Posted By
Plus4Vampyre
on 2004-09-17
06:56:16
 |  Experiences in making G64
I have a few copy protected disks for the plus/4. Has somebody experiences in making G64 files?
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-09-17
08:29:51
| Re: Experiences in making G64
As far as hardware is concerned, you'll need an XP1541 or XP1571 cable. As for disk drives, you should preferably use a 1541, 1570 or 1571, as these drives don't need any extra modifications. (A 1541-II requires the disconnection of a pin from the VIA chip, and a 1541C additionally requires the DOS ROM to be replaced)
The XP1541/XP1571 construction guide says that you should solder the cable wires directly to the VIA chip, but I found it easier and safer to do the following: cut a 20-way IC PCB socket in half lengthways, then using one of these halves, solder the cable wires to the appropriate socket holes, then push the socket pins onto the VIA chip. (You can see the finished connection in this blurry photo, I need a better camera  )
As for software, you'll need to use mnib to make G64 images.
Hope that helps a bit 
I've made a G64 of The Hulk +4 (which I'll get round to sending soon), and it works fine on YAPE
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2004-09-17
08:50:34
| Re: Experiences in making G64
So, in short you should make your drive a parallel one. There are quite a few copy protected commercial disks out there mostly from Kingsoft, but i know Lando has one Mercenary disk with copy protection on it. Would be great to have a G64 of that, too!
I wonder if we had a cable for our 1551's we could use that one instead of soldering a 1541... :-/
I truely believe copy protection is part of the history, so a G64 for disks is like TAP files for tapes.
Ulysses: is Hulk copy protected?
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-09-17
09:16:04
| Re: Experiences in making G64
Gaia: Yup, it causes a read error in Star Commander on a particular sector (can't remember which one), and if you skip the sector, it hangs when loading.
It also fails to load if you convert the G64 image to a D64.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2004-09-17
09:22:08
 | Re: Experiences in making G64
Ppl, you're scaring me. I still use my old X1541 Cable with StarCommander and it rocks!
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2004-09-17
09:29:55
| Re: Experiences in making G64
Ulyssess: if it's only a "fake" bad sector the D64 format is able to handle that. There's a very good chart on the mnib site about various copy protections and their relations to the D64 and G64 formats.
Luca: Star Commander and X1541 are worthless if you want to make a working copy of a genuine commercial, copy protected disk (thus, not crack) with a bit trickier protection.
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Posted By
Plus4Vampyre
on 2004-09-17
15:37:17
| Re: Experiences in making G64
Gaia you are right the combination of Star Commander and X1541 is worthless, thats also my problem I have a speeddos c64 and a x(e)1541 cable but no xp1541 cable, but I read about another possible solution with a XE1541 cable: Markus Brenner's s2g programm which converts Zipcode Collection 2.0 type 'sixpacked' archives into C64 emulator related .G64 disk images -> see: http://markus.brenner.de/
My idea is to make a sixpacked archive with a c64 and then using the s2g program to convert it to a G64 file. What do you think?
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-09-17
20:42:00
| Re: Experiences in making G64
Plus4Vampyre: I've tested your suggestion with my Hulk disk and a standard (not speeddos) C64, and it does work Although I can't tell if it will work with all forms of copy protection...
Gaia: It appears that the copy protection is more tricky - I tried using the G2D utility included with mnib to convert the G64 file to a D64 file, and it doesn't produce a working D64 image
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Posted By
Plus4Vampyre
on 2004-09-20
18:27:27
| Re: Experiences in making G64
Very cool Ulysses777 great job- I going to test it with my Hulk disk,too. I think with this method I can make a few G64 files from (maybe all commodore copy protected) disks I own. Maybe this method works also on kingsoft disks.
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2004-09-20
18:54:17
| Re: Experiences in making G64
I guess it would work with Kingsoft disks, we already have one G64 of them: this German text adventure.
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Posted By
Plus4Vampyre
on 2004-11-21
17:28:01
| Re: Experiences in making G64
@Ulysses777 - where did you find the c64 program to make a sixpacked archive? I try to use zipcode.prg from http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/c64/diskutil/archivers/index.html - but this program do not like my copyprotected disks
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-11-22
16:02:40
| Re: Experiences in making G64
I used this to do it.
I should point out that I haven't tested it much, so I don't know if it's any better...
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Posted By
Plus4Vampyre
on 2004-11-23
16:39:48
| Re: Experiences in making G64
Thanks! It works! I made my first (working) G64 file. It seems that the version you found is much better
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