Help transferring Amiga Power 13 - Sensible Brick

[superrune]

Hi,


Sensible Brick was mentioned online a couple weeks back, and I thought it looked like a wonderfully craptastic game! I wanted to try it out, but the ADF images of the Amiga Power 13 cover disk did not want to run the game. I assume the game is copy protected, and that's what causing the game to fail.


Well, I found the cover disk on eBay, ordered it, and received it today. Now, I really want to transfer this disk to an ADF-file, so that I can play it on an emulator and maybe even preserve it in some way. Is there someone here that can give me any pointers how to transfer it in a way that carries with it the copy protection? I have an Amiga 1200 available, so I guess I need some advanced AFD software for the Amiga?

[Galahad/FLT]

It probably uses the Sensible Software MFM disk system.

You need to use MFMWarp that wil image the disk into a file that someone can then crack to ADF plain format.

[superrune]

Cracking is definitely outside of my skill set! But it would be great to preserve this wonderfully stupid bit of Sensible history. Do you think there's someone who might be interested in "liberating" this software from its shackles? I've spent a couple days trying to find a copy online and on FTPs, and it seems like it's not available anywhere.

And sorry if this talk of copying is breaking forum regulations...

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by superrune

Cracking is definitely outside of my skill set! But it would be great to preserve this wonderfully stupid bit of Sensible history. Do you think there's someone who might be interested in "liberating" this software from its shackles? I've spent a couple days trying to find a copy online and on FTPs, and it seems like it's not available anywhere.

And sorry if this talk of copying is breaking forum regulations...

I know a guy who knows a guy....


Go here:http://whdload.de/whdload/Tools/MFMWarp.lha

Download that and assuming your Amiga has a hard drive, copy the files into your main C directory

Then, to use:

MFMWARP read sys:Sensible

And then hit RETURN

If you don't have a hard drive, you'll need to copy the files from that MFMWarp.lha archive to a floppy disk and boot your Amiga with the disk in the drive.

Then to use:

MFMWARP read ram:Sensible

And ten hit RETURN

Hopefully the resulting warp file will be small enough to be copied to a normal dos disk and you just upload here to the zone.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by superrune

Cracking is definitely outside of my skill set! But it would be great to preserve this wonderfully stupid bit of Sensible history. Do you think there's someone who might be interested in "liberating" this software from its shackles?

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

I know a guy who knows a guy....

Really, who??!! Mate, I love your dry wit!

EDIT: As Arnie says below, it used to be available on AMR in adz format (see archived d/l link below).....so just a hop, skip and a jump to convert to ADF.

https://is.gd/tHaInn

EDIT 2: Actually, it looks like GoADF and mADFloppy will unpack adz as-is to floppy - nice!

http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/GoADF
http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/mADFloppy

EDIT 3: No go - bummer! See Arnie's EDIT below....

[Arnie]

Is this the disk you mean?

I have it in adz format (easy to convert to adf via adfopus)

EDIT: NAH, Sim Brick wont start, stuck on track 1.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by Arnie

Is this the disk you mean?

I have it in adz format (easy to convert to adf via adfopus)

EDIT: NAH, Sim Brick wont start, stuck on track 1.

Bah! AMR is a big tease and sucks arse!!

[Keir]

Originally Posted by superrune

Hi,


Sensible Brick was mentioned online a couple weeks back, and I thought it looked like a wonderfully craptastic game! I wanted to try it out, but the ADF images of the Amiga Power 13 cover disk did not want to run the game. I assume the game is copy protected, and that's what causing the game to fail.


Well, I found the cover disk on eBay, ordered it, and received it today. Now, I really want to transfer this disk to an ADF-file, so that I can play it on an emulator and maybe even preserve it in some way. Is there someone here that can give me any pointers how to transfer it in a way that carries with it the copy protection? I have an Amiga 1200 available, so I guess I need some advanced AFD software for the Amiga?

Another approach is get a flux reader device like Greaseweazle, which lets you read the disk over USB. You can then convert the flux image into IPF, protection/MFM intact.

[superrune]

Thanks for your replies!

@galahad - Nudge nudge! The file might fall out of my pocket in a convenient location, ho hum!

@DrBong, @Arnie - Yes, I've tried every single version that google found, and as far as I can see there is no version of Sim Brick available to play.

