Copier dongles, any support for?

[BarryB]

Just searched this thread for 'cyclone' and found no hits, so would support for emulating these copier dongles ever be considered in WinUAE? The likes of cyclone, synchro express, power copy etc?

Would the fact that IPF/SCP images exist negate the need for this, plus the only container for dealing with copy protections is an extended ADF that might not be able to hold all the required data?

[Toni Wilen]

Sounds extremly pointless but can be done

But emulation may be too accurate, those kinds of dongles are sort of "analog" in real world and floppy motor speeds are never exactly same but in emulation both drives would be 100% identical without extra randomness added.

Extended adf can't support any kind of bit cell width changes. It was originally designed to be able to store everything that Amiga can write (custom save disks etc..).

[BarryB]

That's it then, no point wasting time adding it if an eADF can't support some of the protections! Best stick to 'real' cyclone dongles and IPFs.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by BarryB

Would the fact that IPF/SCP images exist negate the need for this, plus the only container for dealing with copy protections is an extended ADF that might not be able to hold all the required data?

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Extended adf can't support any kind of bit cell width changes. It was originally designed to be able to store everything that Amiga can write (custom save disks etc..).

In the absence of IPFs, aren't raw dumps better than extended ADFs for accommodating copy-protections under emulation?

[BarryB]

Yes, but RAW dumps don't contain any verified data I believe so 'may' not work as the source data may be corrupt to start with and you wouldn't know, especially with custom protections!

[DrBong]

True, but unless the disk has obvious errors you wouldn't be anymore-the-wiser as to whether custom protections have been "preserved" or circumvented properly using copier dongles without a parameter for a particular game.

Just like extended ADFs and raw dumps, it's often trial-and-error as to whether a game will work when duplicated with a copier dongle using the nibbler software (as opposed to the parameter copy feature). There are a few threads that illustrate that quite nicely IMHO, for example:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=58890
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=77639&page=2
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=81281

Having said that, like Toni I'm struggling to see the usefulness of adding support for copier dongles to UAE. I think it would be more interesting just to see if Toni could do it than anything else.....which I'm sure he could, if people sent him all the various copier dongles available!

[BarryB]

Well Toni said it was 'extremely pointless but could be done' so it's not a case of complexity, just a WTF

Now't wrong with Troddlers, copies perfick!!

[Phantomz]

I'd like to see cyclone dongle support in winuae if possible.

It would be cool to use the cyclone software in emulation.

Maybe I could mount my raw disks in winuae and copy to extended adfs.

These extended adf's could then possibly be converted to the hxc format.

If this worked then I could write raw files that could be used on the HxC.

Just an idea.

I know some people will say the dongle support is pointless, but then the same could be said for others like the " Robocop 3 dongle " etc.