why bother, it sux. In addition, you can also use gzipper ADFs in
place, i.e UAE also is capable of loading and unzipping them on the fly.
So that leaves very little for your argument. Don't forget that they
heyday of disk swapping is OVER. We used DMS then because DMS compresses
and images in one shot, so we can fit it on floppies. ADF does not, it
images only. It is up to you to compress the image if you want to. But
we don't want to, because we all have hard disks now. However if you do
insist on compressing your images, you gzip them, and use the ADZ
extension.
Regards,
Ross..
--
*TO E-MAIL ME: Reverse the order of the domain name in my e-mail
address.*
Ross Vumbaca, a 'poor' Uni student at USyd.edu.au
http://members.optushome.com.au/rossv1
Flagship: Amiga 3000 (030/25), GVP Spectrum, C= A2065,
12Mb Fast/2Mb Chip, HD FDD, 9.1G-UW-SCSI (connected to A3000 SCSI),
Kickstart 3.1 (40.68), OS 3.9, Linux m68k 2.2 (Debian 2.2r0).
A pc.
--
Marcel DeVoe
> : Iggy Drougge wrote:
> :
> :> : Well that is probably because your disk either has copy protection that the
> :> : ADF format does not support (see CAPS in sig) or the disk is bad or the adf
> :> : util is knackered.
> :>
> :> I'm attempting to write an ADF image onto a disk. I've tried several
> :> disks, several Amigas and several drives. And several utilities. I haven't
> :> tried transdisk yet, since it takes half a day (literally!) and makes
> :> terrible sounds.
> : What are you talking about? It writes 80 tracks, and takes about 1.5
> : seconds per track. It is the same as formatting or copying a floppy
> : disk, it makes no sounds, except for the head stepping to the next
> : track. If anything else happens, then there is a problem with your Amiga
> : hardware, or you're running some weirdo software that is clashing, or
> : you're not using the real version of transdisk, maybe a modified one?
> Now I can't even find transdisk anymore. Oh well, good riddance. But I
> used ADFblitzer and others on several systems. No such luck.
Something is wrong. I use adf2disk regularly and it works faster than DMS
does, since it doesn't have to do any decompression. I have it configured
in DOpus4 and works every time.
Of course I'm talking about the files on Back to the Roots.
I think there may be something wrong with your floppy drive, or you're not
using the utility properly. One way to find out is have you tried unDMSing
lately? If there's something wrong hardware-wise then DMS wouldn't work
either. Try it now.
I suspect your floppy drive is in need of a cleaning.
> : Btw, don't bother arguing for DMS. It is a customis, and can be
> : unreliable as you've read. An ADF is an image, nice and simple. That is
> : the best way to image anything. You can zip/lha it if you want to shrink
> : it.
> Then you would have to de-ZIP (I've never seen an LhA packed ADF file) it
> before writing it.
There is unZip on Aminet. Very easy to use. I also have that configured in
DOpus4. Just a double click and it expands into the same directory.
> I find it rather peculiar that only the emulator community have found DMS
> to be so severely lacking that it shouldn't still be used. In the heyday
> of disk-swapping, DMS served its purpose quite well. The people insisting
> on using ADF are usually people insisting on using UAE.
Just to go back a bit, there was a utility years ago to create a disk file
image of an Amiga floppy. I remember using it on my 9 meg (1 chip and 8
fast) AOS1.3 A2000 before I'd heard of DMS. It used the trackdisk.device
to create it and was used in I believe the RAD: disk. I believe it was
called Warp (or was that another one?) and created files with a .wrp
extension (I think it was a carry-over from the C64). There's a warp
utility on Aminet that's 476 weeks old. ;)
The PC community (or UNIX to start) mearly utilised these disk images and
gave them a new name with a 3 letter extension of ".adf" to help identify
them, but they're the same images we've been using for years well before
UAE came out.
Check your floppy drive for dust in the mechanisms and dirt on the
drive heads. They all need cleaning from time to time. There's no reason
you should be having trouble creating floppy disks from "standard" (read,
pirated ;) 901k .adf files at reasonable speeds. None of us do. ;)
Iggy Drougge
: In article <hmo%7.4031$O5.1...@nntpserver.swip.net>, Iggy Drougge wrote:
:> Kieron Wilkinson <ca...@caps-project.org> skrev:
:>: It is an attempt to get all the information off an *original* disk with copy
:>: protection, it is not great, but it works for the Factor 5 games. They may
:>: be writeable back to disk, but the tools probably have not been written yet.
:>
:> So what good are they?
: They're perfect copies of the original (copy-protected) disks. If you
: want to write them back to floppy, they're probably not a great deal of
: use.
But what use are diskimages which can't be written to disk?
:>: No it was not created for UAE! And yes it is a native format! Ever heard of
:>: FMS? That was made about 1992, before UAE even worked at all.
:>
:> I've heard of FMS. What's that got to do with ADF?
: An ADF is simply a sector by sector dump of an Amiga floppy. FMS stores
: disk images as files which are equivilent to a sector by sector dump of
: an Amiga floppy (why make things any harder than they need to be?). The
: "format" (calling it a format isn't terribly accurate) is simply a raw
: representation of the contents of the floppy.
Then why isn't UAE using FMS files?
:>: I think what you are failing to understand is that ADF is not a "file
:>: format" as such, it is just a raw dump of an Amiga formatted floppy disk,
:>: there is no "header" information like most file format.
:>
:> Oh, that's why Xadundisk doesn't recognise it. Oh, wait, it didn't work
:> anyway.
: Are you being wilfully awkward here?
I was being prompted to write it as a disk image, but that failed, too.
:>: ADF == Amiga formatted floppy disk
:>
:> But in a big file.
: Just like FMS, which was released in 1989. The ADF "format" has been
: around for over 11 years.
Then how come the first ADF programs show up on Aminet in 1997-ish?
:>: What do you think DMS is? It is basically has ADF style tracks, with hacky
:>: compression and tricks to see if the track needs to be stored or not, which
:>: is sometimes wrong anyway. Compressed ADFs also have the potential to be
:>: smaller than DMS files too with the right compressor?
:>
:> But then you have to decompress them. DMS does it all for you.
: If your shell has decent piping, a combination of gzip and a trivial app
: that takes data on the standard input and writes it on standard out
: would do this in a single step. DMS also has the disadvantage that it
: only compresses on a track by track basis, while a gzipped ADF will be
: based on the entire file. As a result, DMS files will generally be
: bigger.
I think it is a well-established fact that AmigaShell has sub-optimal
piping. And your method, while probably feasible, is very UNIX-y and
applicable to every kind of program which doesn't fulfill every step of
any process.
DMS works, that's good enough for me.
:>: Don't like having to do two steps? Well fine, the Unix community (the oldest
:>: computing community) have been doing that since forever with TAR and GZip.
:>
:> The UNIX community is a documented case of large scale masochism. And the
:> TAR/GZip method doesn't work very well IME. It works, but it's unbearably
:> slow in comparison to an LhA listing.
: In what way?
In that it's unbearably slow in comparison to LhA when listing files.
:>: For more information about Amiga disk formats and ADF see:
:>: http://perso.club-internet.fr/lclevy/adflib/adf_info.html
:>
:> Very much about Amiga floppy formats, very little about ADF.
: Because, oddly enough, they're the same thing.
Mmm.
Matthew Garrett
> Matthew Garrett <mjg59-comp.s...@srcf.ucam.org> skrev:
>: They're perfect copies of the original (copy-protected) disks. If you
>: want to write them back to floppy, they're probably not a great deal of
>: use.
>
> But what use are diskimages which can't be written to disk?
You can use them in an emulator.
>: An ADF is simply a sector by sector dump of an Amiga floppy. FMS stores
>: disk images as files which are equivilent to a sector by sector dump of
>: an Amiga floppy (why make things any harder than they need to be?). The
>: "format" (calling it a format isn't terribly accurate) is simply a raw
>: representation of the contents of the floppy.
>
> Then why isn't UAE using FMS files?
It is. They just gave it an ADF extension to make it clearer what the
file was.
>: Just like FMS, which was released in 1989. The ADF "format" has been
>: around for over 11 years.
>
> Then how come the first ADF programs show up on Aminet in 1997-ish?
Because it wasn't called ADF until then.
