Arctic Fox?

[Blackjackel6]

i think i read somewhere that someone wanted an original adf of Arctic Fox, i have the original on amiga floppy which i will adf if you still are looking for it

[Twistin'Ghost]

Yes, we are in need of a fresh dump. But seeing as how your original is copy protected, this may pose a problem. If you are technical, here is how you can deprotect it:

Cylinder 0, Top
Sync = $AA25, Length = $2EC0

Block 857
Offset $F4
Value = $2876E751
Offset $F8
Value = $AE9613F3
Offset $FC
Value = $AEA6B6EB

Block 861
Offset $48
Value = $55B3898B
Offset $A4
Value = $4CC93DBF
Offset $A8
Value = $01ED69DF
Offset $E4
Value = $DB175E55,$F3D89CBC,$6966557D,$87AA6CAB
$989738D7,$A9E86BA3,$70DC7124,$F5C4F131
$80CA5CA1,$AE7A0CE2,$AC8BBBF2,$7888429A
$27F139F9,$2F7F4E6A,$6E91B365,$F5AA2F48
$AF72DD5D,$2B78824D,$1D1A5B8D,$E86723AC
$9B2642C7,$76139072,$54DBE185,$D4366BFF
$C44D189D

1. Use Dumb Copy to make a Backup copy.
2. Modify the above block(s) starting with
the offset(s) shown to the value(s) shown.
3. This will deprotect the disk.
If all of that is greek to you, ProjectD 3.16 will deprotect the game to a new disk (copy) which will in turn be adf'able. The existing copy on the net is a useless overdump.

Codetapper of some of the other WHD guys may want to contact you for an image of the original for making a hard-drive version, as well.

[andreas]

Twist, what do you mean by Dumb Copy?
Is this a copy program I don't know of?
:confused

[Mangar72]

If you guys ever get a REAL working dump of this could you let me know please? This is one adf I've been looking forever for.

[DPainter]

I just used DISK2FDI to dump Arctic Fox (not original), probably not cracked. I don't believe the parameter copiers actually crack it; instead, they duplicate the protection. DISK2FDI reported errors on Head 0, Side 1 and Head 1, Side 1. This copy behaves like all others I've tried, which makes me think that emulation is the problem, not protection.

[MethodGit]

Twist, can you upload ProjectD if you have it? Aminet and Google don't seem to produce any results.

[andreas]

I just used DISK2FDI to dump Arctic Fox (not original), probably not cracked.
What about WARPing it, DPainter?
A WARP is always the best way to get an original copy a HD-fixer or ADF-fixer can make use of. :)
PM me for details, if you've never worked with those tools before...

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by MarzAttakz
Twist, can you upload ProjectD if you have it? Aminet and Google don't seem to produce any results.
In the Zone...

[MethodGit]

Thanks very much, Twist. :cool

[Twistin'Ghost]

Good news and bad news. The good news: I found a dms file of Arctic Fox!!!

[Twistin'Ghost]

And now the bad news. Whoever created the dms file for that game did so in standard mode, rather than with the NOZERO switch set, resulting in a meager 62k file. Making it useless. (sigh)

Sorry for the tease above...that screenshot is from the ST version. Think of it as an incentive for DPainter to warp his copy!

Oh, and I keep meaning to reply to Andreas about his question regarding DUMB COPY from early in this thread. DUMB COPY is a mode in the copier program Mirror, which was (I believe) an early version of RawCopy. That mode is not in RawCopy (or at least not the last released version). If anyone would like, I can post Mirror, but you will need an original of the game and a real Amiga.

[andreas]

Thanks for your offer.
Well, I have a real amiga and original games, not that one, though. But this copyprog may be useful for other originals, too, so I'd appreciate it if you uploaded it.

[Twistin'Ghost]

OK, it's on my list to upload when I get home. And maybe anyone who has an original can use this method on theirs (if they can understand the somewhat cryptic instructions)...

[shutter]

i have tried making an adf-version found on the net working -
but i cant find tese addresses (im working with DISCOVERY -DiskManipulator1986)
Block 861

Offset $A4 ?? seems to be at another Block?
Value = $4CC93DBF
Offset $A8 ??
Value = $01ED69DF
Offset $E4

etc

[andreas]

i have tried making an adf-version found on the net working - but i cant find tese addresses
Well, you need an ORIGINAL to make this work, otherwise you can't find these addresses because the crackers had already tampered with the code then...

[shutter]

the game is NOT cracked and NOT running on my REAL Amigas.Buts its ADF ..perhaps the protected Blocks are missing ..
but I wrote the whole disk without a problem

if someone has it cracked upload it in the zone please..
or help me find the rigt Tracks/blocks ;)

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
DUMB COPY is a mode in the copier program Mirror, which was (I believe) an early version of RawCopy. That mode is not in RawCopy (or at least not the last released version). If anyone would like, I can post Mirror, but you will need an original of the game and a real Amiga.
As mentioned above, you need an original of the game and a copy of Mirror for that to work. The copy circulating on the net is an overdump and therefore worthless. But the copy that it was dumped from was deprotected, this I am sure of. The blocks you seek do not exist on this disk/adf.

