How to transfer copy protected disks

[Noony]

So anyway we have an old MECC "master disk set" and I've been slowly converting them to Nibble images, using Saltine's Super Trans-Copy.





It's a major chore since the original disks are copy protected and the stupid simple Apple Disk Transfer cannot deal with non-standard disks. It can't directly make nibble images and only handles normal 16-sector disks.

So what I have to do, is on a real Apple II, use SST to encode the copy protected disk onto two standard 16-sector disks. These two standard disks are uploaded as standard DSK images to the emulated side of the world.

Then in an emulator I run SST again, and use the two standard uploaded DSK images to decode the program back onto a blank Nibble image.

This in effect preserves the copy protection within the nibble image and the programs operate as if still protected within the emulator.



You would have to use Copy II Plus or LockSmith to copy this within the emulator.... or just make a copy of the disk image on your PC.

[billm]

Actually, we can run .NIB disk images in our emulator. One thing we are definitely interested is the teachers guides that go with the programs if they are available. Can we get copies of the disk images you have made?

Cheers

--billm--

[billm]

Also, when you are naming your disks, you might want to include the MECC code (i.e. A157a or A157b for disk one or disk two of a two disk set or A156 for a disk in a single disk set). It makes it easier to line up with the original MECC catalogs.

Cheers

--billm--

[Noony]

Well, I have two collections, one by name and one starting by number. The name set is more useful since that allows students to find the programs more easily in the Windows XP Start menu. Naming by number first would make things harder.






These sit on the file server and I have shortcuts mapped to drive letters in the start menu so the entire collection is accessible from any classroom computer using AppleWin, on Windows 2000 / XP.




This start menu setup actually is not the ideal way to do this, since some programs demand write access at all times (Zoyon Patrol) and if multiple students have a disk in use there may be conflicting data writes.

I would like to find an alternate local filesystem method that opens a temp-file copy specific to each user, but that would require some modification of the Applewin emulator. I may eventually have to re-implement the virtual apple website java emulator, since that way the disks run independent in the browser cache.

.

[billm]

I assume that you know about the copy protection removal program that is up on Asimov for the MECC disks. I cant vouch for it but I do know some folks have used it to a great extent.