>: If your shell has decent piping, a combination of gzip and a trivial app
>: that takes data on the standard input and writes it on standard out
>: would do this in a single step. DMS also has the disadvantage that it
>: only compresses on a track by track basis, while a gzipped ADF will be
>: based on the entire file. As a result, DMS files will generally be
>: bigger.
>
> I think it is a well-established fact that AmigaShell has sub-optimal
> piping. And your method, while probably feasible, is very UNIX-y and
> applicable to every kind of program which doesn't fulfill every step of
> any process.
> DMS works, that's good enough for me.
And a larger number of people feel that DMS doesn't work sufficiently
well for them and so use a different format. Why should everybody be
forced to deal with larger files because it's slightly more awkward for
you to write them?
>: In what way?
>
> In that it's unbearably slow in comparison to LhA when listing files.
Yes, in what way?
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-comp.s...@srcf.ucam.org
Iggy Drougge
: Iggy Drougge wrote:
:
:> : What are you talking about? It writes 80 tracks, and takes about 1.5
:> : seconds per track. It is the same as formatting or copying a floppy
:> : disk, it makes no sounds, except for the head stepping to the next
:> : track. If anything else happens, then there is a problem with your Amiga
:> : hardware, or you're running some weirdo software that is clashing, or
:> : you're not using the real version of transdisk, maybe a modified one?
:>
:> Now I can't even find transdisk anymore. Oh well, good riddance. But I
:> used ADFblitzer and others on several systems. No such luck.
: That doesn't change the fact that your bad experience with ADFs are a
: problem with your machine or setup. Have you seen the source code for
: transdisk? It's dead simple. Like copying a disk (your Amiga can do that
: right?)
Machines, setups, plural.
:
:> Then you would have to de-ZIP (I've never seen an LhA packed ADF file) it
:> before writing it.
: That's the price you pay for shrinking the file to speed up transfers
: across networks. Something which we tend to do with all files.
DMS does that, too. On the fly, even.
:> I find it rather peculiar that only the emulator community have found DMS
:> to be so severely lacking that it shouldn't still be used. In the heyday
:> of disk-swapping, DMS served its purpose quite well. The people insisting
:> on using ADF are usually people insisting on using UAE.
: You don't know the whole story. The original users of UAE wanted to use
: DMS, but DMS was hacky, closed, no one knew how to decode them. They
: used an alternative solution. Simple and effective. Eventually it was
: understood how to decode DMS, and there are now utilities which will
: convert DMS to ADF (i.e decompress them to a disk). Also, if you were to
: take a look at any version of UAE that is up-to-date, you will find that
: it is capable of reading DMS' as if they were ADFs. So the "emulation
: community" has no problems there, since they *can use* DMS if they want,
: but why bother, it sux. In addition, you can also use gzipper ADFs in
: place, i.e UAE also is capable of loading and unzipping them on the fly.
: So that leaves very little for your argument. Don't forget that they
: heyday of disk swapping is OVER. We used DMS then because DMS compresses
: and images in one shot, so we can fit it on floppies. ADF does not, it
: images only. It is up to you to compress the image if you want to. But
: we don't want to, because we all have hard disks now. However if you do
: insist on compressing your images, you gzip them, and use the ADZ
: extension.
What I'd like is a utility which converts ADF to a useful format (DMS),
just like I can convert alien archives into LhA or LZX using a simple
tool.
And I don't care about emulator users. They can use paper tape for all I
care. I just want lots of pirate copies from the net.
Iggy Drougge
:> : Iggy Drougge wrote:
:> :
:> :> I'm attempting to write an ADF image onto a disk. I've tried several
:> :> disks, several Amigas and several drives. And several utilities. I haven't
:> :> tried transdisk yet, since it takes half a day (literally!) and makes
:> :> terrible sounds.
:> : What are you talking about? It writes 80 tracks, and takes about 1.5
:> : seconds per track. It is the same as formatting or copying a floppy
:> : disk, it makes no sounds, except for the head stepping to the next
:> : track. If anything else happens, then there is a problem with your Amiga
:> : hardware, or you're running some weirdo software that is clashing, or
:> : you're not using the real version of transdisk, maybe a modified one?
:> Now I can't even find transdisk anymore. Oh well, good riddance. But I
:> used ADFblitzer and others on several systems. No such luck.
: Something is wrong. I use adf2disk regularly and it works faster than DMS
: does, since it doesn't have to do any decompression. I have it configured
: in DOpus4 and works every time.
With an '040, I think the point about compression is moot. =)
: Of course I'm talking about the files on Back to the Roots.
I have dumped ADF files before, but that Turrican 2 archive just won't
work.
: I think there may be something wrong with your floppy drive, or you're not
: using the utility properly. One way to find out is have you tried unDMSing
: lately? If there's something wrong hardware-wise then DMS wouldn't work
: either. Try it now.
I did that a few weeks ago.
: I suspect your floppy drive is in need of a cleaning.
I've used several floppy drives on several systems.
:> : Btw, don't bother arguing for DMS. It is a customis, and can be
:> : unreliable as you've read. An ADF is an image, nice and simple. That is
:> : the best way to image anything. You can zip/lha it if you want to shrink
:> : it.
:> Then you would have to de-ZIP (I've never seen an LhA packed ADF file) it
:> before writing it.
: There is unZip on Aminet. Very easy to use. I also have that configured in
: DOpus4. Just a double click and it expands into the same directory.
Very easy to use? The bloody program wants its arguments all over the
place. And who uses ZIP, anyway?
And you still have to decompress it before writing it, unlike DMS, which
decompresses on the fly.
:> I find it rather peculiar that only the emulator community have found DMS
:> to be so severely lacking that it shouldn't still be used. In the heyday
:> of disk-swapping, DMS served its purpose quite well. The people insisting
:> on using ADF are usually people insisting on using UAE.
: Just to go back a bit, there was a utility years ago to create a disk file
: image of an Amiga floppy. I remember using it on my 9 meg (1 chip and 8
: fast) AOS1.3 A2000 before I'd heard of DMS. It used the trackdisk.device
: to create it and was used in I believe the RAD: disk. I believe it was
: called Warp (or was that another one?) and created files with a .wrp
: extension (I think it was a carry-over from the C64). There's a warp
: utility on Aminet that's 476 weeks old. ;)
There must be dozens of such programs. They didn't catch on very well,
mind you.
: The PC community (or UNIX to start) mearly utilised these disk images and
: gave them a new name with a 3 letter extension of ".adf" to help identify
: them, but they're the same images we've been using for years well before
: UAE came out.
Who used those? I'd say the format was rediscovered. Look at how UAE is
bundled with its own programs for dumping, instead of using FMS or Warp.
: Check your floppy drive for dust in the mechanisms and dirt on the
: drive heads. They all need cleaning from time to time. There's no reason
: you should be having trouble creating floppy disks from "standard" (read,
: pirated ;) 901k .adf files at reasonable speeds. None of us do. ;)
But what if they're not 901 K?
Marcel DeVoe
> Marcel DeVoe <mde...@shore.net> skrev:
> : Of course I'm talking about the files on Back to the Roots.
> I have dumped ADF files before, but that Turrican 2 archive just won't
> work.
Where is it (I haven't looked)?
> :> Then you would have to de-ZIP (I've never seen an LhA packed ADF file) it
> :> before writing it.
> : There is unZip on Aminet. Very easy to use. I also have that configured in
> : DOpus4. Just a double click and it expands into the same directory.
> Very easy to use? The bloody program wants its arguments all over the
> place.
No it doesn't. Just "unzip file.zip".
> And who uses ZIP, anyway?
You /are/ being willfully difficult.
> : Check your floppy drive for dust in the mechanisms and dirt on the
> : drive heads. They all need cleaning from time to time. There's no reason
> : you should be having trouble creating floppy disks from "standard" (read,
> : pirated ;) 901k .adf files at reasonable speeds. None of us do. ;)
> But what if they're not 901 K?
I personally haven't come across any, except maybe the ones from the CATS
group which are that way on purpose. But I don't bother with those. I
prefer not to duplicate the protection as I feel it's bad for the drive
(a holdover from my C64 days).
Kieron Wilkinson
> : Very bad ;)
> Not so bad. It's served the cracking groups quite well.
They didn't know better. :)
> So if you dialed an Amiga BBS five or seven years ago, it would be smack
> full of ADF files?
