Jens Schoenfeld releases Catweasel Mk4

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by macy

No bullshit answer please.

I think the only bullshit in this thread is coming from you. The CAPS team, who are the CREATORS of IPF images, said it might be what it's needed to write IPFs back to disks. They already know the Catweasel MK3 can't do it.

Now, how much more informed than them are you? Stuck with a Catweasel MK3 you thought would do something it didn't and now can't sell or something? What do YOU know about "re-authoring" or dumping of IPF images that the CAPS team doesn't know?

Bring on the bullshit.

[IFW]

MK3 is an ok product for standard disks and some weak protections. It cannot be safely used for the technically more advanced ones - that is the majority of Amiga protected disks -, so there is no point in supporting it, not to mention some issues Toni already mentioned here and elsewhere.

MK4 seems to be nicely coinciding with our descriptions and making up for the missing and much needed functionality.
Let's wait and see how it works out for real.

Just sell your mk3 on ebay while you can, since if we add official caps support for mk4 only - and if it happens it will be mk4 only trust me on this -... mk3 will certainly sell for next to nothing afterwards.
Currenlty you can sell an mk3 for more than what you got it for - at least according to that press release

[fiath]

Originally Posted by macy

No bullshit answer please.

Just something to add:

We have always said we will not support the Catweasel in its current form (less than and including the Mk3). We didn't like to go into technical reasons publicly because we did not see it being very fair on Jens, but I guess it is okay now he has detailed them with his follow up card. The point is that people shouldn't buy the Mk3 if they only wanted to use it for CAPS stuff (obviously, since we won't support it). But it is still a good general-purpose card for many other things.

The Mk4 is different, and because (at least we hope) it has the required technical functionality, then we intend to support it.

I am sorry you will not be able to use your current card. But I'm afraid if we can't use it, we can't use it. This really doesn't have a lot to do with us though...

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by Akira

I think the only bullshit in this thread is coming from you. The CAPS team, who are the CREATORS of IPF images, said it might be what it's needed to write IPFs back to disks. They already know the Catweasel MK3 can't do it.

Now, how much more informed than them are you? Stuck with a Catweasel MK3 you thought would do something it didn't and now can't sell or something? What do YOU know about "re-authoring" or dumping of IPF images that the CAPS team doesn't know?

Bring on the bullshit.

I dont know why anyonbe bothered to respond to such a rude individual..

[Dr. Dude]

But he is right. Why create such a file if it can't be run by state of the art stuf?

[fiath]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

I dont know why anyonbe bothered to respond to such a rude individual..

I am assuming he did not realise that CAPS members frequent this board.

Originally Posted by Dr. Dude

But he is right. Why create such a file if it can't be run by state of the art stuf?

Sorry, I have no idea what you mean!?

[Dr. Dude]

I meen i stand whit Akira
No matter how many times a CAPS dude comes on the forum

Originally Posted by Akira

I think the only bullshit in this thread is coming from you.

I didn´t mean to offend. For me most of the MK4 announcement is advertisement crap. You don´t have to take it personally, no need to be agressive.

Yeah, I might be stuck with a card I thought could work and I feel very frustrated. I never heard from CAPS team that MK3 is not good for dumping or exactly why it can´t do re-authoring, until now.

I don´t claim to be an expert but I can understand a technical explanation. I was asking and expected an answer along the lines Tony gave, not just that MK4 is better or has extra control.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Not sure if these are important for writing Amiga copy protections but MK4 has at least following disk controller improvements:

- partial writes, wait for index sync, wait x clock cycles until writing starts.
- more exact timing, MK3 apparantly had some "random" error (length of single pulse written was not exactly the length asked but had some "random" value added)

Thanks for your reply Tony. That was the kind of answer I was expecting.

Correct me if I´m wrong, with my little understanding most of these improvements except the last one are more relevant for your software than for CAPS stuff.

Am I right in guessing that you were the one that suggested those improvements for better WINUAE support?

Originally Posted by IFW

MK3 is an ok product for standard disks and some weak protections. It cannot be safely used for the technically more advanced ones - that is the majority of Amiga protected disks -

Oh! thanks a lot for an authoritative answer. Would you mind being more specific? I thought MK3 could handle long tracks and Copylock tracks. Are these the weak protections, or I was wrong and MK3 can´t handle them?

Can you please also be more specific about that much needed functionality you are expecting in MK4. Are you in contact with Catweasel people? Do you know if this will be in fact in MK4?

Originally Posted by IFW

Just sell your mk3 on ebay while you can, since if we add official caps support for mk4 only -

Not a bad idea at all. But it´s not easy for me to sell on ebay, And I can understand you can´t yet confirm MK4 support. Thanks for the tip anyway.

[IFW]

If you were really buying a catweasel in a hope for caps support you certainly followed development and the caps site closely - or even this board. In that case you would have certainly read this:
http://www.caps-project.org/articles.php?id=catweasel

I am positive you originally bought the catweasel for whatever purpose you wanted it for and you did not even hear about caps until lately, or if you have, you were not bothered to ask or read the faq.

I am deeply offended that my $1000+ Sony dvd player wouldn't play all the divx shite that I could download these days, they should have thought about supporting that shit that it was going to happen someday, it was after all foreseeable that people are having broadband connections in 3 years time and they can leech whatever video file they want and they expect a high-end system to play the warez, that any $100 player can do right now from the shady mom and pop factories from China and Cambodia.
Instead that machine still wipes the floor with most of the latest players, but who cares it can't do something that was not available or feasable at the time it was designed and manufactured.

