Classic Amiga Preservation Society - CAPS

[CodyJarrett]

http://www.caps-project.org/

Great project to save original Amiga disks from extinction!

[Akira]

Heh, this is what I wanted to do with DF0: but I never got round to finish the project

[Kodoichi]

I don't get it, even after reading the introduction and the FAQ.

- Why do we need another format again?
- Why should I contribute when I can't download any games?
- What will they do with those games if they don't share them? Play them and laugh at us that don't have them?
- I can as well go through the TOSEC dats and look for [o]
- There's already another project called CAPS I think

[TikTok]

- I can as well go through the TOSEC dats and look for [o]

"O" stands for "Overdumped" doesn't it? Does this have a direct correlation to original images or does it just designate that more data than the standard 80 tracks has been dumped? My guess would be the latter...

[Akira]

I'm all in for a site keeping MFM images of original disks. The shit thing is that you preserve them but never are able to restore them to disks. This is what made me halt development of df0:.

You could make clean cracks out of those MFMs, but for that you need a crew of Codetappers, and I dont have one .

[CodyJarrett]

- Why do we need another format again?
*It's designed to support all disk formats on the Amiga, not just one or two.

- Why should I contribute when I can't download any games?
*To save your original Amiga disks from oblivion and to add your games to a pool of originals which will be released to everyone in the future.

- What will they do with those games if they don't share them? Play them and laugh at us that don't have them?
*The games will be released in the future. This is the sort of project that gets shut down in the current Amiga climate. The images are currently not of much use, but there are plans for them in the future.

- I can as well go through the TOSEC dats and look for [o]
*Amiga TOSEC is mostly for cracks and emulators, not for originals.

- There's already another project called CAPS I think
*This is the only CAPS.

[Akira]

Originally posted by CodyJarrett
- What will they do with those games if they don't share them? Play them and laugh at us that don't have them?
*The games will be released in the future. This is the sort of project that gets shut down in the current Amiga climate. The images are currently not of much use, but there are plans for them in the future.

This is teh way GAMEBASE64 works... So far they have stockpiled images like maniacs, and have relased nothing to the public. I don't like them very much, but if you request a game in their forum they give it to you.

[Overdoc]

The aim of CAPS is not building up another archive of games like Dreamzone, Tosec, Godflesh's FTP or the like.

CAPS is dealing with the preservation of ORIGINALS only !

That means games will not be dumped in ADF format ( because that won't work with originals ), but in a new format which yet has to be designed.
However, future emulators will support this format, and it's also possible to write these images back to real original disks ( very useful if your original disks are screwed up ). Note that the whole disk structure will be dumped !
That means if a CAPS image iswritten back to a real disk, then this disk will be copyprotected just like an original.

Hope this clears up some confusion

[Akira]

Codetapper told me a million times that putting a disk back onto a floppy ain't possible, unless you copy from original to another disk using a cyclone cartridge(or similar hardware). You just cant write the special tracks with your disk drive

So if they want to do this they better quit now.

[Overdoc]

Originally posted by s4murai


Hmm... so how come I could transfer my original games into ADFs?

Most probably your originals were not protected or just password protected and not diskprotected.

Also, it is not sure if it will be possible to reproduce every copyprotected disk ever, but so far all games that use Rob Northen's 'Copylock' protection can be reproduced WITHOUT any Cyclone or Siegfried-Copy hardware !! And quite a lot of games used this protection, as you can see the list on Codetapper's site.

Check the June WIP archive on http://www.caps-project.org for more info on this topic.

[Akira]

I want Codetapper to jump in this thread... AFAIK you have to replace the loader routines for you to copy any game onto normal disk with normal tools, then again, im not very qualified to talk about this, so I call forth the Codetapper!

Go! Codetapper! Crack Attack! it's super effective! Copyprotection faints! Codetapper gains 15EXP. Points!

(I got to delete POkemon from my flashcard :P)

[Codetapper]

Also, it is not sure if it will be possible to reproduce every copyprotected disk ever, but so far all games that use Rob Northen's 'Copylock' protection can be reproduced WITHOUT any Cyclone or Siegfried-Copy hardware !! And quite a lot of games used this protection, as you can see the list on Codetapper's site.

OK Akira, I'm here... Right, let's start from the top!