[andreas]

Whahey! Just seen Jean-Francois Fabre (aka JOTD) has taken over work for Arctic Fox installer and it's 95% complete (http://www.whdload.de) now!
Cool! :)

[DrBong]

WHDLoad patch is actually 100% complete and is available for download. Works perfectly on Amiga BTW :-) Next on Jeff Fabre's list is One on One- yes!

[Twistin'Ghost]

How wonderful that these poor performance old E/A classics are being fixed! This is splendid news, indeed!

[DrBong]

@Twistin'
Trouble with HD fixing the old 80s EA games is that the loaders are written in C and the games themselves make heavy use of OS functions. Therefore most of them crash and burn on pretty much anything but a basic Amiga set-up running Kickstart 1.1 or 1.2. Jeff's done remarkably well to HD fix these games for most Amiga configurations and with a clean quit back to WB option to boot!

[Twistin'Ghost]

I know that Codetapper has mentioned to me before how he hates mucking with games that use the system. I would have thought it would be the other way around, but I can see how this could be a problem (sort of). What I *don't* understand is why they won't emulate worth a damn even using the original ROM files (which was more difficult to swap around on a real Amiga).

[fiath]

Guys,

Look at the credits to the install. ;)

[DrBong]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
What I *don't* understand is why they won't emulate worth a damn even using the original ROM files (which was more difficult to swap around on a real Amiga).

The answer lies partly in the fact that there is more to an Amiga (and Amiga emulation) than a kickstart rom (image). The old EA games won't even work on basic OCS Amigas softkicked with 1.2. Heck, some old games needing Kickstart 1.x wouldn't work if you simply had an external floppy drive enabled. Sometimes that was a intentional byproduct of the copy protection, other times it was purely incidental. Anyway, as good as Amiga emulators are getting, methinks it's probably being too hopeful to expect old copy-protected games to work when they don't on the real thing with softkicking/degrading/praying/headbanging etc.

The other answer to your question lies in the fact that Amiga emulators at present cannot handle disk copy protection. Being able to make an ADF of an original Amiga game without errors being reported won't necessarily mean that the copy protection is intact either. For some games this is crucial. Test Drive is a perfect example. Most times you can make an ADF of the original Test Drive disk without any errors being reported. However, the game exec file (TD) is one of the earliest files loaded after booting the disk. IIRC once the exec is loaded, a disk check is actually initiated to verify the presence of a non-standard protected track (track o head 1 to be precise). If the disk check fails then the loading actually stops then and there. Downright devious! That non-standard track on the Test Drive disk can't even be warped properly. Therefore, in order to get the WHDLoad patch working properly, Jeff Fabre without a physical original of the game, had to crack the exec file so the disk check would be bypassed to load and run the game.

The mind really boggles when you consider all the weird, whacky and downright evil disk copy protection schemes that appeared on the Amiga!

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Shadowen
Anyway, as good as Amiga emulators are getting, methinks it's probably being too hopeful to expect old copy-protected games to work when they don't on the real thing with softkicking/degrading/praying/headbanging etc.
Well, I agree that it's just as much of a pain to get those older games working on a real Amiga, but I wasn't referring to copy-protected versions. Most of the old E/A ones have been fixed via parameter copiers. Also, a lot of those terribly address-crunched 1-parted games are just as difficult to get going on anything but a bog-standard A500. I shutter to think what the current Amiga retro gaming scene would be like without the WHD patch creators all making the impossible possible. They are the wind beneath my...[SNIP!]
Originally posted by Shadowen
The mind really boggles when you consider all the weird, whacky and downright evil disk copy protection schemes that appeared on the Amiga!
It would make a great book, methinks. But or course, everyone would just pirate the book... :rolleyes

[DrBong]

@Twistin'
You inadvertedly hit the nail on the head.....some of the single filed games by the likes of Il Scuro have been crunched using obscure, and at times, quite nasty decrunchers. I suspect that problems would occur if the game is decrunched to an area of memory that is being reserved for other things on expanded set-ups (emulation or not). There's also still no getting away from the fact that deprotected or not, old games will do nasty things (emulation or not) if the coders did not follow Commodore's programming guidelines. If a lot of game coders had, then the WHDLoad guys would not be nearly as busy I suspect!

[fiath]

Tell me about it!

We have seen one game that instead of making a library call, it jumps straight to an address in ROM to execute a function. Needless to say, this game only works on KS 1.2.

Another game, and one of the best protections we have seen so far (the game is crap though ;) monitors the exactly behaviour after it deliberately throws a CPU exception - within a CPU exception block. Needless to say this game only works on a 68000 CPU.

[DrBong]

@Fiath
What game do you speak of and does the copy protection have a specific name like RNC or Trackmaster 17?

[fiath]

Okay, the first reference to "direct ROM jumping" refers to some of the early EA titles. This is one(?) of the reasons why some versions of them (the earlier ones obviously) only work on KS 1.2 and/or with specific memory configurations.

