Copying an Apple II disk?

[admin]

ANY disk can be duplicated because all SCP does it work with flux data. The only magic to getting a disk to work is framing the start/end of the track so that the write splice does not appear in the middle of a valid sector. If you use a disk analyzer, you will likely find that the disk copy you made has one bad sector on most tracks because the write splice is not in the correct location. If the disk was created using a commercial duplicator, then the INDEX mode can be used to duplicate disks. I have done this with the Atarisoft titles like Joust, Defender, DigDug, etc. Much like the C64, the Apple II did not use the index mark (or even have an index sensor from what I recall), so disks that you create yourself are not index'd and therefore will not work with INDEX mode. The SPLICE routine has a very basic (non-Apple II specific) routine for determining the write splice and probably will not work in many cases. I have not really spent much time with the Apple stuff to try to automate it. Of course, you can manually copy every track (by track) using the editor/analyzer and frame the data correctly. It's a pain, but is absolutely 100% successful. I will work on the 5.25" format again in the coming months.