There are multiple different types of Rob Northen Copylock in existance. The early ones from 1988 or before (Daley Thompson's, Run the Gauntlet, Stargoose vintage) have a lot of encrypted code in the bootblock (which ONLY works on a 68000, nothing else) and then gets to the protection. They read track 1, time how long it takes, then track 0. It has 8 ranges of values in a table and it picks out the value based on how long to read that track. In the Daley Thompson's one, it combines both track speeds as 16 bit keys to make a 32 bit key to decrypt the next section of code (thus 8x8 combinations - I managed to guess the correct decrypt key based on Rob's interview within 7 tries luckily). In the Run the Gauntlet case, it just makes sure track 1 took 10-15% longer to read than track 1. If not, it runs "crash the computer" code

The CAPS team may well have been able to read the data off the disk assuming their disk format times how long it should take etc. Making the game runable on a REAL Amiga however is IMPOSSIBLE. You need a trace machine to write this track back at the correct speed unless CAPS have figured out some clever "slow down your disk drive" code (which is what the cyclone hardware does). If it could be written without hardware, I think Rob Northen would not have used it in his protection as lots of people could develop tools to defeat it easily (without cracking the game).

Oh yes, series 1 copylocks crashed on anything other than a 68000 aswell. So playing say Chase HQ on your A1200 will never work on the original, only a cracked version.

The next generation worked on more Amiga's, check for several syncs on the disk (the final one being $8914) and generate a 32 bit key. These were probably known as the bread and butter games to crack as you wire the key into d0 and skip the protection and it works. These were mainly from 1989-1991 games and the odd rare one after that. Again it does a speed check though so I don't see how it could be written back to another floppy on an Amiga without hardware.

After 1991 (and indeed a few before then I believe) the copylocks started doing other things, decrypting a bunch of memory or setting some values in it. The crackers somehow wired the key into place and skipped the "check speed check and send back key" code so it just did the useful bit of decrypting the game. Examples of this type are Magic Pockets, Mortal Kombat 2, Neighbours, Indy Heat...

From the interview with Rob Northen I still say you CANNOT duplicate a RNC game with a standard Amiga. You maybe able to READ the original data and have it in some format playable on a future emulator (or a modified current emulator) but taking that original CAPS image, copying it to your Amiga and writing it back to a floppy is IMPOSSIBLE! The whole protection relies on track 1 being written at a different speed and the Amiga's floppy drive CANNOT be slowed down without soldering/modifications/hardware/external drives etc.

Assuming you could even write these original dumps of games back (which I don't believe can be done), they will generally only work on an Amiga 500 (as they had no cache, thus the self modifying code tricks will not crash like they do on all other Amiga's). This means mister A1200 owner is screwed anyway.

[Please note that I am only talking about the vast majority of RNC games, some PDOS format games (eg. Superfrog) can be written back in their original form with just a standard disk drive (as it is a custom format but no copylock). I will post the PDOS tools at some stage on the Action site.]

[I have just read the June archive - it's easy to make claims about beating the protection, I will believe this software based writing will work WHEN I can do it myself on some of my originals like Rainbow Islands. Until I have done it myself, I say it's impossible! If whoever has written back these RNC copylock games could provide me with a list of games which were successfully duplicated along with just the protection track, I would love to have a try myself. I am keen to see which series of copylock were reproducable if it isn't just talk.]

WHDLoad is currently the cleanest way to dump your disks in a playable form. The slaves are small and constantly updated. Disk images are as small as possible (storing the track data only and not all the physical MFM layer data which is what CAPS does) and the encryption/self modifying code tricks are all bypassed. Features like high score savers, trainers, missing blitter waits and beam delays are inserted for games that have corrupt music/graphics or play too fast/hard. It's still being developed, written by a real Amiga enthusiast, supported by lots of slave writers and is damn cheap for what it does! End of advertisement for WHDLoad

[birdy-scc]

That was a well written explanation.

The thing that gets me about this is why anyone is that bothered.

And as Codetapper said, some ORIGINALS just will not work even if you have the original and a more modern computer.

When I cracked Rob Northen protection on the ST, the usual result was the clean disk image used as the master by the programmers.

I would then try to single-part it and put a small text intro on it.

I've seen comment about single-parting before which wasn't positive, but in those days 3.5" disks cost as much as Ł3.50 each. Seven games that used to take seven disks now on one? The saving was a *lot* of money.

Sorry if I diverted a bit there, but it seemed about time to get that out!

[Galahad/FLT]

Whilst I find the subject of the CAPS project interesting, and commendable for people still maintaining an interest in all things Amiga, it is a futile and pointless exercise!

Everyone knows about WHDLoad and JST. These systems already do the job that the CAPS project would like to do, but the CAPS system will make emulators slower and the resultant disk images will be BIGGER (in some cases twice the size) of the WHDLoad and JST Installs.