As for the second one - that prize goes to Cardiaxx - that game has BRILLIANT copy protection - technically speaking. It is just a shame they did not put as much effort into the game itself! :)

But no, they do not have specific names afaik. In fact, most of the protections we find at CAPS probably have names - we just don't know them! Hence why we usually call protections something ourselves - just to refer to it. This is usually after the publisher, or something else for example:

ReadySoft (main)
ReadySoft (old) - 1st Dragon's Lair only?
Firebird
Rainbird (non CCITT)
CopyLock (old version)
CopyLock (newer version)

Or whatever. I suppose if there is some identifier in the protection that obviously refers to it - we might use that or something...

[Twistin'Ghost]

Hey, Fiath - just make sure you are keeping good notes on all of this stuff. I still think it would make a very good book (we could put protection on the pdf ebook!)

[fiath]

Haha yeah eBook... But what about that Russian guy?

Anyway, the WIP is nearly a book by now... :)

[DrBong]

Originally posted by fiath
As for the second one - that prize goes to Cardiaxx - that game has BRILLIANT copy protection - technically speaking. It is just a shame they did not put as much effort into the game itself! :)

But no, they do not have specific names afaik. In fact, most of the protections we find at CAPS probably have names - we just don't know them! Hence why we usually call protections something ourselves - just to refer to it. This is usually after the publisher, or something else. I suppose if there is some identifier in the protection that obviously refers to it - we might use that or something...

Which release of Cardiaxx has that copy protection- Electronic Zoo, Team 17 or both?

With the names of copy protection schemes used, sometimes you can find some reference to it in the game credits (in-game or in the docs). Other times the name may be embedded in bootblocks or game code. However, as you've said, mostly they are unknown and will remain that way unless software houses/coders have discussed them in old Amiga magazine articles or more recently on the net. Pity that information about Amiga copy protection isn't as prevalent as that for C64 copy protection, where books like that written by KrackerJax were published on the topic.

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Shadowen
With the names of copy protection schemes used, sometimes you can find some reference to it in the game credits (in-game or in the docs). Other times the name may be embedded in bootblocks or game code. However, as you've said, mostly they are unknown and will remain that way unless software houses/coders have discussed them in old Amiga magazine articles or more recently on the net. Pity that information about Amiga copy protection isn't as prevalent as that for C64 copy protection, where books like that written by KrackerJax were published on the topic.

Actually we were planning on doing an Amiga version of the Inside Kracker Jax series, Bob Mills and I were starting the first volume when the whole CBM market fell thru :(

Now when I say we, I mean the Kracker Jax team, it was a sub label of the parent company, Hands On Software. I worked for the parent company since about it's inception, when it worked wholly on C64 parameters as they were called and were sold via a couple of local computer shops.

Him and I had kept a lot of notes on the various schemes, including the long tracks used by both Psygnosis and Readysoft. We both liked the simplicity and the nuances of all the iterations of RNC protection ;)

Not sure if Bob kept any of his notes, mine I had to leave with the company when I left there a few years back. I got to keep the software however :cool

[DrBong]

@jmmijo
Interesting info. :-) When, how, and why did Hands On Software/Kracker Jax leave the C= market? Surely, if they left because the C64 market had died they could have continued on with Amiga product development? The last Amiga development I know of from Bob Mills was the update release of Maverick V5.01 on 12/8/92, which was still in the Amiga heydey and well before Commodore's bankruptcy. Did he release anything after that date?

Anyway, I would love to get my hands on any of the Kracker Jax books/software published for C64, but especially the books which have long been out of print.

[Twistin'Ghost]

I have seen those books for sale on ebay before, so you may want to do some searches there from time to time.

[jmmijo]

Originally posted by Shadowen
@jmmijo
Interesting info. :-) When, how, and why did Hands On Software/Kracker Jax leave the C= market? Surely, if they left because the C64 market had died they could have continued on with Amiga product development? The last Amiga development I know of from Bob Mills was the update release of Maverick V5.01 on 12/8/92, which was still in the Amiga heydey and well before Commodore's bankruptcy. Did he release anything after that date?

Anyway, I would love to get my hands on any of the Kracker Jax books/software published for C64, but especially the books which have long been out of print.

Well it was a business move, not so much when CBM went under in 94 but we could see the writing on the wall. The C64/Amiga sales were tumbling then, not just the Maverick software and hardware but the entire line of software. See Hands On Software ran a mail ourder business, Software Support International, which sold C64/128/Amiga/PC software and hardware. Also a local retail shop was opened too, this mainly dealt with PC software and hardware as that is where the money was :( I tried resisting it for a couple of years but in 94, I too fell victim to the PC black hole, at least in the states it was ;)

Sorry to say this was all because Hands On Software couldn't make enough to justify keeping development going and to keep the Kracker Jax team paid. So the owner thought it best to just sell what was left of the stock and to migrate to the PC side of things, which at this time was being in-undated by "shitware" CD-ROM titles, but I tell you, we couldn't keep half of the titles in stock. PC users with their brand new 2x Multimedia system wanted every freakin title. I'm afraid that nothing is about doing it for the love of the product, it has to make money or baa by :rolleyes

Yes the last release of Maverick for the Amiga was about then, sorry to say that it was more of a maintenence release to fix a few bugs in the utilities and the parameters.

As for the books, I'd have to dig around for them, but I think it's best you check out eBay or even some places like oldsoftware.com that still has both some Amiga and C64 stuff to sell. Perhaps they would come across something like this.