Obviously not, that is why DMS is big now, it was the format of choice at
the time. In fact it was the only choice at the time because of reasons I
explained in another mail (compression needed on the fly because of
storage/mem contraints.
> And I suppose that's why all the oldest ADF tool on Aminet is 245 weeks
> old?
Haha, no, actually it is not. That is the last *update* to that tool. As I
said, FMS has been around for a very long time.
> Very bothersome. And all ADF files I find are zipped, for some reason.
This is due to TOSEC conventions, it also allows quick comparason for
collections since ZIP does a nice CRC 32 for you.
> Who the hell uses ZIP? That's even more marginal than LZX.
I have ZIP on my Amiga. Okay, so it is a slowish unix port, but it works
just as well. True, ZIP is not an "Amiga format", but the biggest use of ADF
is without doubt the PC emulation scene. There are probably more PC users
that use Amiga emulators (who are probably ex-miggy owners) than there are
current Amiga users who use it as their main machine.
I don't argue that ADF files main use are in emulators and by PC users, I am
arguing that:
1) DMS is shite, don't use it
2) ADF is old, standard and proven - DMS is proprietry
3) ADF is far better suited to Amiga disk than DMS is see (1)
> : Don't get me wrong, DMS was okay in it's day, especially in the way it
> : knackered up countless amounts of pirated Amiga disks.
>
> : The only way people ever used DMS is because:
>
> : 1) DMS ripped disks on the fly - track by track
> : 2) Most people on had 512Kb/1Mb memory
> : 3) Most people did not have hard disks
> : 4) ADF would not fit on a disk or in RAM unless it was compressed first.
> : 5) There were no (and probably still are not) any ADF readers that rip &
> : compress track by track - there is no point - the compression cannot be
as
> : good this was, especially compressors with bigger (2/8/16 Kb)
dictionary's.
>
> Otherwise, they'd have used all the ADF tools, or rather wait until they
> showed up four years ago.
Haha. :). As I said, although ADF existed as long as the Amiga has (ADF is
just a name for a plain *amiga* disk image after all), it was not usable by
most people because compression was needed on the fly for the reasons above.
The tools were around, it was just that nobody used them apart from people
who (a) had the capability, (b) used virtual disks.
> I have 64 MB memory and 20 GB HD. I still use DMS. It works everywhere,
> even on toy machines.
I didn't say it didn't work on decently spec'ed Amiga's, I just said it was
not as good. In fact, using DMS to write and read is fairly risky, because
floppy disks are just not very reliable. However, if you are just writing to
play a game but keep it in the DMS file, or read a game that has not been
DMS'ed before hand - is dodgy - unless of course you use a disk image (ADF
used by FMS or something) :)
> : But at least ADF is in my control and I know bugs cannot exist in a raw
> : dump, just the programs that might have made it, which is also less
likely
> : since ADF dumpers are typically about 100 lines of code.
>
> What's the difference? Either DMS or the ADF dumper knacks up your disk.
My point is that DMS is very complicated and proprietry. ADF is very simple
and less likely to for somebody writing a tool to get it wrong. If a tool
does not work then use another, there is not much that can go wrong with ADF
unless the ADF tool author is an idiot.
ADF is an image form of the Amiga disk standard. DMS is a buggy hacky
cracker program.
> :> still can't get my Turrican 2 disk right. For your sake, I'm going to
try
> :> it one more time. This time, it's the one from Factor5's homepage. It's
> :> the same size as the old archive I had. A ZIP archive, mind you. So I
>
> : Well that is WHY then!! This is an "ADF ext" disk NOT a normal ADF one.
>
> I'm so happy for you. Now where's my pirate copy?
Not the best thing to be asked for in this group... :)
However since you have a broken original I will send you a copy.
The TOSEC dat lists these:
Turrican II (1991)(Factor Five)
Turrican II (1991)(Factor Five)[cr Apex][t +10 Apex][One Disk]
Turrican II (1991)(Factor Five)[cr Defjam][t + 32 Subway](Disk 1 of 2)
Turrican II (1991)(Factor Five)[cr Defjam][t +5 Supplex](Disk 1 of 2)
Turrican II (1991)(Factor Five)[cr Defjam][t +5 Supplex](Disk 2 of 2)
Turrican II (1991)(Factor Five)[cr Defjam][t +6 Legend](Disk 1 of 2)
Turrican II (1991)(Factor Five)[cr Defjam][t +6 Legend](Disk 2 of 2)
The first one is the original Factor 5 ADF ext disk which you can get off
their site.
Take whichever of the others suites you best.
> :> first have to unzip it. Now, how can a 2166784 byte file become a
single
> :> DD disk?
>
> : Because ADF ext stores information about the copy protection, not just
the
> : raw data.
>
> I just want the game, don't care much for the copy protection data.
I am a purist, I want the games how it was made, especially if I can fix my
originals with it, not with some lame crack intro. I can see your point
however.
> : Yes, try actually writing an ADF file with adf2disk, not an "ADF ext"
disk -
> : they are *completely* different - I expect your last ADF writer was
"trying"
> : to write the data past the end of the disk (and writing garbage since it
is
> : not an ADF file anyway).
>
> They are completely different, that's why they have the .ADF extension,
> right? ;-)
Yes, your right, they could have called it something different. Who knows
why they chose to do that when the ADF ext format is so incredibly different
(and so incredibily crap - forgive me ADF ext advocates, but it is).
> : You need a cracked version of Turrican 2, not one from an original. ADF
ext
> : *was* invented for emulators, by the UAE team. Same goes for ADF ext2
which
> : was aimed at overcoming the shortfalls of ADF ext - however, still not
> : generic enough for any copy protection.
>
> I'm very tired of playing the Atari version by now.
Heh. Check your mail then.
> : However most CAPS files will be able to be written back to disk, and I
> : believe we have some of the Turrican games, so to get an *original* disk
of
> : Turrican, watch our pages. We are here for the Amiga community first, to
> : repair collectors original disks by preservation, emulation is just a
nice
> : side effect.
>
> I'd love to have a repaired copy of Jaguar XJ220, but where are the
> downloads?
I have Jaguar XJ220, but I have not dumped it yet. We will release that one
however + I will put it on a higher priority.
There will never be any downloads from the site. We are not a hosting
project. The games are for fixing originals and preservation. All games will
be released like the games in the TOSEC dats, i.e. anonymously and probably
via newsgroup / IRC.
I expect other peopl will start hosting CAPS files however.
Also, as the site says, we have not released anything yet (apart from
information to people to support the format). Expect it to start fairly soon
though.
Kieron Wilkinson
copy
> : protection, it is not great, but it works for the Factor 5 games. They
may
> : be writeable back to disk, but the tools probably have not been written
yet.
>
> So what good are they?
Do you care about the Amiga at all?
> : Probably because they realised that DMS is a pile of crap.
>
> I suppose it might be /for emulator purposes/.
Maybe. Except they probably had an intstaller for the ADF images - they
could probably fit more on the disk using compressed ADF - for reason I
expained in another post about compression "dictionary".
> : No it was not created for UAE! And yes it is a native format! Ever heard
of
> : FMS? That was made about 1992, before UAE even worked at all.
>
> I've heard of FMS. What's that got to do with ADF?
As Matthew said. Basically the "virtual disk" that FMS provides filesystem
access to, is nothing more than a disk image and hence can be used as an
ADF.
Install FMS, disk copy to virtual disk, get ADF writer to write "Unit0" to a
floppy - go see what is on the floppy.
As I said before, FMS has been around for a very long time.
> : I think what you are failing to understand is that ADF is not a "file
> : format" as such, it is just a raw dump of an Amiga formatted floppy
disk,
> : there is no "header" information like most file format.
>
> Oh, that's why Xadundisk doesn't recognise it. Oh, wait, it didn't work
> anyway.
Did you misunderstand that paragrah? I was talking about normal ADF, and as
Xadundisk supports that, I don't know what you have done wrong now...
> : Take a normal 880Kb Amiga disk, they have:
> : 80 tracks
> : 2 heads (each side of the disk)
> : 11 sectors per track
> : 512 bytes per sector
>
> : So, 80*2*11*512 = 901120 bytes = 880Kb floppy disk.
>
> : 901120 bytes look familiar? Yes, that is right, it is the size of a ADF.