The imagers written for WHD/JST are written to support many versions and only take from the disks the data that is required. MFM information, Sync markers, track gaps, etc, etc, etc are not needed. Anyone who has ever used a Warper will know that MFM protected disks come out as VERY big files, because the Warper cannot always guess a format, so therefore takes all data it can possibly find.

Warper compaction routines are traditionally very good, and archivers such as Zip, Lzx, Lha etc, etc, would make little or no impact on the size of the files, such is the dense nature of the data stored.

Rise of the Robots is a 12 disk game, warped the files amount to nearly 16Megs of data..... any WHD/JST install of this game would be considerably smaller.

And lets also dispel some other myths about CAPS.....

YOU CANNOT REWRITE A COPYLOCK TRACK!!!! PERIOD!

Consider this..... If this were possible, don't you think someone like, Phil Douglas, Blackhawk, IBM, Gaston, N.O.M.A.D., Galahad, FFC, Eurosoft, Marco Polo, Bob Duncan, Ringo Starr, Mok, Rob, The Surge, Pnemotron, etc, etc, etc.... would have figured it out?

No, because they already figured out that it cannot be done on Standard Amiga hardware.

The RNC PDOS format is the one Longtrack format that CAN be duplicated if you know what to do, but other format such as the FACTOR 5 Longtrack MFM format used by most Rainbow Arts games and countless others will also fail to be written down to a standard Amiga setup because the Amiga drive does not revolve slow enough to write all the track information down to disk, hence the name 'longtrack'. When its duplicated the duplicators use multispeed drives. The PDOS protection employed by Rob Northen does not become Longtrack MFM until it gets to the duplicators, until then its normal MFM.

The CAPS project has its heart in the right place, but to be honest, you would be much better off seeing that the guys doing installs for WHD/JST were supported by your original disks. They fix the problems with the games, they remove the protection, they even make them work on o4o/o6o.

Other protections systems, simplistic ones employed at the start of the Amigas history, did speed checks on one single MFM track.... you have already stated that UAE/Fellows ability to properly speed sync processor or CIA is flawed.

Seeing as these protections are based on speed checks, how do you suppose you are going to bypass these? How can you speed test MFM data in memory?????? You can't, because the speed test is done based on the drive motor and the revolution on the disk and how quickly the data gets into memory.




Yes, your idea to preserve the history of Amiga games is commendable, but ultimately this project is doomed in its present form. If you concentrated your efforts on doing a bi-support for WHD/JST, I think you would find your cause better served.

I really wish I could be more positive...

Regards, Galahad of Fairlight

[Toni Wilen]

you have already stated that UAE/Fellows ability to properly speed sync processor or CIA is flawed.

Is this still problem with UAE 0.8.17? 0.8.17 had some important disk updates for braindead track loaders and copy protections, cycle-exact (at least nearly cycle-exact...) DSKBYTR, WORDSYNC-flag and INDEXSYNC emulation.

[Galahad/FLT]

Whilst UAE is better than it was, some of the older style speed checks were indeed 'braindead'!

Some old ones would expect a result within a defined range of values (i.e. If the speed check was $1888 - $19ff then the protection would pass as ok), but others were set too low.

This is a problem that other people are experiencing and have mentioned in this thread.

This really is not much of a concern for UAE/Fellow, seeing as most people are using cracked software to use on their systems or using WHDLoad/JST installs, the subject of speed checks for protection is irrelevant, but for the purposes of the CAPS project, would make it practically impossible to do without cracking the games all over again, which they said they would not do.

Just as a cursory note, I still use Filemaster today, if you are the same Toni Wilen

[Akira]

Thank you Codetapper for jumping in here and confirming what I thought (heck, I learned it from you ), and welcome mister Galahad of Fairlight, another cracker supremo! Glad to see you here and I hope you stick around!

What I think these CAPS guys should go for (actually thsi is what I wanted to do with df0:, but as I said, I know pish all about coding), is to make CLEAN cracks. I mean, if I could have a clean crack of R-Type 2, I would be more tha nwilling to overwrite my fudged original with it. With clean I mean it should have no intros or similar tagging, it could (and I would said it definitely should) be fixed for better machines, and of course it should have its loader replaced so it can be transferred back to disks on a stock Amiga. This would be a neat way to replace faulty originals.

Then again, when the media's lifespan is over, there's no possible fix

[andreas]

and welcome mister Galahad of Fairlight, another cracker supremo! Glad to see you here and I hope you stick around!

Yeah!
I second that, of course!
Step by step the whole amiga scene is gonna return here!
N.O.M.A.D. (SCOOPEX) would also be a good choice to invite here, methinks!

