Scala, TVPaint 3.0, Lightwave (versions which need dongle)

[mark_k]

I have three dongles:
- Red with slanted exclamation mark logo (Scala I think). Plugs into joystick or mouse port, has passthrough.
- Grey, plugs into joystick or mouse port, TVPaint 3.0 label on it.
- Rainbow Technologies Sentinel Scribe, would have come with some version of Lightwave (Newtek 3D rendering program).

I'd like to get hold of uncracked versions of whichever Scala product used that dongle, as well as TVPaint 3.0 and Lightwave.

[emufan]

you should test the videotoaster 4.3 cd-rom on the fileserver. this holds original version of latest lightwave - uncracked.
cd-rom: /Commodore_Amiga/CD/AmigaCD/App/VideoToaster43.zip
install-floppy : /~Uploads/emu/VideoToaster/Video.Toaster_v4.3/Toaster4.3_Install.Disk.zip

latest TVPaint 3.59, which was released for free some years ago, came with a serial number. i only can thiink of very early version, which uses the dongle. nothing original found as of yet.

you can try , if one of the dongles works with CAPS XL 10 disk version - it was added to tosec - disk 4 is corruped somehow, but it does install.
program ask for dongle, right after it does start - in dutch language, IIRC.


btw: and talk to toni wilen about the dongles ( if not already done ), he may add them to winuae

[mark_k]

Yeah, my plan was to take a look at the code of Scala (Infochannel??? that name rings a bell) and TVPaint to see if their dongles are trivial/easy to emulate. I'm guessing the Lightwave one might be harder or impractical to emulate; maybe it contains a microcontroller rather than just (say) connecting certain pins to GNC or Vcc.

Didn't the first version of Lightwave effectively require the Video Toaster as a dongle? Then Newtek started selling it standalone at one point? That's probably covered in some old AmigaWorld magazine issue.

[Minuous]

According to this http://lightwiki.com/wiki/LightWave_History "1994 - LightWave 3D 3.5: The first official stand-alone version for the Amiga (no Video Toaster required)"

Of course, before that, cracked older versions probably existed...

[emufan]

lightwave.fp5 from toaster 4.3 is looking for "ToasterSwitcher.port" - thats what i can see with snoopdos - and of course failed to start.
edit: uploaded lw50r original and cracked one into the zone.

you can make a diff of original lightwave.fp5 and the cracked one - and investigate what was changed in the cracked version.

Edit: uploaded LW35EXEC.LHA - file_id-diz says uncracked. it does start, but when you click on "scene" or another button it quits. maybe a candidate? it does also try to find ToasterSwitcher.port.

Edit: 3.5 does also look for tio.library, after installing the lib into libs: it does look for TIO_SERVER - ToasterIO - maybe the dongle facility?
i zoned the lw 3.5-install-disk. this hold the tio.library

edit: cannot find any original version of tvpaint and infochannel. someone with an original boxed version is for sure still out there.

Originally Posted by Minuous

Of course, before that, cracked older versions probably existed...

yes, there is version 1.05 which does work without the toaster

[Harry 0.]

Originally Posted by mark_k

I have three dongles:
- Red with slanted exclamation mark logo (Scala I think). Plugs into joystick or mouse port, has passthrough.
- Grey, plugs into joystick or mouse port, TVPaint 3.0 label on it.
- Rainbow Technologies Sentinel Scribe, would have come with some version of Lightwave (Newtek 3D rendering program).

I'd like to get hold of uncracked versions of whichever Scala product used that dongle, as well as TVPaint 3.0 and Lightwave.

Hello Mark_K and others on this thread:

I have a copy of the original TV Paint 30 for the Amiga from 1994 and have used it since
then up until a couple of years ago when the dongle went 'Zap' and no longer works.
I am currently using TV Paint 3. 5.9 (the free download) but version 3.0 is so much
faster in cutting out brushes and doing large fills that I want 3.0 back.

If you have any interest in selling your 3.0 dongle I will pay a good price for it.
Please give me a quote it at all possible. Thank you very much.

best,
Harry 0.

[mark_k]

I don't know whether my TVPaint dongle is in working order (yet).

Could you upload images of your original TVPaint 3.0 disks? Hopefully I can take a look at the code to figure out how the dongle works, and also how to bypass the dongle check so you can use it without needing the dongle.