>
> What a waste of space.
The point was that you cannnot effectively argue about something when you do
not know all the facts. I was trying to explain to you that Amiga formatted
disk == Amiga Disk File, just on different media (on on floppy, one on HD).
> : There is no extra "file format" information here, just raw data. ADF was
> : never "invented" in fact, if you want to call it invented then I suppose
it
> : much have been 1983/4 when the first Amiga prototype was built.
>
> : ADF == Amiga formatted floppy disk
>
> But in a big file.
Then use LHA. Or better, use script to do both, that is what I used to do.
> : What do you think DMS is? It is basically has ADF style tracks, with
hacky
> : compression and tricks to see if the track needs to be stored or not,
which
> : is sometimes wrong anyway. Compressed ADFs also have the potential to be
> : smaller than DMS files too with the right compressor?
>
> But then you have to decompress them. DMS does it all for you.
True. But the reliability outweighs the "having to use DMS" :)
> : Don't like having to do two steps? Well fine, the Unix community (the
oldest
> : computing community) have been doing that since forever with TAR and
GZip.
>
> The UNIX community is a documented case of large scale masochism. And the
> TAR/GZip method doesn't work very well IME. It works, but it's unbearably
> slow in comparison to an LhA listing.
Yeah, that is because it is portable code. LHA is optimised for the Amiga
using 68K assembly etc. It cannot really be surprising TAR/GZip is slow.
However, I was not talking about USING those tools, I was simply talking
about the analogy.
> : Emulation is *just* a nice side effect.
>
> It is the purpose of it all.
Whatever.
> : For more information about Amiga disk formats and ADF see:
> : http://perso.club-internet.fr/lclevy/adflib/adf_info.html
>
> Very much about Amiga floppy formats, very little about ADF.
You really do not understand any of this do you?
(I was going to say more there, but I think is is much more funny to people
reading this if I leave it at that ;o)
Kieron Wilkinson
-----
> :> That's bad.
> : Very bad ;)
>
> Not so bad. It's served the cracking groups quite well.
I just found an interesting release text file, here is a bit of it:
"The SECOND time in a row... (It seems that we are damned - f**k) !!!
Why the hell does TRSi release a trackmo (non-dos-basis) as LHA-Archive
and not as usual DMS-package" you may ask... Correct! The explaination is
quite simple; due a failure of The Disk Masher (just ask eg. Blackhawk or
Flake; they know what I am talking about... the dms-routine is full of
bugs) there appears a CHECKSUM ERROR (DMS ERR8) while un-packing the FIRST
disk (which makes it iMPOSSIBlE to un-dms it in a correct way). Be sure
that there are eg. no error tracks on disk! It is just one of those lousy
pack-error of the dms! So we had to archive the 2nd disk with another
full-disk-comprimizer... ZOOM!"
This was from the fileinfo.diz of:
TRSi `CUBIC DREAM (DREAM )` *AGA* tRACKMO [1/2]
which is on Aminet in demo/track
Kieron Wilkinson
> : They're perfect copies of the original (copy-protected) disks. If you
> : want to write them back to floppy, they're probably not a great deal of
> : use.
>
> But what use are diskimages which can't be written to disk?
Preservation mainly. Factor 5 teamed up with the UAE team so that *PC* users
could play Factor 5's old games. It is a PR thing.
> : An ADF is simply a sector by sector dump of an Amiga floppy. FMS stores
> : disk images as files which are equivilent to a sector by sector dump of
> : an Amiga floppy (why make things any harder than they need to be?). The
> : "format" (calling it a format isn't terribly accurate) is simply a raw
> : representation of the contents of the floppy.
>
> Then why isn't UAE using FMS files?
Err... :)
Okay, I'll tell you. FMS file == virtual floppy disk == amiga disk file ==
ADF.
FMS was around before UAE started to work properly however.
> :> Oh, that's why Xadundisk doesn't recognise it. Oh, wait, it didn't work
> :> anyway.
>
> : Are you being wilfully awkward here?
>
> I was being prompted to write it as a disk image, but that failed, too.
I have not used Xadundisk so I am afraid I cannot help you.
Kieron Wilkinson
"Iggy Drougge" <opt...@canit.se> wrote in message
news:yso%7.4032$O5.1...@nntpserver.swip.net...
> I find it rather peculiar that only the emulator community have found DMS
> to be so severely lacking that it shouldn't still be used. In the heyday
> of disk-swapping, DMS served its purpose quite well. The people insisting
No, that is not true. See my other post with the example fileinfo.diz for a
classic example.
Kieron Wilkinson
> DMS, but DMS was hacky, closed, no one knew how to decode them. They
<snip>
Nice, I didn't know that.
Kieron Wilkinson
> What I'd like is a utility which converts ADF to a useful format (DMS),
> just like I can convert alien archives into LhA or LZX using a simple
> tool.
If you cannot find such a tool that does this, you now know the reason why
yeah?
> And I don't care about emulator users. They can use paper tape for all I
> care. I just want lots of pirate copies from the net.
This does nothing to improve your argument does it.
Kieron Wilkinson
Nice.
> : Of course I'm talking about the files on Back to the Roots.
>
> I have dumped ADF files before, but that Turrican 2 archive just won't
> work.
We have already told you why this is the case, stop trying to write a file
that is not an ADF with an ADF tool!
You will always know if it is an ADF or not since it will always be 901120
bytes.
If you had the Turrican disk that that "ADF ext" file was read from, and you
DMS'ed it up, then wrote it again, the copy would not work, same as goes for
doing it by X-Copy or normal ADF.
> : There is unZip on Aminet. Very easy to use. I also have that configured
in
> : DOpus4. Just a double click and it expands into the same directory.
>
> Very easy to use? The bloody program wants its arguments all over the
> place. And who uses ZIP, anyway?
Hence why you use a script or DOpus, who would do any other this stuff by
hand?
> : Just to go back a bit, there was a utility years ago to create a disk
file
> : image of an Amiga floppy. I remember using it on my 9 meg (1 chip and 8
> : fast) AOS1.3 A2000 before I'd heard of DMS. It used the trackdisk.device
> : to create it and was used in I believe the RAD: disk. I believe it was
> : called Warp (or was that another one?) and created files with a .wrp
> : extension (I think it was a carry-over from the C64). There's a warp
> : utility on Aminet that's 476 weeks old. ;)
>
> There must be dozens of such programs. They didn't catch on very well,
> mind you.
Because their use was not suitable for most people *then*.
> : The PC community (or UNIX to start) mearly utilised these disk images
and
> : gave them a new name with a 3 letter extension of ".adf" to help
identify
> : them, but they're the same images we've been using for years well before
> : UAE came out.
>
> Who used those? I'd say the format was rediscovered. Look at how UAE is
> bundled with its own programs for dumping, instead of using FMS or Warp.
Eh? Those programs are only for convenience so people do not have to go find
and download other ones. The programs are *very* small and simple so there
is no cost to do this.
> : Check your floppy drive for dust in the mechanisms and dirt on the
> : drive heads. They all need cleaning from time to time. There's no reason
> : you should be having trouble creating floppy disks from "standard"
(read,
> : pirated ;) 901k .adf files at reasonable speeds. None of us do. ;)
>
> But what if they're not 901 K?
Then they are either "ADF ext" or "ADF ext2" or the file is just plain
corrupted. These extended ADF's cannot be written back to disk and cannot be
played on an Amiga without running an Amiga port of UAE on an Amiga.
Delete this Turrican 2 ADF ext, to stop it confusing you.
Kieron Wilkinson
> > I have dumped ADF files before, but that Turrican 2 archive just won't
> > work.
>
> Where is it (I haven't looked)?
Backup for people with the original. Obviously has build-in lamer protection
too. Clever that.
> I personally haven't come across any, except maybe the ones from the CATS
> group which are that way on purpose. But I don't bother with those. I
> prefer not to duplicate the protection as I feel it's bad for the drive
> (a holdover from my C64 days).
CATS? Not heard of them... Or did you mean us? ;-)
If you did not mean us, I would be very interested to hear about this other
effort!
Your argument about the protection is sound. Some original games may not
very good for the disk drive, at least worse than their cracked equivilent.
I remeber Road Rash, "weerrr, weerrr, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, click, pop,
poof.".