First: I understand your problem with understanding what we do.
A few things FYI:
We have never ever stated that longtracks can be written back with a normal fdd, because they can't. However there are fdds out there with speed control, which can.
CAPS started out as just an emulation project, originally, long before going to public. It was not expected that any images could be remastered. While commencing we noticed that many of them are writeable, so why not do it?
Toni: the disk system should most likely be updated a bit to support cell timing. Please contact us and we can give *you* information on how to improve disk loading - like cycle exact working of sync flags, diskbytr etc -, also how to implement caps format into uae. Alternatively if you have an ICQ number, we can discuss online.
The point of CAPS is to save the images in unaltered form. This is a very different purpose compared to say HD installers, which are very nice IMHO. If you don't get the difference, it's of not our concern.

And lets also dispel some other myths about some posters here: YOU CAN REWRITE A COPYLOCK TRACK!!!! PERIOD! ))

Joking aside it is possible, on "new" CopyLock tracks. We did the hard part for you: we show CopyLock timing graphs on the CAPS site's wip. It's just a matter of being creative to figure out how to duplicate that - the revelation will be striking to say the least.

If we'd shown you, how everyone would claim "I knew it", wouldn't they? (besides it'd be a spoiler for the challenge minded)It's based on a flaw of the system - probably the only one. CopyLock was obviously much easier to crack, then to copy, that's why nobody bothered.
Codetapper: whichever game produces the timing graphs on our site are all remasterable without hardware. And only those, afaik at the moment. At least from 1988-1993. That's pretty a lot, considering Rob Northen Computing afaik went out of business sometime around that.
"How can you speed test MFM data in memory?????? You can't" Just have a look at the timing graphs on our site. They are cycle exact. How do you think we made them? Drawn with DPaint or what...? We obvioulsy found a reliable method to sample cell density, that's how. Sorry to "dispel another myth"!
Mr. A1200 is screwed if he were to be screwed with the *original*. If it worked on A1200 it would work on it again. If it failed it would fail just as well. We do not modify the programs in any way. That's exactly what preservation means.
On the images: they'll be available - but only tested ones, we don't want to flood the .net with bad dumps. Unfortunately any Amiga company would shut us down if we'd offer the images on our site - this seems to be their only legit goal nowadays. We are not strong enough to fight them, they'll go away: all of them did sooner or later. So we won't fight them. We are not hoarders, although some of us are has a lot of originals.
I don't know how GB64 works, I've donated them a lot of ultra-rare stuff (through a friend), but I think they want to stay on the legal side and avoid any legal trouble. It's just a guess on my side, but they are releasing their stuff through TOSEC silently on a.b.e.m. newsgroup. We go for a similar approach.

I don't want to push this as an advantage on my side, but: how many of you were into commercial games development market in the Amiga era? I, for one was. Those who work with me know me, and that's all it matters.

End of advertisement for CAPS )
Please forgive my style, but your comments of disbelief provoked that.

[Akira]

Hmm this sounds most interesting. Please have in mind nobody has bashed your project for no reason at all, both Codetapper and galahad know what they talk about. YOu talk about something revolutionary that will allow Copylock games to be written back without extra hardware. I for one can't wait to see how you pull this out.

We did not intend to bash you, we're kind of pessimist that's all Please keep us posted about progress in your project.

I might be able to save my wrecked copy of R-Type II after all

EAB rules How did you find out about this thread?