[fiath]

Originally posted by Shadowen

Which release of Cardiaxx has that copy protection- Electronic Zoo, Team 17 or both?


Electronic Zoo release, we do not have a dump of the Team17 version...



With the names of copy protection schemes used, sometimes you can find some reference to it in the game credits (in-game or in the docs). Other times the name may be embedded in bootblocks or game code. However, as you've said, mostly they are unknown and will remain that way unless software houses/coders have discussed them in old Amiga magazine articles or more recently on the net. Pity that information about Amiga copy protection isn't

Yeah, well you never know - somebody should to put a site together to standardise the names of all the copy protection schemes on the Amiga. They could even try to trace down authors / publishers to get information.

Any takers?

Nah... Thought not. ;)

It would be a nice resource though - imagine - a site devoted to documenting copy protection on floppy based formats - with detailed specs of how they work and such like. Hehe, perhaps demand might not to great for this - but I would enjoy it! :)

[Galahad/FLT]

Not so Kieron.... I gave you the names to most of the copy protection systems :)

Company Protection Name
------------ ---------------------
Gremlin, Magnetic Fields SS MFM (Shaun Southern)
Sensible SOS MFM (Sensible Operating
System)
Richard Aplin CyberDOS MFM
Psygnosis Reflections MFM
Rob Northen Protected DOS MFM (PDOS)
Readysoft RL DOS (Randy Linden) MFM
Digital Illusions TSL MFM (The Silents)
Factor 5 MT MFM (Manfred Trenz)
Rainbird, Silverbird, Microstyle, Microprose, Probe, Maelstrom, Realtime Games ZZKJ MFM (Programmer for Probe)
Bloodhouse BS MFM (Bloodsuckers)
Tony Crowther RAT Dos (Tonys nickname was RAT)
Anco Cobra X-Rom
Special FX, Rage SFX MFM (Special FX)
Thalion JH Dos (Jochen Hippel)
Sales Curve RPW (Ronald Pieket Wieserik)

They are the main ones that were in use more than once. Obviously there are more (Rise of the Robots MagicDOS), but for the most part, these protection systems were only used once, and thus would carry the name of the game as its protection system.

[andreas]

Tony Crowther RAT Dos (Tonys nickname was RAT)
I'm feeling a bit proud now :)
You're seldom having the occasion to correct Mighty Galahad. :D
But I'm sure about this one: his nickname was Ratt (like the Heavy Metal band). :)

[fiath]

Originally posted by Galahad/FLT
Not so Kieron.... I gave you the names to most of the copy protection systems :)

:)

Thanks, I had not forgotten!

However, I was under the impression that these were just the ones you knew about - and there were probably (loads?) more.

If this is indeed nearly all those that were used "widely" then I guess there is no problem here... :)


They are the main ones that were in use more than once. Obviously there are more (Rise of the Robots MagicDOS), but for the most part, these protection systems were only used once, and thus would carry the name of the game as its protection system.

Good idea, I'll suggest it and the system mentioned. Thanks very much (again) for your input!

[andreas]

Hey,

I don't think anyone of you guys has already noticed it: JOTD finished his Arctic Fox installer.
Unfortunately, without an original image of the disk this won't work out. I tried to fix the overdump to a correct size, and renamed the disk to "Arctic Fox Disk 1", but the installer didn't accept it as a working disk.

So now we have the installer, but no suitable disk to create the installer from, or do we have? :)

[Codetapper]

Galahad missed one common protection on his (great!) list, the one on Plutos, Leisure Suit Larry, California Games, Blockbuster etc. There is a 297 byte file named as 3 spaces " " on the disk. Track 1 is read and decoded using a custom MFM decoder and one sector from the track contains an error at the Dos level.

It uses self modifying code to decrypt itself using prefetch tricks, and after the first pass it changes the text at the top of itself to "Herndon HLS Duplication". It then locks the disk, performs a dos.Info() call and reads track 1 from the disk. Then several checksums just after the track reading code are done which decrypt the rest of the file.

It is quite a pain to patch due to the checksums and only works on a 68000 without lots of degrade/cache disabling type tricks. I believe it is one of the most common early protection schemes (1987-1988) and I have seen it on lots of games in my collection!

BTW, I think a big listing of all these (and how to bypass!) would make a very interesting read! :)

[jmmijo]

Yes I would be interested in this kind of info myself :)

[andreas]

I'd rather be interested in an image of the original ;)

[fiath]

Well, you will *eventually* get one, due to it being dumped by our tools by the same person that submitted it to JFF. Don't ask me how long it will take before you can use it though ;)

[andreas]

hehe :cheese

[DPainter]

Check the Zone and let me know if anyone can get this to work. Using KS1.0 I got it a little further than the other versions out there, but it still appears broken.

[andreas]

Thanks for uploading.
Yes, this disk won't go beyond Track 61.
If I'm not completely wrong, it was the same track it stopped on the common dumps.

[DPainter]

Originally posted by andreas
Thanks for uploading.
Yes, this disk won't go beyond Track 61.
If I'm not completely wrong, it was the same track it stopped on the common dumps. Did you get it to the Dynamix title screen? I managed to get it that far. Maybe now that crack patch text that Twistin' posted will work on this image?