Rick Jones
>>I personally haven't come across any, except maybe the ones from the CATS
>>group which are that way on purpose. But I don't bother with those. I
>>prefer not to duplicate the protection as I feel it's bad for the drive
>>(a holdover from my C64 days).
>>
>
> CATS? Not heard of them... Or did you mean us? ;-)
Commodore-Amiga Technical Support (CATS). The people at CBM that
supplied information to registered developers. No longer around, of course.
--
Rick Jones
Remove the Extra Dot to e-mail me
Life is too short to drink bad wine.
Marcel DeVoe
>> > I have dumped ADF files before, but that Turrican 2 archive just won't
>> > work.
>>
>> Where is it (I haven't looked)?
> Backup for people with the original. Obviously has build-in lamer protection
> too. Clever that.
>> I personally haven't come across any, except maybe the ones from the CATS
>> group which are that way on purpose. But I don't bother with those. I
>> prefer not to duplicate the protection as I feel it's bad for the drive
>> (a holdover from my C64 days).
> CATS? Not heard of them... Or did you mean us? ;-)
Uh-huh.
> If you did not mean us, I would be very interested to hear about this other
> effort!
It's a musical. Go see it sometime. ;-)
> Your argument about the protection is sound. Some original games may not
> very good for the disk drive, at least worse than their cracked equivilent.
> I remeber Road Rash, "weerrr, weerrr, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, click, pop,
> poof.".
Ouch!
The only problem I have with pirated versions are those damn intros.
Granted some of them were clever and meant to show off some programming
skills. But even on higher newer processors a lot of those games would
still run, but the intros, since they hit the hardware harder than most of
the games themselves would, would then hang at the beginning of boot.
What I usually do is try removing those intros and altering the S-S to
bypass loading them and go directly to the game itself. Unfortunately some
of those intros were intentionally keyed into the game and wouldn't run
without them. Or it would be an N-DOS disk with no way of getting at the
files.
It was the competition among the pirate groups that caused this and one
way of preventing another group from taking over the already cracked game
of another claiming they did the cracking themselves. Competition was
fierce. Just read some of those intros. ;)
I prefer something that would just patch the game to remove the protection
only. There was "Project D" and "Maverick" that would do just that. They
had modules that would come out periodically as new games arrived. The
game behaved as before, but the protection check was removed, and then
the disk (except for a few that had special trackdisk loading routines,
Cinemaware for example) was easily copyable with just a simple DOS copy
program rather than having to use a nibbler, which sometimes would cause
extra disk errors that weren't there before if the drive reading it
wasn't top notch. Even though some errors were intentional, the extra
ones would corrupt the game. A good DOS copy was always known to be
"clean".
Oops! I think I just described my "roots"! ;-)
Kieron Wilkinson
"Marcel DeVoe" <mde...@shore.net> wrote in message
news:Icb18.23$jl3....@news.shore.net...
> I prefer something that would just patch the game to remove the protection
> only. There was "Project D" and "Maverick" that would do just that. They
> had modules that would come out periodically as new games arrived. The
> game behaved as before, but the protection check was removed, and then
> the disk (except for a few that had special trackdisk loading routines,
> Cinemaware for example) was easily copyable with just a simple DOS copy
> program rather than having to use a nibbler, which sometimes would cause
I remember something like that, it was called Lockpick.
The reason we do not want to do as you describe above is because we do not
modify the game code *at all*. We are not a cracking (recracking) group.
This does mean that we can blindly dump any disk, including Atari ST, PC and
even C64 5 1/4 GCR (not MFM) based disks (if I can get hold of a C64 drive
and some disks anyway).
Another good thing with having the original disks as images (plug, plug ;)
is if we can get the WHDLoad guys to support the format, just like they
currently do the original disks. You then get OS compliant games installed
from images - very good when peoples originals have died. Though it is
perhaps easier to download the HD Installed versions, but at least you know
you have what was on the original, and if the HD installer is updated...?
> extra disk errors that weren't there before if the drive reading it
> wasn't top notch. Even though some errors were intentional, the extra
> ones would corrupt the game. A good DOS copy was always known to be
> "clean".
One small exception to this rule, (though perhaps not in the context of the
programs above) is that we remember a couple of games that copy fine under
say, X-Copy or whatever (no errors), but still know they have been copied,
and hence do strange things in game.
I remember one "kid ninja" type game, where it had the main character flying
kick the screen and say "<my name> does not like software pirates and
reports them to F.A.S.T.!" (with number). I really wish I cannot remember
which game it was though...
Kieron
Iggy Drougge
: In article <wGL%7.4244$O5.1...@nntpserver.swip.net>, Iggy Drougge wrote:
:> Matthew Garrett <mjg59-comp.s...@srcf.ucam.org> skrev:
:>: They're perfect copies of the original (copy-protected) disks. If you
:>: want to write them back to floppy, they're probably not a great deal of
:>: use.
:>
:> But what use are diskimages which can't be written to disk?
: You can use them in an emulator.
Once again, it's an emu kiddie thing.
:>: An ADF is simply a sector by sector dump of an Amiga floppy. FMS stores
:>: disk images as files which are equivilent to a sector by sector dump of
:>: an Amiga floppy (why make things any harder than they need to be?). The
:>: "format" (calling it a format isn't terribly accurate) is simply a raw
:>: representation of the contents of the floppy.
:>
:> Then why isn't UAE using FMS files?
: It is. They just gave it an ADF extension to make it clearer what the
: file was.
=)
:>: Just like FMS, which was released in 1989. The ADF "format" has been
:>: around for over 11 years.
:>
:> Then how come the first ADF programs show up on Aminet in 1997-ish?
: Because it wasn't called ADF until then.
Why would they rename a format which was already seven years old?
:>: If your shell has decent piping, a combination of gzip and a trivial app
:>: that takes data on the standard input and writes it on standard out
:>: would do this in a single step. DMS also has the disadvantage that it
:>: only compresses on a track by track basis, while a gzipped ADF will be
:>: based on the entire file. As a result, DMS files will generally be
:>: bigger.
:>
:> I think it is a well-established fact that AmigaShell has sub-optimal
:> piping. And your method, while probably feasible, is very UNIX-y and
:> applicable to every kind of program which doesn't fulfill every step of
:> any process.
:> DMS works, that's good enough for me.
: And a larger number of people feel that DMS doesn't work sufficiently
: well for them and so use a different format. Why should everybody be
: forced to deal with larger files because it's slightly more awkward for
: you to write them?
Well, because it's slightly more awkward to write them. Besides, ADFs are
larger, since they're uncompressed.
:>: In what way?
:>
:> In that it's unbearably slow in comparison to LhA when listing files.
: Yes, in what way?
In that it's unbearably slow when listing files, in comparison to LhA!
What is it about that sentence that you don't understand?
Matthew Garrett
> Matthew Garrett <mjg59-comp.s...@srcf.ucam.org> skrev:
>: In article <wGL%7.4244$O5.1...@nntpserver.swip.net>, Iggy Drougge wrote:
>:> But what use are diskimages which can't be written to disk?
>
>: You can use them in an emulator.
>
> Once again, it's an emu kiddie thing.
Those ones are, yes. If you did have them written to disk, you wouldn't
be able to make a DMS of them. That's the entire point - they're bigger
because they contain information that standard ADFs (and DMS images)
don't contain.
>:> Then why isn't UAE using FMS files?
>
>: It is. They just gave it an ADF extension to make it clearer what the
>: file was.
>
>=)
Indeed.
>:> Then how come the first ADF programs show up on Aminet in 1997-ish?
>
>: Because it wasn't called ADF until then.
>
> Why would they rename a format which was already seven years old?
See above.
>: And a larger number of people feel that DMS doesn't work sufficiently
>: well for them and so use a different format. Why should everybody be
>: forced to deal with larger files because it's slightly more awkward for
>: you to write them?
>
> Well, because it's slightly more awkward to write them. Besides, ADFs are
> larger, since they're uncompressed.
If they're uncompressed, it's as easy to write them as a DMS image
(transdisk will do it trivially). If they're compressed they're slightly
more awkward to write than a DMS image and they're significantly
smaller.
>:> In that it's unbearably slow in comparison to LhA when listing files.
>
>: Yes, in what way?
>
> In that it's unbearably slow when listing files, in comparison to LhA!