Actually Galahad and Codetapper sees things from a different perspective than me.
On bashing: we even linked to their sites and pointed out, how different these projects are, and we recommend them. I think that was quite nice, despite what we got in return here - ut enough of that whining always made the remaining Amiga community divided, and we should be doing it again.
For CopyLock it was *really* striking, and pushed me really to make this project writing back images whenever possible. I was absolutely positive before that as well, that it was impossible.
Here is another clue for your entertainment: I do not say the image written back is the same with the original. All that I say, that the reader "thinks" it is, because it tries to be clever, where it shouldn't be Quite a difference. I expect similar flaws in other systems as well, but this one is there to make us happy or something, when we decide to save our original games
When I read the trace log created from CL, the "world just bended" and suddenly I knew this system does have only one flaw, and I went and tried it hard to get the fdc to write onto the disk what I want. Understanding how magnetic recording works (which I did quite a lot of research on), flux changes etc does help a lot as well. But first you must spot the weakness.
If you read some of Douglas Adams's novels about Dirk Gently and the sofa that was placed into a stairway, in a way that is completely impossible, you'd get the picture how bended my "view" on CopyLock is. If you don't - go an read it, hopefully you won't regret it! (I don't want to spoil how was it done...)
Actually the best place for progress is to read our mailing list, which is unfortunately private
The next best thing is to read our site, which is due to massive amount of mailing, working, and lack of time generally - we do have our real lives, and CAPS is free, you see - is *already* outdated. It will be in different languages and wip section of dumped games, analyzed games etc. A lot of work to be done and its a really long road to take.
If you dump R-Type 2, I can have a quick look to tell if it can be rewritten. For details contact us. I'll post a request on the list, to get the dumped soon, normally by know I guess it may took some time to get back to you.
Since the beginning of the project in this form (early april this year) I was faced with several challenges from people, so I generally got used to the habit of ignoring negative comments.
I was once to start CAPS a lot earlier, but there was Gateway at the site, and everything seemed to be A-Ok, so no need for CAPS.
Than came AI, and everything seemed to be A-Ok, so no need for CAPS, again.
Then I read some comments from one of their people on newsgroups, and... I got pissed, and decided to start this whole mess no matter what happens, to save at least those lovely games from the classic Amiga days. For a long time all went completely private, until our dumping tool was ready and tested, and we could spend enough time on the website to make it as it now. I like its pureness, due to one of our members' excellent ideas, how to make it simple - or I do have a really bad taste doesn't matter - it's our site we can do whatever we like
I was pointed to here since actually some of us do read this board, probably do post as well
The main reason I was posting here, that there were some technical details that others couldn't answer.
Normally I do not read message boards, just news sites simply because where I live now I pay ppm charges for the phone and the net, and it's quite expensive, and I know I'd spend too much time with them. Sometimes I do use ICQ though, but normally only e-mails.
The best way to get in contact or point me to read a thread is through email.

Note: these are my personal views and may not match of others' of CAPS, we do work in a democratic way, although I started this thing and on some matters I may choose to decide what to do (normally I do not, it only happened once, and there was a good reason for that).
bla... bla... bla... Really. )

Sorry I've had some important typos (and pushed the wrong button too)

"I think that was quite nice, despite what we got in return here - *but* enough of that whining always made the remaining Amiga community divided, and we should*n't* be doing it again. "

Again quite a difference

[Codetapper]

We have never ever stated that longtracks can be written back with a normal fdd, because they can't. However there are fdds out there with speed control, which can.

I disagree. All documentation I have read on the CAPS site makes out you can write these originals back on a standard Amiga setup. If the floppy drive which comes with the Amiga is incapable of writing the tracks back, then I class your tool as requiring extra hardware (ie. a special FDD).

The reason you (István) see both Galahad and my comments as negative and trying to split the Amiga community (as you say) is that this small point about needing a special FDD is not mentioned on the CAPS site! I think you should add it as one of the first things in the FAQ and it would clear up a lot of the confusion!

So to sum things up, your bog standard Amiga with normal FDD cannot write back these tracks, end of story!

Two snippets from FAQ:

"We are not positive that every image can be written back to a real disk, though we have found that we have been able to do this with some protections that was previously thought impossible to master without some kind of special hardware. This is because they were written using modified FDCs (Floppy Disk Controllers). "

"However some games will not be writeable without one of these machines due to the more-limited capability of the Amiga FDC. " Clear enough.

Just maybe we should state in the FAQ, that programs using longtracks can't be written without modified hardware etc.

The "new" CopyLock can be written back on unmodified Amiga, since it does *not* contain a longtrack. It uses a speed controlled track with different cell timings, and that is something completely different.

"The reason you (István) see both Galahad and my comments as negative and trying to split the Amiga community (as you say) "
I don't say that. What I'm saying is its useless to cry wolf, when there is no wolf.

So to sum things up, your bog standard Amiga with normal FDD can write back some of those tracks, end of story!
It's pretty clear in the FAQ, but we may emphasize on a new point about long tracks that do need hardware to master?

To make it clear: I was not referring to your comments in this:
"trying to split the Amiga community (as you say) "
I was referring to things not related to either you, me or CAPS, but Amiga.

FYI: some games that were remastered
Bloodwych
Spellfire the Sorcerer
Chuck Rock
Heimdall

They range from very different periods of CL, all use the same cell timing protection (because it's hard to copy...), just different protection checks.
Any game that uses the same cell timing is writeable with a normal Amiga.

Really end of story.

[Galahad/FLT]

I think if the CAPS project had been straight with people right from the start (i.e. giving the FULL facts and not missing some important ones), then perhaps you wouldn't feel you would have to defend yourself?

Nothing in the tone of my original mail was offensive, but you take it in any tone you like, most others it seems, got what it was I was trying to say without spilling out a 200 page reply!

You say you can duplicate Copylock, but then say you have to modify it to write it back down.

So in essence, you cannot do a 'straight' copy of a Copylock track AS I ALWAYS MAINTAINED!