Damn Sony.
And damn the divx guys as well since they don't support hacking my player, nor they are bothered to make up for its missing hardware components and create divx replay for free for me in their free time.
Damn divx and xvid, why oh why are people making only these video files available when I can't use my player to watch them - Haven't they heard about me?!?

If you can't recognize a pattern here, too bad

Just kidding, but do sell your board while you can.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by macy

I didn´t mean to offend. For me most of the MK4 announcement is advertisement crap. You don´t have to take it personally, no need to be agressive..

Your post was agressive enough, that's why I reacted.

I was right it seems, about the card.

[whiteb]

Originally Posted by macy

I didn´t mean to offend. For me most of the MK4 announcement is advertisement crap. You don´t have to take it personally, no need to be agressive.

If the "Mk 4 Announcement" is advertising crap, thats exactly what it was meant to be, How else do you think the cards manufacturers expect to sell their cards ? Cards take time to develop and do not simply magically appear from the Infinite improbability drive in a flash. (HHGTTG if your unsure). It takes time to do the routing of signal tracks, find bugs and then get it produced.., Whats wrong with .... "Hey guys this is what the card will do in October". I personally thank them for the notice... I know what I am going to be spending *MY* money on in a few months time... <Hopes>
The Mark 3 was never advertised as Caps Compatible, and never will be so i do not understand where you can come out and say "I bought it for Caps support" when there was never any Caps support in the first place.

The main support you have for caps is the ability to read/write PC 1.44 disks, thats what it was advertised as, One format among *MANY*.

Yeah, I might be stuck with a card I thought could work and I feel very frustrated. I never heard from CAPS team that MK3 is not good for dumping or exactly why it can´t do re-authoring, until now.

Again, Please show me any posts and/or Advertising stating that it was CAPS compatible. It cannot do re-authoring, until now, because when the MK-3 was being planned, made, produced and sold, CAPS was still in its Early infancy (Maybe not even formed, I dont have the exact dates). Thats like abusing Microsoft for not supporting a DVD writer in Windows 95. Be thankful that the amiga in all its glory is still being supported in one small way or another.

I don´t claim to be an expert but I can understand a technical explanation. I was asking and expected an answer along the lines Tony gave, not just that MK4 is better or has extra control.

Well what you quoted was NOT the entire thing... the POST and if you went to the website, it does infact list the technical advancements over and above the previous models.

My advice to you dude, is take the MK 3 out and bung it on Ebay before the word gets out of the V4 to too many people, because once people hear about it, do you really think they will pay for a V3 when the V4 is out ? its going to be come a dorstop with pretty components.

At least my A1200 Catweisel will still be useful

I bow to the Caps Gods, and the Jens Gods.

[whiteb]

Re-configurable logic
The FPGA on the Catweasel MK4 is completely re-configurable by the drivers. This means that a hardware update can be done through the internet! Should we find a disk format that cannot be handled with the current hardware, the core of the Catweasel can be 're-wired' to address the problem. The controller doesn't even have to be taken out of the computer for ths update!

That sounds kinda neat.

[fiath]

Originally Posted by macy

Am I right in guessing that you were the one that suggested those improvements for better WINUAE support?

I believe we told Jens why we couldn't use it, but I am sure Toni pointed out similar things.

Oh! thanks a lot for an authoritative answer. Would you mind being more specific? I thought MK3 could handle long tracks and Copylock tracks. Are these the weak protections, or I was wrong and MK3 can´t handle them?

Long tracks - yes weak protection.

Copylock tracks - you need to be extremely accurate when writing these and either to be able to change the bit rate in-track, or be able to write the track on 3 passes which needs even more accuracy. To see what I mean, have a look at the Copylock track here: http://www.caps-project.org/articles..._densitygraphs

Copylock is not a weak protection (easy to crack most of the time due to the way it was used by developers, but hard to master). I think you would be pretty lucky even getting a hardware copier (Cyclone) to copy it.

The results of trying to write this on a Mk3 (if you can do it at all) would be rather hit-and-miss, so we didn't see the point.

Can you please also be more specific about that much needed functionality you are expecting in MK4. Are you in contact with Catweasel people? Do you know if this will be in fact in MK4?

We can only go by the press release, which indicates what we need is now there, we don't know for sure yet, but we expect it will be fine. BTW what we need (for reading at least) is along the lines of what WinUAE needs, just like the quote you made from Toni above.

But for reading and writing generally we basically need better accuracy and reliability which the Mk4 gives. I am afraid I don't have enough knowledge about it to give your more details than that.

[Joe Maroni]

read this...

http://ami.ga/news/news103_e.htm

[jmmijo]

Hopefully it will only be a short delay

[whiteb]

Bad news first: Unfortunately, one of our suppliers did not ship in time, so the production of the Catweasel MK4 could not start at the planned time. Due to this delay, we can't ensure that all our customers will have the controller under their christmas tree. The soonest day of shipment is december 23rd, but it's more probable that shipping starts between christmas and the new year.

[andreas]

I AM SOOO HAPPY!

Happy on the one hand, to never have bought a Catweasel so far, and thus saved up the money for a really ground-breaking one to come!
Sometimes patience does pay off.

And happy on the other, because of this great piece of hardware to get released!

Also big thanks to the CAPS people and of course Jens Schoenfeld for this perfect co-operation!

[Joe Maroni]

Also big thanks to the CAPS people and of course Jens Schoenfeld for this perfect co-operation!

err...did they really worked together...???

i thought the caps team uses only the catweasel if it really support this what they need...

the last that i heard was that the MKIV will work fine together with the arjuna project...

or did i missed something...

[robotriot]

Even if writing of CAPS images won't work, I just ordered mine. It just sounds too damn good to be true from the feature description ;D