[andreas]

Yes I could get to this screen. Did you create the rawread dump from an ORIGINAL? If yes, please try to use the new HD installer from JOTD.
Even your disk you've just uploaded isn't accepted by the installer. I analysed the script but couldn't find any reason WHY it bails out. They must do a certain kind of raw track structure check there, methinks...

[DrBong]

For all the energy that has been expended by a few of you in getting an original or cracked image of Arctic Fox, has it ever seriously occurred to those of you owning Amigas to spend $5 or $10 to buy the original?

It's obviously worth buying if you've spent nearly 6 months yearning for it in this thread. A quick google search will bring up at least 2 Amiga stores (Vintage Computers, US; Valleysoft, Canada) selling the game for the paltry amounts I mentioned above. I'm sure it can be found as cheaply and closer to home for those outside North America in secondhand forums like Amibench.

Just a (heretic sort of) thought........send flames to the usual place!

[jmmijo]

Yes you make valid points Shadowen, but I think in this case it's more the fact of being able to do it and of course to see if it can be made HD installable as well ;)

I think by now this has become a challenge a hurdle to get over :D

[DrBong]

Well, I can tell you that no software copier or ripper will write an image of an original Arctic Fox disk perfectly unless it can vary the speed of the source drive in a preordained fashion, on a track-by-track basis, like a tracer machine. The CAPS people hope to develop hardware that can do this (or at least achieve the same end). However, without an original disk this is all academic now isn't it?! ;)

[DPainter]

Originally posted by Shadowen
Well, I can tell you that no software copier or ripper will image an original Arctic Fox disk perfectly unless it can vary the speed of the source drive in a preordained fashion, on a track-by-track basis, like a tracer machine. The CAPS people claim that their tool can do this. However, without an original disk this is all academic now isn't it?! ;) ProjectD has a parameter for Arctic Fox that claims to duplicate the protection. I assume this is what my backup copy used. I managed to get to the choose your tank screen once using the rawread copy I made, which makes me wonder if it's not a floppy emulation problem? Otherwise, wouldn't we have the exact same results each time in WinUAE?

[fiath]

Originally posted by Shadowen
The CAPS people claim that their tool can do this. However, without an original disk this is all academic now isn't it?! ;)

No, we don't claim that. You cannot vary the drive in most (if not nearly all) Amiga's. But that is beside the point - we don't need to.

I suppose you could say - "we claim we don't need to do that". :)

There is tons of stuff on the WIP pages about this, but basically our tool reads disks in such a way that it can read anything*. You just can't write these tracks. After all - what is the point in a game having tracks that it cannot itself read?

* +/- 15% of normal Amiga density - nothing has gone close to this in 1000's of disks dumped - and I doubt we would see it seeing as the Amiga cannot read outside this range - and so the game would not work / be able to use it. ;)

Anyway - don't worry - we have had the original for ages and it is dumped and works. :)

[DrBong]

@Fiath

You have my apologies- I was jumping the gun a little (I was at work and had to type in a hurry from memory). I wasn't merely talking about your software imaging tool, though. The wanted section on the CAPS page hints that a hardware/software solution will be developed if the necessary information/tools can be provided so that floppy drives (normal or adjustable) can achieve the feats of tracer machines for those games that cannot be physically re-mastered at present (There are also references to hardware in the WIP section. Am I reading too much into all the snippets?). If so, I imagine that any hardware/software solution developed will probably vary drive speed for physical re-mastering of said disks to be successful.

I also missed a couple of critical words out in my previous post and meant to refer to writing an image back to disk as opposed to dumping an image for the purpose of anything but (i.e. emulation etc.). As you said, you can't write tracks back (yet!). However, I'm sure that hardware such as the Burst Nibbler on C64 can be reproduced for Amiga.....just need some brilliant people on Amiga (like the C64 Retro Replay developers perhaps) to take an interest in this sort of project. Burst Nibbler had a phenomenal rate of success in reproducing copy protected disks on the C64, with failure being in the order of 1%.


> You cannot vary the drive in most (if not nearly all) Amiga's.

Copiers using dedicated parameters and hardware vary the speeds of normal Amiga drives in writing tracks, don't they? 3rd party Amiga floppy drives also exist where you can vary the speed of writing for each track (as rare as they are).

Anyway, this has gone far away from my original point, which was that if people owning an Amiga want Arctic Fox (or any other uncopiable game) so badly, then why not just buy it rather than spend months or years in threads hoping that someone will deliver them a free image. Few games fall into this category to begin with and even fewer would be impossible to source out or unreasonably priced.

[DrBong]

@Dpainter

>ProjectD has a parameter for Arctic Fox that claims to duplicate the protection. I assume this is what my backup copy used. I managed to get to the choose your tank screen once >using the rawread copy I made, which makes me wonder if it's not a floppy emulation problem? Otherwise, wouldn't we have the exact same results each time in WinUAE?