If by essence you have to modify something to be able to copy it, you couldn't do a straight copy....

I have always been aware of how Copylock works and that Rob Northen modified the Bitcell so that it could be read but not written, but you dismiss my comments about crackers of past history with some vain idea that they didn't have a clue or were very secretive about it!!!

The CAPS project as I said before is a nice idea, its a pity that its also about five years too late, will STILL put a strain on Emulators as they have to wade through seperate codec files for each disk for each game (which I assume you must provide for the emulator so it can actually decode the disk data).

All in all the end file for a 1 disk game, will also be a big affair.

I never questioned your motives or the relevance of what you were doing, only that you present yourself with a lot of obstacles before your project even gets off the ground.

By omitting various points about CAPS, it makes me all the more suspicious about what other things you have not mentioned.

Whilst I also applaud the fact that you are supporting the community by supporting their original disks (when the project is eventually accepted), most of these people have had access to cracked copies in the form of ADF's for a long time now.....

I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being a realist... listening to other peoples opinions might just enhance your own

[Toni Wilen]

I think this is good for emulators' compatibility. The more there are (badly coded?) programs that need very good floppy/cia/etc.. timings the easier it is to fix them. And I want to make UAE's floppy emulation 100% perfect.

WHDLoad is bad for emulators because it makes all programs too compatible

In response to Galahad (and in some respects Codetapper):

I think that most of this is a mis-understanding to be honest.

Firstly I will say now that *I* wrote the FAQ from many conversations with István and I knew close to nothing about disk protection before joining CAPS. Some of my wording in there has obviously been open to interpretation in parts - but I can see that now it must have been seeing it has happened. The sames goes for the WIP (though this was not written by me).

I have updated the FAQ (to be uploaded with a site update later today) which will hopefully be clearer to you.

Secondly, I have noticed that both you and Codetapper have mis-interpreted what István said in his responses in this board, and, no blame on you, István has mis-interpreted some of some of what you have said. Either way it doesn't really matter - I think he does pretty damn well seeing as his first language is not English. I can't speak any other languages at all!

Anyway, all I wanted to say is that there is no point bickering - especially over a mis-understanding. We will continue to do what we are doing, because we believe in it. When it is ready we will show it to the world (hopefully sooner than later

You can then either accept it when it comes or not. That is obviously up to you. If you accept it and use it, you may see flaws in it that we have not thought of and together, we can improve it.

Your right, the project *is* late - that is why we must put more effort into it than we perhaps would of if we had started it earlier. Better late than never huh? István has put 100's into this thing and was not even going to respond to "doubts" by other people until we actually released something - and would not have if it was not for me urging him too.

I personally think that there has been *far* to much segmentation in the past, and the Amiga legacy has IMHO suffered for it. Obviously we would *like* everybody to stand together to produce the most complete and perfect preservation possible for any platform - ever. But that is just not reality.

We are collecting manuals and box art (and protection cards! ) to be released as "add-on" packs along with the CAPS disk images. Imagine this - a fully indexed library of every version of every Amiga game ever produced - in all languages ever produced. Isn't that a nice goal to aim for? The prize will certainly be rewarding for everybody.

We don't expect to achieve this obviously, but we can come pretty damn close and we will try to do it on our own if we must. We think that the Amiga deserves it. Although the "scene" has it's place with the huge TOSEC ADF "cracks" collection we want a "clean" and "perfect" TOSEC collection too.

Lets just all get on with what we are doing and you can critise all you like when everything is ready and you have seen it for yourselves.



Please do not be offended by any comments in this post. If seen, they were imagined


Ian: Please don't use a direct signature, use user cp --> edit profile --> signature

Sorry that should have been 100's *of hours* - in fact - it could be 1000's by now - István is ahem... rather dedicated... (as we all are!)

Thanks for your support Toni - it's important.

[Galahad/FLT]

I personally am not offended by anyone.... people can call me a moron for all I care, as long as they have the facts to back it up then thats fine..... in a weird kind of way.

Grapevine the original LSD diskmag is making a comeback... articles are wanted.

So, perhaps writing an article on the CAPS project and anything else you would like to write about.

GVARTICLES@AOL.COM

Originally posted by Galahad/FLT
So, perhaps writing an article on the CAPS project and anything else you would like to write about.

Hey, that is a great idea. I'll talk to the guys...

When do you think the first (new) edition will be released?

[Codetapper]

I have another question which is quite interesting from my point of view on these disk images...

Let's say I have an old disk from 1988 which is a bit stuffed. Most of the original game loaders I have seen read the MFM data, compute some checksum (except a few lame formats which have no error checking!) to work out if the data was OK. If it wasn't, it re-reads the track about 10 times and then flashes the screen to show it failed.