> What is it about that sentence that you don't understand?
What, precisely, are you doing in LHA and what are you doing with tar?
Saying "It's slower listing files" provides no information as to how
you're attempting to list the files or which part of the process it is
that's slower.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-comp.s...@srcf.ucam.org
Iggy Drougge
:> : It is an attempt to get all the information off an *original* disk with
: copy
:> : protection, it is not great, but it works for the Factor 5 games. They
: may
:> : be writeable back to disk, but the tools probably have not been written
: yet.
:>
:> So what good are they?
: Do you care about the Amiga at all?
I'm writing this on an Amiga, in an Amiga group, and I want a pirate copy
of Turrican 2, isn't that caring? ;-)
:> : Probably because they realised that DMS is a pile of crap.
:>
:> I suppose it might be /for emulator purposes/.
: Maybe. Except they probably had an intstaller for the ADF images - they
: could probably fit more on the disk using compressed ADF - for reason I
: expained in another post about compression "dictionary".
The ADFs weren't compressed. CDs fit so much, I suppose they felt an urge
to waste space. =)
:> : No it was not created for UAE! And yes it is a native format! Ever heard
: of
:> : FMS? That was made about 1992, before UAE even worked at all.
:>
:> I've heard of FMS. What's that got to do with ADF?
: As Matthew said. Basically the "virtual disk" that FMS provides filesystem
: access to, is nothing more than a disk image and hence can be used as an
: ADF.
: Install FMS, disk copy to virtual disk, get ADF writer to write "Unit0" to a
: floppy - go see what is on the floppy.
: As I said before, FMS has been around for a very long time.
And ADF is a new format which is identical to FMS.
:> : I think what you are failing to understand is that ADF is not a "file
:> : format" as such, it is just a raw dump of an Amiga formatted floppy
: disk,
:> : there is no "header" information like most file format.
:>
:> Oh, that's why Xadundisk doesn't recognise it. Oh, wait, it didn't work
:> anyway.
: Did you misunderstand that paragrah? I was talking about normal ADF, and as
: Xadundisk supports that, I don't know what you have done wrong now...
So I had an abnormal ADF?
:> : Take a normal 880Kb Amiga disk, they have:
:> : 80 tracks
:> : 2 heads (each side of the disk)
:> : 11 sectors per track
:> : 512 bytes per sector
:>
:> : So, 80*2*11*512 = 901120 bytes = 880Kb floppy disk.
:>
:> : 901120 bytes look familiar? Yes, that is right, it is the size of a ADF.
:>
:> What a waste of space.
: The point was that you cannnot effectively argue about something when you do
: not know all the facts. I was trying to explain to you that Amiga formatted
: disk == Amiga Disk File, just on different media (on on floppy, one on HD).
But then we have that 2 MB+ file, which hardly could have originated on a
floppy.
:> : There is no extra "file format" information here, just raw data. ADF was
:> : never "invented" in fact, if you want to call it invented then I suppose
: it
:> : much have been 1983/4 when the first Amiga prototype was built.
:>
:> : ADF == Amiga formatted floppy disk
:>
:> But in a big file.
: Then use LHA. Or better, use script to do both, that is what I used to do.
Or I could just type DMS read Game.dms.
:> : What do you think DMS is? It is basically has ADF style tracks, with
: hacky
:> : compression and tricks to see if the track needs to be stored or not,
: which
:> : is sometimes wrong anyway. Compressed ADFs also have the potential to be
:> : smaller than DMS files too with the right compressor?
:>
:> But then you have to decompress them. DMS does it all for you.
: True. But the reliability outweighs the "having to use DMS" :)
For a select few, I think.
:> : Don't like having to do two steps? Well fine, the Unix community (the
: oldest
:> : computing community) have been doing that since forever with TAR and
: GZip.
:>
:> The UNIX community is a documented case of large scale masochism. And the
:> TAR/GZip method doesn't work very well IME. It works, but it's unbearably
:> slow in comparison to an LhA listing.
: Yeah, that is because it is portable code. LHA is optimised for the Amiga
: using 68K assembly etc. It cannot really be surprising TAR/GZip is slow.
: However, I was not talking about USING those tools, I was simply talking
: about the analogy.
I think there are deeper differences than that. For example, wouldn't
reading the directory of the file mean decompressing the GZip file to get
at the TAr file? Also, I think, though I'm no compression expert, that it
might be more vulnerable, since it would compress all files as one big
file, though that might also yield better compression ratios.
As for the analogy, well, UNIX has its way of doing things, and it is
rarely compatible with the Amiga approach.
:> : Emulation is *just* a nice side effect.
:>
:> It is the purpose of it all.
: Whatever.
:> : For more information about Amiga disk formats and ADF see:
:> : http://perso.club-internet.fr/lclevy/adflib/adf_info.html
:>
:> Very much about Amiga floppy formats, very little about ADF.
: You really do not understand any of this do you?
: (I was going to say more there, but I think is is much more funny to people
: reading this if I leave it at that ;o)
Then I'd better snip that. Oh, wait...
Iggy Drougge
:> : Of course I'm talking about the files on Back to the Roots.
:> I have dumped ADF files before, but that Turrican 2 archive just won't
:> work.
: Where is it (I haven't looked)?
http://www2.factor5.com/t2.zip
:> :> Then you would have to de-ZIP (I've never seen an LhA packed ADF file) it
:> :> before writing it.
:> : There is unZip on Aminet. Very easy to use. I also have that configured in
:> : DOpus4. Just a double click and it expands into the same directory.
:> Very easy to use? The bloody program wants its arguments all over the
:> place.
: No it doesn't. Just "unzip file.zip".
Unzip -l file.zip
This works.
Unzip file.zip -l
This doesn't.
Unzip file.zip -d RAM:
This works.
Unzip -d RAM: file.zip
This doesn't.
:> And who uses ZIP, anyway?
: You /are/ being willfully difficult.
Admittedly. But I find it odd that Amiga games end up being ZIP
compressed. Back when I had an 80 MB hard drive, I found so few cases when
I had to use UnZip, it wasn't worthwhilke to keep the binary on my hard
drive. I'd just upload the file to my ISP and decompress it there. =)
Iggy Drougge
: I prefer something that would just patch the game to remove the protection
: only.
I'd prefer WHDLoad modules. Even if you own the original, dealing with
the copy protection is a chore which shouldn't befall the people who
actually paid good money for the game.
Iggy Drougge
:> With an '040, I think the point about compression is moot. =)
: Nice.
Not really, no, but enough to not be slowed down by compression.
:> : Of course I'm talking about the files on Back to the Roots.
:>
:> I have dumped ADF files before, but that Turrican 2 archive just won't
:> work.
: We have already told you why this is the case, stop trying to write a file
: that is not an ADF with an ADF tool!
It's called an ADF. How would I know it's not?
: You will always know if it is an ADF or not since it will always be 901120
: bytes.
: If you had the Turrican disk that that "ADF ext" file was read from, and you
: DMS'ed it up, then wrote it again, the copy would not work, same as goes for
: doing it by X-Copy or normal ADF.
You must be right. But how come you can transkdisk it if you can't XCopy
or DMS it?
:> : There is unZip on Aminet. Very easy to use. I also have that configured
: in
:> : DOpus4. Just a double click and it expands into the same directory.
:>
:> Very easy to use? The bloody program wants its arguments all over the
:> place. And who uses ZIP, anyway?
: Hence why you use a script or DOpus, who would do any other this stuff by
: hand?
What do you mean? Why would anyone make a program which is such a bother,
it's just asking for automation?
Besides, I use ZIP files so seldom, it's not worth the trouble of writing
a script.
:> : Just to go back a bit, there was a utility years ago to create a disk
: file
:> : image of an Amiga floppy. I remember using it on my 9 meg (1 chip and 8
:> : fast) AOS1.3 A2000 before I'd heard of DMS. It used the trackdisk.device
:> : to create it and was used in I believe the RAD: disk. I believe it was
:> : called Warp (or was that another one?) and created files with a .wrp
:> : extension (I think it was a carry-over from the C64). There's a warp
:> : utility on Aminet that's 476 weeks old. ;)
:>
:> There must be dozens of such programs. They didn't catch on very well,
:> mind you.
: Because their use was not suitable for most people *then*.
Whereas they're suitable to the emulation community now.