Whole host of potential problems there. First off, you're trying to image a 2nd generation copy that may be on low quality/age-degraded media to begin with. Also, every time you try to image a disk with software (even using the same drive), you can get slightly different results on each track, thus producing structurally different images (good example of this is MFMWarp which will give you different size warp images on multiple warps of the same disk using the same drive; usually doesn't take many warps to get a bad image of a warp-able disk). With things like this interacting with a good but still not 100% emulator, it gets very hard to pinpoint where the problems may lie. However, given that you don't have a physical original, my money is on problems occurring way before you get to the emulator.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Shadowen
Anyway, this has gone far away from my original point, which was that if people owning an Amiga want Arctic Fox (or any other uncopiable game) so badly, then why not just buy it rather than spend months or years in threads hoping that someone will deliver them a free image. Few games fall into this category to begin with and even fewer would be impossible to source out or unreasonably priced.
Well, you have to understand that we ARE doing this. Mind you, every one of us who wants Arctic Fox hasn't purchased it, but that's beside the point. We are looking for a cracked, copyable version of this game so that it can be emulated or moved around to/from a real Amiga. Buying a copy will just yield yet another copy-protected game on my shelf. I collect originals anyhow. Quite a number of games on my MIA list are games which I own original copies of, but need a copy dumped. And this should be assumed for any of us here who spend a lot of effort trying to locate versions that are spreadable.

[DPainter]

Originally posted by fiath
Anyway - don't worry - we have had the original for ages and it is dumped and works. :)
OK, don't torment us any longer: show us the in-game screenshots from Arctic Fox on an Amiga emulator, and don't try to fool us with the Atari ST version. ;)

[DrBong]

@Twistin'
Well, chances are there isn't a cracked version if one hasn't turned up to this point. You know that not every Amiga game has been cracked. So how has this been dealt with in the past here? Well, one good way I've seen is that a few of you kindly ask a cracker like Codetapper if he will take on the job. Then if the task is accepted, someone owning the original sends the cracker the disk. In the case of Arctic Fox, it will probably have to be snail-mailed.

A good alternative is that again someone owning the original uses the WHDLoad installer and puts it in the Zone.

In the absence of a cracked version done at release (which probably won't surface anytime soon if it does exist), the bottom line is that an original copy is needed by someone here. A cracked version may turn up tomorrow, but how much of a betting man are you?! ;-)

[andreas]

Originally posted by DPainter
OK, don't torment us any longer: show us the in-game screenshots from Arctic Fox on an Amiga emulator, and don't try to fool us with the Atari ST version. ;)
A triple :agree:agree:agree

Get out tha funkin' piccies! NOW! :laugh

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by Shadowen
Well, chances are there isn't a cracked version if one hasn't turned up to this point. You know that not every Amiga game has been cracked.
I haven't considered this because I have a copy somewhere on tape that is DMS'd and works. I had an original of the game back in the day and I used one of the parameter copiers to make a copyable version of the disk. I have it, I just can't get to the bloody thing. For all I know, that overdump was done by me, I just can't remember which disks I'd imaged a few years back. But I was using some Amiga tool that would get corrupted after so much time and would change the size of the FMS devices on my system (I know, I watched it do this after several overdumps were created...no idea what caused it or anything like that, but it happened, this I know for a fact).

I am sure I kept all of my DMS files, so it will resurface unless someone takes their original and images a copy the same way I did back in the late 80's. And as soon as I get a power supply/case for my dat drive, I will begin dumping my tapes, which will invariably create more work than I could handle at this time anyhow.

[fiath]

Originally posted by Shadowen
@Fiath

You have my apologies- I was jumping the gun a little (I was at work and had to type in a hurry from memory). I wasn't merely talking about your software imaging tool, though. The wanted section on the CAPS page hints that a hardware/software solution will be developed if the necessary information/tools can be provided so that floppy drives (normal or adjustable) can achieve the feats of tracer machines for those games that cannot be physically re-mastered at present (There are also references to hardware in the WIP section. Am I reading too much into all the snippets?). If so, I imagine that any hardware/software solution developed will probably vary drive speed for physical re-mastering of said disks to be successful.



Ah, I see. Okay, I was talking about what we currently can do.

The hardware part (that we have probably hinted at) is in fact being worked on, but it is just theory at the moment.

It might be interesting to note though, that the approach that we are talking will be a fully fledge mastering device (with CPU & RAM etc) and should be nothing short of the quality of a Trace machine. The side effect of this also that it should be platform independant - your own little DIY mastering machine. :)

However, this is all theory, future stuff and may not in fact come to light. We are working on it - but it is in a peliminary stage at the moment.

But yes, the aim is that it could be used to write back *anything*.



I also missed a couple of critical words out in my previous post and meant to refer to writing an image back to disk as opposed to dumping an image for the purpose of anything but (i.e. emulation etc.). As you said, you can't write tracks back (yet!). However, I'm sure that hardware such as the Burst Nibbler on C64 can be reproduced for Amiga.....just need some brilliant people on Amiga (like the C64 Retro Replay developers perhaps) to take an interest in this sort of project. Burst Nibbler had a phenomenal rate of success in reproducing copy protected disks on the C64, with failure being in the order of 1%.



Nice... Why not? :)



> You cannot vary the drive in most (if not nearly all) Amiga's.

Copiers using dedicated parameters and hardware vary the speeds of normal Amiga drives in writing tracks, don't they? 3rd party Amiga floppy drives also exist where you can vary the speed of writing for each track (as rare as they are).