If I coded a WHDLoad version of the game, I would write a RawDIC imaging slave which can reread the track as many times as I want (sometimes I have to set it to 50 or more!) until it gets the correct data. I can tell the data is OK as the checksum will eventually match (unless the disk is totally stuffed).

From what I understand, your software reads the disk 3 times or so until it gets the same data and then assumes the data is OK. The 3 reads might give the same CORRUPT data for the track, but by then you will store it as valid data.

If the game is rare (eg. Ghosts'n'Goblins) it is unlikely that you will be able to find a second original copy to dump and compare with the first one. Even if you did find it, how do you tell which of the two images is the correct one?

The faulty track may occur on level 2 of a game so a quick test by the CAPS team will show that the game works. However, by coding a small imager the WHDLoad version you would be able to tell that there is an error immediately! Are there future plans for verification/validation of the data when these imagers exist?

If you want a good example of this, the game Cardiaxx/Team 17 (1993) seems to have been mastered with track 143 corrupt (which equates to level 4 of the game). I have seen 3 different warps of the game and they all have this fault. I have been unable to confirm if the original Electronic Zoo version from 1991 has the fault (nobody seems to own this version).

[Galahad/FLT]

Hopefully the first edition would be available before the end of the year, but thats not in my hands, thats in everyone elses hands to write articles. No-one wants me to write 80 articles on what I think... the code for it is simple, its everyone else participation that is the key.

I got a bit upset by your comments, Kieron is right, yes I actually worked on CAPS full time - along with real world work. That's about 14-6 hours a day I've probably spent way too much time with this, so I did not take your comments as lightly as I should have. Sorry for that. When CAPS started it all happened the same, but I was dealing with that and expecting that. By now I've come to the habit of forgetting all those days, so it came as a surprise
There were many hours of slave work, and only some of joy, as you can imagine. I'm fully dedicated to this project, and many others do.
Yes, English is not my first language, but I'm fluent most of the time. ) I even make the same spelling mistakes like natives do, when in a hurry.
I know a lot about Amiga hw, obviously, I was writing games for it. None of them were really system friendly, so it was DIY

Toni: LOL, you are right about WHDload
The disk and cia hw is actually quite strange compared to what is written, and many details are undocumented. The real work of dsksync flag is one of them, that's really strange (but logical, once you get used to that logic). Same goes for the 0x4000 clear, and that you have to write twice the same data to start dma (untrue), etc. All those lovely claims in HRM, which somehow do not match the real hardware fully. But I think you already know that

GrapeVine comeback? That would be really nice!

Actually you can't really read all the same data 3 times - this is due to a phenomenon in magnetic recording called bit shifting. Our pc based analyzer decides for which to care, and adopts from another read if the read partially fails. This in practice has very similar effect to say reading the same track much more times. You may call this an adaptive algorithm. MFM is a self clocking format, the clock bits are there to help to guide the fdc to get in sync with the expected cell timing (which could be 2us or 4us for the MFM available on Amiga). Due to clock bits there is a jitter - basically tolerance, but not exactly the same thing - algorithm implemented into most fdc hardware which is basically to tolerate fuzzy reads. This can be used to an advantage as well. Like better knowing which read is correct.

On Cardiaxx: I was one of the few who used to have the EZoo original - a complimentary copy from the publisher -, but I thought it was completely unplayable, so probably gave away the disk. At least I couldn't find it. But I can confirm it did really exist, and went to duplicators, since the disk was printed.

Hello folk. Here is CAPS, it's born. CAPS will do the following :


. Provide you a viable way to save your originals. Both on CAPS releases ( CAPS releases will go through a analyzing and testing process before released into it's final form ) and by writting them back onto Floppy disks.

. CAPS will also work with emulators. You will be able to re-live your past. You'll be able to preserve it therefore as well in whatever platform the emulator(s) supporting CAPS works. CAPS will outlive the Amiga. The amiga dead in body will live in spirit embodied.

. CAPS will be the turning point in the emulation of the Amiga. Current Emulators to support it need to be bettered. Emulation, correct emulation, of the Amiga hardware will start to rear it's lovely head. Future emulators will have CAPS in mind. You'll no longer have hack on top of hack but attempts of correct emulation of Amiga Hardware. This will be beneficial to the whole Amiga emulation environment. It points to the light in the end of the tunnel of Amiga emulation. We have brightful times ahead.