@Keir - Looks interesting. But after reading a bit about IPF, it seems like the file has to be sent off to someone for conversion and that I might not get it back for sharing?

[CodyJarrett]

I've uploaded a working version to the Zone.

[superrune]

Originally Posted by CodyJarrett

I've uploaded a working version to the Zone.

Fantastic! That works perfectly!

[Arnie]

Thanks Cody.
If the aim of the game is squashing ants, then I've cracked it, otherwise I'm shit at this game

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by Keir

Another approach is get a flux reader device like Greaseweazle, which lets you read the disk over USB. You can then convert the flux image into IPF, protection/MFM intact.

I thought GW read files in SCP format? Can that be converted into IPF without SPS? I know you've updated GW to support direct write of IPF which is great!

Any chance of on the fly ADF writing ability? Currently I convert ADF to SCP to write back without Amiga.

[DrBong]

@Adrian
Good one mate! I'm guessing I'd be about as good at this game as Arnie, though!

[Keir]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

I thought GW read files in SCP format? Can that be converted into IPF without SPS? I know you've updated GW to support direct write of IPF which is great!

It does read in SCP format. You can then use my disk analyser (https://github.com/keirf/Disk-Utilities) to convert to IPF if the format is recognised.

Any chance of on the fly ADF writing ability? Currently I convert ADF to SCP to write back without Amiga.

Been working on that this week!

[Keir]

I produced a clean verified IPF and put that in the Zone. The source is a CT RAW dump I was given a link to.

disk-analyse --format=sensible AmigaPower.raw AmigaPower.ipf

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by Keir

It does read in SCP format. You can then use my disk analyser (https://github.com/keirf/Disk-Utilities) to convert to IPF if the format is recognised.







Been working on that this week!

Is Disk Analyser Linux only or does it have a Windows or Python port? I'm sure when I last checked there was no compiled version.

I look forward to the ADF support. Will verify be possible in this scenario since IPF and SCP flux formats are not verified (if I'm not mistaken)?

Originally Posted by Keir

I produced a clean verified IPF and put that in the Zone. The source is a CT RAW dump I was given a link to.

disk-analyse --format=sensible AmigaPower.raw AmigaPower.ipf

Is this the command line needed to convert from SCP (I note your input was .raw for this particular image) to IPF? How did you verify the dump?! I only ask because this opens up possibilities for more IPFs that are not SPS verified but verified nonetheless through user means.

[Keir]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

Is Disk Analyser Linux only or does it have a Windows or Python port? I'm sure when I last checked there was no compiled version.

Linux only. You can build it in WSL if you have Win 10.

I look forward to the ADF support. Will verify be possible in this scenario since IPF and SCP flux formats are not verified (if I'm not mistaken)?

Yes, verify on write, with auto retry. Also verify on dump too.

Is this the command line needed to convert from SCP (I note your input was .raw for this particular image) to IPF? How did you verify the dump?!

disk-analyse understands many Amiga track formats, enough to cover say 99% of Amiga disks. You just have to specify the expected format on the command line ('sensible' in this case). Hence it can verify the dump is correct by checking available track checksums.

I only ask because this opens up possibilities for more IPFs that are not SPS verified but verified nonetheless through user means.

All the available unofficial (ie non SPS) IPFs are generated by my analyser.

[Radertified]

@Keir Do the IPFs generated by your analyser match official SPS IPF checksums? eg. I give a raw dump to SPS and get an IPF with checksum 0x12345678. Will your analyser also give 0x12345678?

I feel like they'd be different but I figure I should ask

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by Keir

Linux only. You can build it in WSL if you have Win 10.







Yes, verify on write, with auto retry. Also verify on dump too.







disk-analyse understands many Amiga track formats, enough to cover say 99% of Amiga disks. You just have to specify the expected format on the command line ('sensible' in this case). Hence it can verify the dump is correct by checking available track checksums.







All the available unofficial (ie non SPS) IPFs are generated by my analyser.

Seems like a very useful tool, unfortunately I haven't made the jump to Windows 10 yet...

Is there any plans to combine GW with Disk-Analyse to allow direct output conversion as soon as dumps are made and equally convert to supported format for writing back?