Yes, you are right. I was talking about normal unnassisted Amiga's. These copiers have it easy though - because they can synchronise two drives to do it (which results in a rather bad copy (as you mention later on)) - we have to write it from an image, which is a rather different story.



Anyway, this has gone far away from my original point, which was that if people owning an Amiga want Arctic Fox (or any other uncopiable game) so badly, then why not just buy it rather than spend months or years in threads hoping that someone will deliver them a free image. Few games fall into this category to begin with and even fewer would be impossible to source out or unreasonably priced.

I am generally talking about the technical merits - that is why I jumped in. :D

[fiath]

Originally posted by DPainter
OK, don't torment us any longer: show us the in-game screenshots from Arctic Fox on an Amiga emulator, and don't try to fool us with the Atari ST version. ;)

LOL :D

"The mere thought, hadn't even begun to speculate, about the
merest possibility of crossing my mind." - Mr Prosser, HHGTTG.

It's more complicated than that, and besides as everybody probably knows by now - we are not at the stage yet where we can have CAPS images supported in an emulator.

So basically I can't do that for you. :sad *yet*

The tools we use indicate that it works, and apart from one track that has not been reverse engineered yet (the long track on cylinder 0, head 1), the disk is verified to be correct. But we have traced it, and I can tell you it does indeed work - the information has just not been fed into the analyser for that track yet.

You will just have to be patient! :)

BTW - It may be worth mentioning that this game does not seem to work when fast ram is present, have any of you guys tried with kickstart 1.3 and chip-mem only?

[Twistin'Ghost]

The Amiga 500 that I had my copy of the game working on when I owned it (both original and copy) was an NTSC 512chip/512slow A500. Once I upgraded the machine to the new ECS Agnus and my memory became 1megChip (and no fastmem), the game no longer worked, along with a handful other other games (mostly early Electronic Arts, plus Street Sports Basketball (US version), and a few others). I believe we may have even had the 1.2 ROM in the original machine, as well, but I just can't remember.

As for emulation, I don't believe there exists any copy out there of this game except for that single image, which is an overdump. I just wonder if it's possible to remove the additional data to restore the dump to 880/901k size. Is this possible comparing the data to the CAPS original dump and the un-truncating it? If so, then it would just be a matter of getting the emulation to adapt to the game's primitive restrictions.

[andreas]

Couldn't Toni just check if DPainter's rawread dump can be made work on WinUAE with a tweak?
It doesn't look broken, as far as I could see.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by andreas
Couldn't Toni just check if DPainter's rawread dump can be made work on WinUAE with a tweak?
It doesn't look broken, as far as I could see.
D'OH! I forgot about the other version. My brain just doesn't work anymore...

[fiath]

I just tried the overdump (the one in TOSEC) - both trimmed down to 901120 bytes and "as is". I loaded it up on an Amiga 500 1.3 /w 512Kb of chipram and it did not work.

So unless the disk I used was buggered (or the ADF tool I used is, see later), it really is a bad dump.

Interesting aside:

When images are bigger than 901120, people call them "overdumps" but that is not strictly correct is it? For example:

901120 bytes / 80 tracks = 11264 bytes per cylinder

Arctic Fox is 912384 bytes,

912384 bytes / 11264 bytes per cylinder = 81 cylinders

So I doubt it is an "overdump" in the sense that the person who imaged it mucked it up - I think it is far more likely that the long track on the original (on cylinder 0, head 1) meant the crack needed somewhere to store the data because the disk was already stuffed (or it was easier to do it that way) - so the cracker used cylinder 80.

The person who imaged it perhaps knew this, and so ADF'ed the cracked disk version up to cylinder 80 - so we have 2 more tracks worth of data.

Was it okay practice to use cylinder 80 or above in cracks? And say they have done so in the Intro or something? (I guess it used to be a DMS file so this would not have mattered since it would have unpacked cylinder 80 automatically)

This still does not explain why it does not work though... But then, most ADF tools do not seem to recognise ADF's that contain more cylinders than 0-79 (how dumb).

Also these tracks (on cylinder 80) look like they contain a load of bootblock crap - but that could be because the cracker decided to put it there.

Probably all wrong of course, but worth a mention IMO.

[fiath]

Originally posted by andreas
Couldn't Toni just check if DPainter's rawread dump can be made work on WinUAE with a tweak?
It doesn't look broken, as far as I could see.

Can we write a rawread dump back to disk? - or does it still contain a long track?

(Does Project-D include a hardware device?)

[Twistin'Ghost]

As far as that "overdump" is concerned, as I mentioned earlier, it very well may have been MY overdumped image. And while I do remember back in the day making warp files using tracks 80 and 81, I don't recall whether I did this on that disk or not. Since it was a DMS file, I really couldn't have since DMS only reads/writes 0-79. When I was dumping my DMS's to ADF, I was just undms'ing them to the four FMS devices (virtual floppies) on my hard drive. It was a fairly automated process and generally worked perfect. I made the dump, transferred the image to zip disk and did it all again. It became so monotonous, I wouldn't notice that the size at some point went from 901k to 912k. Sometimes, I didn't notice at all and that was how I ended up with a handful of overdumps. What caused it I haven't a clue, but I'm sure it had nothing to do with the game disk itself.