. CAPS is honest. Well willed. And strongly willed. CAPS works hard to achieve it's objetives and it will achieve them. I am very proud of the people working at CAPS. We dispise dishonest people. We would naver act like one. CAPS is here to serve the amiga user. For free. CAPS is happy to dispel all your doubts and enlighten you about everything, cantact CAPS. They will answer from the guy who wants to discuss CIA timmings, to the guy who wants to know what's a floppy disk. You will be answered. CAPS is here for you.


CAPS needs or will need :


. Game contributions, you DO NOT have to part with your games. You can contribute to it by the internet depending on your setup. CAPS is like giving blood. It saves lives without the hurt of the needle. Someone somewhere will thank you for contributing for CAPS; you saved that person's memory of playing that game in their youth.

. Mastering hardware. People with knowledege, experience, or posession of such equipment.

. Publicity. Tell about CAPS to everyone who ever owned an Amiga.

. French guys. CAPS needs french guys. If you're a french guy and are willing to part with your time to translate in full or partly the CAPS website and or FAQ please contact CAPS. German guys are welcomed also, we've have already someone but it's a hefty job and if two or three people can do one part it's less work to everyone and it will be faster. If you think your country is worthy enough of having CAPS available in it's own language and are willing to take the time and effort to do it, contact CAPS. CAPS thanks you for your effort and interest.


CAPS works daily for you. CAPS works daily to get to the future faster. CAPS will make an effort to be as transparent as possible and as informative as it can. Keep checking the CAPS website for news and developments. This is only the begining of CAPS. Many info gets outdated by the day. It's a lot of work and i'm sure you apreciate the complexity of the organization of a project of such scale. CAPS folk take some daily hours to do things nice and how they should be, day by day.

Every CAPS member is competent at what he does. Except Kieron who sometimes forgets to upload files into the website. Or István, whenever he starts with the odd movie comparison. The website guy is almost unbearable, on the other hand, isntead of working today he just sent us Afghan TV jokes. Despite that, it's an incredibly professional team at your service.

Mr.Toni Wilen, many thanks for your posts and revealed interest in the CAPS project. It would be very exciting if CAPS could in some small way help the introduction of a bettered emulation into UAE. It would be also very benefitial and exciting for CAPS to be supported fully or partially by UAE. Please, do maintain contact with us and don't be shy to make recomendations and voice opinions in those contacts.

CAPS it's excited and proud it created so much interest and passionate responses. CAPS is and will be. CAPS is also a lot of work. Yet, we will not disapoint.

CAPS Project Website

[Wepl]

Originally posted by István Fábián
The disk and cia hw is actually quite strange compared to what is written, and many details are undocumented. The real work of dsksync flag is one of them, that's really strange (but logical, once you get used to that logic). Same goes for the 0x4000 clear, and that you have to write twice the same data to start dma (untrue), etc. All those lovely claims in HRM, which somehow do not match the real hardware fully. But I think you already know that

Can you collect such informations in a text file and make it available. It would be very helpful for other people to have some kind of 'undocumented features/bugs of amiga hardware' addition to the public ressources concerning (eg. HRM,AGA-Guide). Maybe also other people can contribute therein.

bye bert

All the relevant information was passed on to Toni, I guess you could get them reading the upcoming UAE sources (but since beta cycles, it won't be in the next few releases I think).
Or if it does not fit well (I don't know the purpose), I can make a text file with the relevant information, but that would be a bit messy. Let me know if needed. Also it would be helpful if you specify what are you exactly interested in, since this takes time - which I don't have much recently

[Wepl]

Originally posted by István Fábián
All the relevant information was passed on to Toni, I guess you could get them reading the upcoming UAE sources (but since beta cycles, it won't be in the next few releases I think).
Or if it does not fit well (I don't know the purpose), I can make a text file with the relevant information, but that would be a bit messy. Let me know if needed. Also it would be helpful if you specify what are you exactly interested in, since this takes time - which I don't have much recently

If it will be well written in the uae sources its fine. I recently browsed some parts of the sources while searching information about the dos-handler and found the source quality not very high. It seems some parts are quickly written.

But anyhow, I think everybody which is doing alterations on old demos/games is coming to the event that analysed code do work/not work against better knowledge. The reason are often some hardware bugs or undocumented features. In these cases it would be great IMHO to have information resources in addition to the official cbm docu or rewritten stuff in the net (aga-guide etc.).

Maybe Codetapper can do the job and enhance his patching guide which such information.

[Codetapper]

I would be happy to update the patching guide with any new information. I have a few new things to add anyway so sure, fire anything relevant my way.

Incidentally a lot of that guide is taken from both the JST and WHDLoad documentation on fixes so it's your good work too Wepl

[Marcuz]

heh look how much the CAPS popularity has increased in a couple of years...