[kamelito]

I've done this years ago (20 or so). It's just some bytes to patch. There is the load and save functions to patch. For the load i put breakpoints to Amigados functions and trace until I manage to understand what to patch, for the save I run the exe under monam with the dongle, removed the dongle and hit save. Monam catched the exception and then I look at the stack trace to find the broken jump. I then reload the exe put the breakpoint with the dongle and see where the jump (jsr IIRC) lead then patch it too. By patch I mean using an hexeditor.

Kamelito

[Harry 0.]

Originally Posted by mark_k

I don't know whether my TVPaint dongle is in working order (yet).

Could you upload images of your original TVPaint 3.0 disks? Hopefully I can take a look at the code to figure out how the dongle works, and also how to bypass the dongle check so you can use it without needing the dongle.

Thank you. I do have the four original TVP 3.0 floppy disks. I can scan them, but this is
the only info. printed on the disk: front: 'TV Paint Amiga Tecsoft Activa International'.
And on the back, disks 1 and 2 have the number: 'A17494G' while disks 3 and 4 have:
'A275222'. I don't know if this means anything, but my broken dongle for TVP 3.0 will
let me run TVP 2.0 with it but not 3.0.

I'm afraid Kamelito's post is far beyond my knowledge of getting inside of computer
software! Sorry. I am fairly decent at keeping my A3000 and A4000T running hardware
wise but that's about it.

[mark_k]

By images of your disks I didn't mean pictures, but what are referred to as disk image files. Create ADF disk image files from your disks and upload them. There are various ADF creation programs, I can provide instructions if needed. Do you have some way to transfer files from your Amiga, either uploading directly if you have an internet connection on the Amiga, or via a PC?

[Harry 0.]

Originally Posted by mark_k

By images of your disks I didn't mean pictures, but what are referred to as disk image files. Create ADF disk image files from your disks and upload them. There are various ADF creation programs, I can provide instructions if needed. Do you have some way to transfer files from your Amiga, either uploading directly if you have an internet connection on the Amiga, or via a PC?

Well, that makes more sense...sorry I misunderstood. If you can give me more instructions that would be
good. I do not have my Amiga(s) connected to the internet. I am using a Mac for that. I have made
myself copies of the original disks years ago, but I'm not sure about ADF disk images...

[mark_k]

There are probably several ways to transfer data between Amiga and Mac but I'll just cover what's easiest to explain here.

You need a USB floppy drive connected to your Mac. The idea is to transfer data using PC-format floppy disks since both Mac and Amiga can read those. You'll create ADF files on your Amiga, copy the files to PC-format floppy disks, then insert each disk in the USB floppy drive and copy the files to your Mac.

To create ADF files you can use TransADF. Download that using your Mac, copy the archive to a PC-format disk then transfer the disk to your Amiga. If you don't already have the LhA archiver on your Amiga download that too.

On your Amiga, mount PC0: by double-clicking the PC0 icon in SYS:Storage/DosDrivers. Insert the PC-formatted disk in DF0:. Copy the files from there to your Amiga's hard disk.

Once you have installed TransADF, open a CLI/Shell window. Make a directory on your hard disk (call it whatever you like, e.g. ADFs). CD to the directory then use TransADF to create an ADF file from each TVPaint 3.0 disk. Tip: make sure your original disks are write-protected beforehand.

If your Amiga has a high density drive that makes things easier because a complete ADF file fits on a PC HD floppy disk. Use commands like
TransADF DRIVE DF0: FILE TVPaint3_disk1.adf
to create an ADF file from each disk.

If you don't have an HD floppy drive, create two smaller files for each disk, like this:
TransADF DRIVE DF0: FILE TVPaint3_disk1_part1.bin START 0 END 39
TransADF DRIVE DF0: FILE TVPaint3_disk1_part2.bin START 40 END 79
(we're doing that so each file will fit on a 720KB double-density PC disk).

TransADF can also compress the files it creates which may help fit more than one file on each PC disk. You can specify the GZIP option to do that, e.g.
TransADF DRIVE DF0: FILE TVPaint3_disk1.adf GZIP
But note that compressing data slows the reading process.

Once you have your files, copy them to PC-format disks and transfer to the Mac for uploading. You might want to use an archiver like zip to create a single .zip file containing all the files, then upload that.

If you need to, you can format disks to PC format on your Amiga (you might not have any PC-formatted 720KB disks handy for example). Insert a blank/spare disk then type
Format DRIVE PC0: name mytransfer NOICONS

[Harry 0.]