Also, the reason it probably didn't work for you on a real Amiga is that the game does not like 1.3, as I recall. And it's probably NTSC-only, as well.

Project-D was software only. If you'd like, I can upload it for you.

[fiath]

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
Since it was a DMS file, I really couldn't have since DMS only reads/writes 0-79.


I thought you could - it just didn't do it by default...(?)


Also, the reason it probably didn't work for you on a real Amiga is that the game does not like 1.3, as I recall. And it's probably NTSC-only, as well.


I don't know about the NTSC bit, but the version of the game used with the WHDLoad install is KS 1.3 compatible - you just must have chip mem only... I assumed that ADF version would be the same.


Project-D was software only. If you'd like, I can upload it for you.


Cool, so you should be able to write that warp image back to disk then... (?)

Don't worry about uploading it unless somebody else wants it - I was just interested... :)

[jmmijo]

@fiath, if you can find the Backup Buddy external floppy drive unit, then you can use this in conjunction with the Maverick copier. The drive was a specially modified speed controlled unit that would allow you to backup originals using long data tracks, i.e., some Psygnosis titles along with most of the Readysoft titles :) Of course this would help you out with any other titles using long track protection of some sort :)

[Twistin'Ghost]

Originally posted by fiath
I thought you could - it just didn't do it by default...(?)
According the the docs for DMS, it is limited to 0-79.

Originally posted by fiath
I don't know about the NTSC bit, but the version of the game used with the WHDLoad install is KS 1.3 compatible - you just must have chip mem only... I assumed that ADF version would be the same.
I wonder if there is more than one release of this game then...when I dig up my DMS, we can maybe solve this part of the mystery. :)

[DPainter]

Last night I dug through my boxes and found yet another copied disk of Arctic Fox. This is the third copy that I have found floating around in my boxes.

I had the time, so I turned on my A500 and dumped the disk to RAM using rawread, then transferred it to my PC.

I loaded up WinUAE with my KS1.1/512k config and...

...check the Zone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :bounce

Unfortunately, it stops at track 61. But what if I adjusted the CPU emulation speed for chipset to 8.... :laugh

[Walker]

:great :great

[jmmijo]

It figures, I knew Walker would get it working ;)

[RetroMan]

@Walker

Could you post your config please :D

[Walker]

Just do as DPainter says! I used an OCS12 config with 512k chipmem only and set the CPU/Chipset slider to 8. I got it working the first time I tried it, so I don't know if there are other working configs (apart from using kick 1.1 like DPainter did).

[andreas]

GREAT GUYS! :great
Especially infinite kudos to DPainter for digging up an alternative copy!

Yes, THIS ONE WORKS!
DPainter, for reasons of precaution I decided to keep the *very first* rawread ADF you uploaded a while ago. However, using the tweaked configuration settings as described, I couldn't get past track 61 despite this config!
(Well, I did have a glimpse of hope. :( I was quite sure the emulator was to blame for the game stopping loading beyond track 61, thinking that the barrier could simply be crossed by slowing down the emulated CPU - but I was proven wrong, of course!)

So this new dump seems to be tbe only 100% copy we have - awesome!
Now it must pass the merciless REAL AMIGA test as well. :)
Thanks again DPainter!

[DPainter]

Originally posted by andreas
So this new dump seems to be a 100% copy - awesome!
Now it must pass the merciless REAL AMIGA test as well. :)
Thanks again DPainter! What a great feeling it was to see that title screen after so many years. I remember playing that game WAY back.

Unfortunately I do not think that rawread images can be written back to Amiga floppies, at least not those with copy protection.

I guess we'll need to wait for the CAPS project to release a version that can be written back to Amiga, or maybe someone can try Twistin's crack out on it and see if it works.

Until then, take yourselves back to 1986 and pump up those awesome tank sounds and try to figure out how in the heck to control the game! :laughing

[andreas]

Originally posted by DPainter
Unfortunately I do not think that rawread images can be written back to Amiga floppies, at least not those with copy protection.
Of course you're right. I was too enthusiastic and that's why I forgot about that matter completely. ;)

[Frog]

Upload in the Zone.

[andreas]

Very nice one, Frog! :great

[Splatman]

YES...

But can someone please re-post both in the zone or at least the working adf...

Go away for a while and a problem gets sorted. All we need now is Dragons Breath fixed...OK so I am asking a bit much

[RetroMan]

Originally posted by Splatman
But can someone please re-post both in the zone or at least the working adf...

ADF and WHDLoad Version in the zone again :)

[microslave]

Hi,
could anyone please repost the working arctic fox adf image to the zone (w config) or email me. I created an 80 Track image from my original copy myself some years ago, but couldn't get it to work :-( It was then posted to the dreamzone (anyone still knows this site;-))
Creating adfs was always a bit of work with my old Amiga1000/1MB machine and it was frustrating, when the games wouldn't run on WinUAE...
I'm looking forward to playing Arctic Fox again, I've got the Atari-Emulator version too, but it just isn't the same. I remember, Arctic Fox was one of my Amiga Games, that would run with Kick 1.1.
So I'd be glad, if you could provide me with a working copy.