:> : Check your floppy drive for dust in the mechanisms and dirt on the
:> : drive heads. They all need cleaning from time to time. There's no reason
:> : you should be having trouble creating floppy disks from "standard"
: (read,
:> : pirated ;) 901k .adf files at reasonable speeds. None of us do. ;)
:>
:> But what if they're not 901 K?
: Then they are either "ADF ext" or "ADF ext2" or the file is just plain
: corrupted. These extended ADF's cannot be written back to disk and cannot be
: played on an Amiga without running an Amiga port of UAE on an Amiga.
How utterly useless! Why are they even called ADFs?
: Delete this Turrican 2 ADF ext, to stop it confusing you.
Oh well, back to the Atari version with its blipp-blopp sounds.
Iggy Drougge
:> :> That's bad.
:> : Very bad ;)
:> Not so bad. It's served the cracking groups quite well.
: They didn't know better. :)
They, if anyone, should know disk formats, shouldn't they?
:> So if you dialed an Amiga BBS five or seven years ago, it would be smack
:> full of ADF files?
: Obviously not, that is why DMS is big now, it was the format of choice at
: the time. In fact it was the only choice at the time because of reasons I
: explained in another mail (compression needed on the fly because of
: storage/mem contraints.
It's also very convenient, in that you don't have to decompress any files
before writing them.
:> And I suppose that's why all the oldest ADF tool on Aminet is 245 weeks
:> old?
: Haha, no, actually it is not. That is the last *update* to that tool. As I
: said, FMS has been around for a very long time.
FMS, yes, ADF, no.
:> Very bothersome. And all ADF files I find are zipped, for some reason.
: This is due to TOSEC conventions, it also allows quick comparason for
: collections since ZIP does a nice CRC 32 for you.
TOSEC?
:> Who the hell uses ZIP? That's even more marginal than LZX.
: I have ZIP on my Amiga. Okay, so it is a slowish unix port, but it works
: just as well. True, ZIP is not an "Amiga format", but the biggest use of ADF
: is without doubt the PC emulation scene. There are probably more PC users
: that use Amiga emulators (who are probably ex-miggy owners) than there are
: current Amiga users who use it as their main machine.
Now you get it.
: I don't argue that ADF files main use are in emulators and by PC users, I am
: arguing that:
: 1) DMS is shite, don't use it
: 2) ADF is old, standard and proven - DMS is proprietry
DMS is old, standard and proven. Ask any cracking group.
: 3) ADF is far better suited to Amiga disk than DMS is see (1)
ADF is, for some reason, better suited to imaging copy protected disks. I
don't know why, but according to you, that is the case. For everything
else, it is a poor man's replacement for DMS.
:> : Don't get me wrong, DMS was okay in it's day, especially in the way it
:> : knackered up countless amounts of pirated Amiga disks.
:>
:> : The only way people ever used DMS is because:
:>
:> : 1) DMS ripped disks on the fly - track by track
:> : 2) Most people on had 512Kb/1Mb memory
:> : 3) Most people did not have hard disks
:> : 4) ADF would not fit on a disk or in RAM unless it was compressed first.
:> : 5) There were no (and probably still are not) any ADF readers that rip &
:> : compress track by track - there is no point - the compression cannot be
: as
:> : good this was, especially compressors with bigger (2/8/16 Kb)
: dictionary's.
:>
:> Otherwise, they'd have used all the ADF tools, or rather wait until they
:> showed up four years ago.
: Haha. :). As I said, although ADF existed as long as the Amiga has (ADF is
: just a name for a plain *amiga* disk image after all), it was not usable by
: most people because compression was needed on the fly for the reasons above.
I think we can establish that ADF is a new format which just happens to be
a disk image, like many other formats. Otherwise, it would keep the name
of the old format.
: The tools were around, it was just that nobody used them apart from people
: who (a) had the capability, (b) used virtual disks.
True.
:> I have 64 MB memory and 20 GB HD. I still use DMS. It works everywhere,
:> even on toy machines.
: I didn't say it didn't work on decently spec'ed Amiga's, I just said it was
: not as good. In fact, using DMS to write and read is fairly risky, because
: floppy disks are just not very reliable. However, if you are just writing to
: play a game but keep it in the DMS file, or read a game that has not been
: DMS'ed before hand - is dodgy - unless of course you use a disk image (ADF
: used by FMS or something) :)
DMS is good, since it involves a minimum of work.
:> : But at least ADF is in my control and I know bugs cannot exist in a raw
:> : dump, just the programs that might have made it, which is also less
: likely
:> : since ADF dumpers are typically about 100 lines of code.
:>
:> What's the difference? Either DMS or the ADF dumper knacks up your disk.
: My point is that DMS is very complicated and proprietry. ADF is very simple
: and less likely to for somebody writing a tool to get it wrong. If a tool
: does not work then use another, there is not much that can go wrong with ADF
: unless the ADF tool author is an idiot.
DMS works, why use another tool?
: ADF is an image form of the Amiga disk standard. DMS is a buggy hacky
: cracker program.
Yes. It's perfect for distributing cracked games.
:> :> still can't get my Turrican 2 disk right. For your sake, I'm going to
: try
:> :> it one more time. This time, it's the one from Factor5's homepage. It's
:> :> the same size as the old archive I had. A ZIP archive, mind you. So I
:>
:> : Well that is WHY then!! This is an "ADF ext" disk NOT a normal ADF one.
:>
:> I'm so happy for you. Now where's my pirate copy?
: Not the best thing to be asked for in this group... :)
: However since you have a broken original I will send you a copy.
I don't have any broken original, so you'd better stop sending that copy
right now. =)
:> :> first have to unzip it. Now, how can a 2166784 byte file become a
: single
:> :> DD disk?
:>
:> : Because ADF ext stores information about the copy protection, not just
: the
:> : raw data.
:>
:> I just want the game, don't care much for the copy protection data.
: I am a purist, I want the games how it was made, especially if I can fix my
: originals with it, not with some lame crack intro. I can see your point
: however.
How exactly do you fix the originals with it?
:> : Yes, try actually writing an ADF file with adf2disk, not an "ADF ext"
: disk -
:> : they are *completely* different - I expect your last ADF writer was
: "trying"
:> : to write the data past the end of the disk (and writing garbage since it
: is
:> : not an ADF file anyway).
:>
:> They are completely different, that's why they have the .ADF extension,
:> right? ;-)
: Yes, your right, they could have called it something different. Who knows
: why they chose to do that when the ADF ext format is so incredibly different
: (and so incredibily crap - forgive me ADF ext advocates, but it is).
=)
:> : However most CAPS files will be able to be written back to disk, and I
:> : believe we have some of the Turrican games, so to get an *original* disk
: of
:> : Turrican, watch our pages. We are here for the Amiga community first, to
:> : repair collectors original disks by preservation, emulation is just a
: nice
:> : side effect.
:>
:> I'd love to have a repaired copy of Jaguar XJ220, but where are the
:> downloads?
: I have Jaguar XJ220, but I have not dumped it yet. We will release that one
: however + I will put it on a higher priority.
I'm so glad. Hopefully, it won't be in ADF ext. format.
: There will never be any downloads from the site. We are not a hosting
: project. The games are for fixing originals and preservation. All games will
: be released like the games in the TOSEC dats, i.e. anonymously and probably
: via newsgroup / IRC.
Do you cooperate with the WHDLoad people? ISTR their having a similar
deal.
BTW, if those TOSEC dats are filenames, they don't go very well across
with Amiga FSes; parantheses and brackets are wildcards on the Amiga.
Marcel DeVoe
> "Marcel DeVoe" <mde...@shore.net> wrote in message
> news:Icb18.23$jl3....@news.shore.net...
>> I prefer something that would just patch the game to remove the protection
>> only. There was "Project D" and "Maverick" that would do just that. They
>> had modules that would come out periodically as new games arrived. The
>> game behaved as before, but the protection check was removed, and then
>> the disk (except for a few that had special trackdisk loading routines,
>> Cinemaware for example) was easily copyable with just a simple DOS copy
>> program rather than having to use a nibbler, which sometimes would cause
> I remember something like that, it was called Lockpick.
I had that on the C64. I believe there was a version for the PC too for
5-1/4 disks. By guess who? Jim Drew of Emplant fame. ;-)
> The reason we do not want to do as you describe above is because we do not
> modify the game code *at all*. We are not a cracking (recracking) group.
