Notes on backing up Digital Solutions titles (Paperback & Pocket series productivity) - Printable Version +- CBMSTUFF FORUM (https://www.cbmstuff.com/forum) +-- Forum: CBMSTUFF PRODUCTS (https://www.cbmstuff.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: SuperCard Pro (https://www.cbmstuff.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=3) +---- Forum: Commodore 64/128 disks (https://www.cbmstuff.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=7) +---- Thread: Notes on backing up Digital Solutions titles (Paperback & Pocket series productivity) (/showthread.php?tid=699) |
Notes on backing up Digital Solutions titles (Paperback & Pocket series productivity) - kentsu - 03-29-2020 Greetings all, I hope you, your families, and colleagues are healthy. We're OK here in the epicenter (Kirkland, Washington). I have recently been occupying myself with making preservation images of original Paperback and Pocket series (Filer, Planner, Writer) disks that I have collected over the years. I was particularly interested in making a preservation image of Pocket Writer 3 for the C-128. I spent close to 10 years looking for an original on eBay... I assume that fairly-few copies of PW v3 were sold, since it was released fairly late in the C-64/128's life. In any case, I wanted to share that I was able to make functioning .g64 images of all of the v2 disks with SCP, using default settings (Index mode, no half tracks). This applies to Filer, Planner, and Writer, C-64 and C-128 versions. (The v2 series programs were sold as flippies, with the C-64 version on one side and the C-128 version on the other.) So, 3 x 2 = 6 images in total. Writer v3 for the C-128 was a bit of a different story. Many, many thanks to Jim for jumping in and tweaking the raw flux dump to create a working .g64. Jim -- perhaps you could say a little about what you did? Many thanks also to Dan G. for re-connecting me with Jim and encouraging me to dig into the project. Also, I have some of the v1 products but, so far, have not been able to get a clean read from those disks. It may be that those disks have decayed. Jim took a look at said there was a waveform pattern to the flux, which can indicate either dirty disk / heads or bad disk. I inspected the disks and didn't see crud and made sure the heads were clean... Thanks, --Kent RE: Notes on backing up Digital Solutions titles (Paperback & Pocket series productivity) - kentsu - 04-01-2020 Greetings. Jim mentioned the following to me in a PM: Quote:The protection for Pocket Writer 3 is the exact same that has been used since day one on the original Paperback Writer. When creating a .g64, the SCP software attempts to find the write splice for each track and there are cases where a write splice (which is a 'smearing' of the flux data when the write head turns off and the magnetic field collapses) just so happens to create a flux bitcell that is valid. Almost (but not always) this is an invalid bitcell time and easy to spot. Thanks, Jim! |