Well, I have downloaded and installed TransADF okay, but, as usual I am not on good terms with the
CLI. After typing in the command: TransADF DRIVE DFO: FILE Link-It!.adf (Im using a test floppy
with an old program called Link-It!...to spare my write protected floppies of TVP 3.0..just in case)--
the shell responds with 'Unknown Command" and typing in the command from the CLI in Directory Opus
just does not do anything but bring up a brief window listing the commands.

I may have to wait a week until this coming Wed. to have a friend help me out on this. I don't think I
need to use floppies to transfer between the Amiga and the Mac as I have USB flash-drive access
between both computers. I created a file on one of my HDs called ADFs but nothing gets written there.
Do I need to tell TransADF where to save the file? Sorry to make this so complicated.

[mark_k]

If you can transfer data on a USB flash drive (presumably formatted to FAT16/FAT32?) that will make things easier.

When you downloaded the TransADF archive, which directory did you unpack the archive to? The TransADF executable will be there. You could copy it to C: or copy it to RAM:, then change directory to RAM: like this:
CD RAM:
TransADF DRIVE DF0: FILE output.adf
Then repeat the TransADF command (changing the filename of course) after you swap floppy disks.

Once you have all the ADF files you want, you can copy them to the flash drive.

[Harry 0.]

Well, I re-unpacked the TransADF archive to RAM, then (using Amiga 3.9 OS) I stared
the Shell and typed: CD RAM: then, after the line return, TransADF DRIVE DF0: FILE TVPaint3_disk1.adf The Shell then comes back on the next line with: Wrong number of
arguments. Is it asking where I want the files / disk images to go, that is, their destination?

[mark_k]

Ah, the archive unpacks to its own directory. So after unpacking it to RAM:, copy the program to your C: directory like this:
Copy RAM:TransADF/TransADF C:
Then you should be able to use the program from any CLI/Shell window.

[Turran]

I have Scala Infochannel on original disks here. The whole package actually with 6 dongles =)

Tons of genlocks / mixer etc as well. No idea what to do with it.

[Harry 0.]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Ah, the archive unpacks to its own directory. So after unpacking it to RAM:, copy the program to your C: directory like this:
Copy RAM:TransADF/TransADF C:
Then you should be able to use the program from any CLI/Shell window.

Well, it looks like it worked this time. Yea! Thanks for walking me through it.
But now another novice question: How do I upload the files to you? I have the four
TVPaint3.adf files in one folder on my Mac. I didn't use the compression option so
each of the four files is a little under a meg. each. The folder with all four files in it
is 3.6 megs. If you can tell me how to upload either the files individually, or all in one
folder I'll do it when I hear back from you.

[mark_k]

Well done.

It's probably best to compress the ADF files in a Zip archive before uploading, both to reduce file size and protect against data corruption. There's an article on the Apple support site about that. From that page:

Do any of the following:

• Select the item or items you want to compress and choose File > Compress.
• Control-click an item and choose Compress from the shortcut menu.
• In a Finder window, select one or more items and choose Compress from the Action menu (looks like a gear).

If you have the four ADF files in a folder with no other files, select the folder then choose File->Compress. That should create a Zip archive named Archive.zip. Rename that to something more descriptive like TVPaint_3_ADFs.zip or similar.

You could upload the file to The Zone here on EAB. (You might need to enable your access to The Zone first. Click User CP then Group Memberships, then add The Zone.) Click "The Zone!" then use the form at the bottom of the page to upload. The User CP and The Zone! links are in the blue strip near the top of each page on EAB.

Alternatively you can use one of various file sharing web sites, e.g. I sometimes use http://www.multiupload.nl/. Upload the file using your web browser, then post the URL here.

As a last resort you could email it to me, send me a private message if you want to do it that way.

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Turran

I have Scala Infochannel on original disks here. The whole package actually with 6 dongles =)

Tons of genlocks / mixer etc as well. No idea what to do with it.

Well I can't help you decide what to do with the genlocks, but creating ADF images from the original disks would be great, so I can figure out how the dongle check works.

I guess Infochannel could work with a network of Amigas, maybe with one master machine sending data to the other ones? And each machine needing a dongle? Assuming you acquired all the Infochannel and genlock stuff from the same source, probably the setup made use of genlocks to overlay Amiga graphics on video.