> This does mean that we can blindly dump any disk, including Atari ST, PC and
> even C64 5 1/4 GCR (not MFM) based disks (if I can get hold of a C64 drive
> and some disks anyway).
I personally feel that removing the protection is NOT violating the
original authors coding. The reason? Because most authors didn't *do*
the code for copy protection themselves. They usually worked under
contract for distribution houses such as Electronics Arts. The author
would complete the game then give it to their publishers and it was they
who would provide the copy protection scheme from their own third party
programmers incorporating it somewhere into the game.
I know this to be true of the C64, was most likely true of the Amiga in
the beginning during it's heyday, but probably less so in later years
during the decline where programmers began to do it themselves.
> Another good thing with having the original disks as images (plug, plug ;)
You know, I DO have Dragons Lair original around somewhere, 5 or 6 disks,
but damned if I can find the box anywhere. Hated the way it loaded too.
Got a pirated version of DLII hard drive installable which had the option
to load and HD install the first DL, but choked on the first disk
half-way through it. Bummer.
> is if we can get the WHDLoad guys to support the format, just like they
> currently do the original disks. You then get OS compliant games installed
> from images - very good when peoples originals have died. Though it is
> perhaps easier to download the HD Installed versions, but at least you know
> you have what was on the original, and if the HD installer is updated...?
You don't think WHDLoad isn't doing the same thing as LockPick? ;-)
But I agree, having them work on newer OS Amigas and hard drive
installable is always welcomed.
> One small exception to this rule, (though perhaps not in the context of the
> programs above) is that we remember a couple of games that copy fine under
> say, X-Copy or whatever (no errors), but still know they have been copied,
> and hence do strange things in game.
> I remember one "kid ninja" type game, where it had the main character flying
> kick the screen and say "<my name> does not like software pirates and
> reports them to F.A.S.T.!" (with number). I really wish I cannot remember
> which game it was though...
I remember a couple like that too. Track 81? ;)
Bernd Schmidt
>Matthew Garrett <mjg59-comp.s...@srcf.ucam.org> skrev:
>: In article <wGL%7.4244$O5.1...@nntpserver.swip.net>, Iggy Drougge wrote:
>:> Then why isn't UAE using FMS files?
>: It is. They just gave it an ADF extension to make it clearer what the
>: file was.
Not really. See below.
>:>: Just like FMS, which was released in 1989. The ADF "format" has been
>:>: around for over 11 years.
>:>
>:> Then how come the first ADF programs show up on Aminet in 1997-ish?
>: Because it wasn't called ADF until then.
>Why would they rename a format which was already seven years old?
I wasn't aware of either FMS nor DMS at the time. I stopped being an
active Amiga user before I got net access. fms/adf is just the most
natural way to get at the data on an Amiga floppy so it's no surprise
it's been "discovered" more than once.
>Well, because it's slightly more awkward to write them. Besides, ADFs are
>larger, since they're uncompressed.
So compress them. Duh. It's a basic principle when writing software:
make every tool do exactly one thing, and do it right. Have one tool
to dump raw disk data into a file, one to compress files, one to pack
more than one file into an archive. You gain flexibility, and you can
still get the same features you'd get from one monster program by combining
the smaller programs.
Bernd
Bernd Schmidt
>So I had an abnormal ADF?
I call 'em "extended" ADFs, and yes they are different.
>But then we have that 2 MB+ file, which hardly could have originated on a
>floppy.
Floppies actually use an encoding called MFM which uses twice as many bits
as the data you want to store. This alone will take you to about 1.8MB,
and then you'll have to take into account that the Turrican images use
long tracks, which are both a copy protection (since you can't write those
with a standard Amiga) and a method of cramming more data onto a disk.
>I think there are deeper differences than that. For example, wouldn't
>reading the directory of the file mean decompressing the GZip file to get
>at the TAr file?
Yes. It's possible that formats like lha have a table of contents which
tar doesn't have, so you'll have to decompress the entire thing. It's
not really a noticable speed loss on any kind of recent computer but on
an Amiga I can believe you'd be able to tell a difference.
> Also, I think, though I'm no compression expert, that it
>might be more vulnerable, since it would compress all files as one big
>file, though that might also yield better compression ratios.
If you've got bit errors in any file, compressed or uncompressed, you're
in trouble anyway.
Bernd
Iggy Drougge
: In article <eEo18.5224$O5.1...@nntpserver.swip.net>, Iggy Drougge wrote:
:> Matthew Garrett <mjg59-comp.s...@srcf.ucam.org> skrev:
:>: In article <wGL%7.4244$O5.1...@nntpserver.swip.net>, Iggy Drougge wrote:
:>:> But what use are diskimages which can't be written to disk?
:>
:>: You can use them in an emulator.
:>
:> Once again, it's an emu kiddie thing.
: Those ones are, yes. If you did have them written to disk, you wouldn't
: be able to make a DMS of them. That's the entire point - they're bigger
: because they contain information that standard ADFs (and DMS images)
: don't contain.
But they're absolutely useless, too. They're just 2 MB files filled with
nothing.
:>:> Then how come the first ADF programs show up on Aminet in 1997-ish?
:>
:>: Because it wasn't called ADF until then.
:>
:> Why would they rename a format which was already seven years old?
: See above.
Because they reinvented it.
:>: And a larger number of people feel that DMS doesn't work sufficiently
:>: well for them and so use a different format. Why should everybody be
:>: forced to deal with larger files because it's slightly more awkward for
:>: you to write them?
:>
:> Well, because it's slightly more awkward to write them. Besides, ADFs are
:> larger, since they're uncompressed.
: If they're uncompressed, it's as easy to write them as a DMS image
: (transdisk will do it trivially). If they're compressed they're slightly
: more awkward to write than a DMS image and they're significantly
: smaller.
Yes.
:>:> In that it's unbearably slow in comparison to LhA when listing files.
:>
:>: Yes, in what way?
:>
:> In that it's unbearably slow when listing files, in comparison to LhA!
:> What is it about that sentence that you don't understand?
: What, precisely, are you doing in LHA and what are you doing with tar?
: Saying "It's slower listing files" provides no information as to how
: you're attempting to list the files or which part of the process it is
: that's slower.
I list files in LhA with "lha l", I list files in untgz with "untgz -v".
Kieron Wilkinson
> 5-1/4 disks. By guess who? Jim Drew of Emplant fame. ;-)
Hehe. He seems to get everywhere. What is real? ;o)
> I personally feel that removing the protection is NOT violating the
> original authors coding. The reason? Because most authors didn't *do*
> the code for copy protection themselves. They usually worked under
> contract for distribution houses such as Electronics Arts. The author
> would complete the game then give it to their publishers and it was they
> who would provide the copy protection scheme from their own third party
> programmers incorporating it somewhere into the game.
True. They were also the easier protections to crack since they were not
intergrated into the game. Rob Northen (of CopyLock protection fame) said
himself that he game guidlines to the developers on how to integrate the
protection checks into their games, but most people ignored his advice,
especially the publishers that only normally put one protection check at the
beginning of the game.
Some publishers just stuck the normal data into long tracks on the disk so
it could not be copied. However, if you just rip the data off those long
tracks (easily enough done) most games do not appear to actually check that
they are *on* a long-tracked disk = no code modification in order to crack.
I think that most cracking groups kept this fact hidden however, because
they probably did not want to loose their elite status. :)
> I know this to be true of the C64, was most likely true of the Amiga in
> the beginning during it's heyday, but probably less so in later years
> during the decline where programmers began to do it themselves.
I know for many games, the developers did it. However, I don't know about
for *most* games. You are probably right.
> You know, I DO have Dragons Lair original around somewhere, 5 or 6 disks,
> but damned if I can find the box anywhere. Hated the way it loaded too.
;-)
> > I remember one "kid ninja" type game, where it had the main character
flying
> > kick the screen and say "<my name> does not like software pirates and
> > reports them to F.A.S.T.!" (with number). I really wish I cannot
remember
> > which game it was though...
>
> I remember a couple like that too. Track 81? ;)
I don't honestly know. Possibly. At the time I would not have known about
these things. Thanks for pointing that our though. I now think of the
possibility of these "stealth" protections as a "might be" and not "what
actually was".