Creating TRS80 Copy Protected Floppies
#1
Hi all. First post here. I recently purchased a M3 and M4P. I dragged out my old disks from decades ago and only a few work, the rest have been buckled and stood on and not salvageable. I want to make a working protected copies of Hyperzap and Super Utility 4. My originals are cactus. I have DMK images. Is SCP able to create copy protected floppies from these images?
Regards
Richard
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#2
Yes, and no.  Yes, it is possible to convert images to something SuperCard Pro can use.  However, SuperCard Pro's software won't do it natively because it is not a disk converter.  It is a flux copier/imager, designed to be used to archive your disk collection.  You can use a variety of tools out there that will generate .scp image files (from various image formats) that SuperCard Pro can write back to a real disk.  HxC Floppy Drive Emulator software can do this, but there is currently a bug where .dsk and .dmk images are converted into 20 track/2 head images.  They should be 40 track/1 head images.  I am in contact with Jeff about this issue and I am sure he will correct it.  At that point you can use that program to convert any existing .dsk or .dmk images to .scp images.
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#3
(05-06-2020, 10:55 PM)admin Wrote: Yes, and no.  Yes, it is possible to convert images to something SuperCard Pro can use.  However, SuperCard Pro's software won't do it natively because it is not a disk converter.  It is a flux copier/imager, designed to be used to archive your disk collection.  You can use a variety of tools out there that will generate .scp image files (from various image formats) that SuperCard Pro can write back to a real disk.  HxC Floppy Drive Emulator software can do this, but there is currently a bug where .dsk and .dmk images are converted into 20 track/2 head images.  They should be 40 track/1 head images.  I am in contact with Jeff about this issue and I am sure he will correct it.  At that point you can use that program to convert any existing .dsk or .dmk images to .scp images.

What other programs are out there to convert .dsk and .dmk images to .scp? I've looked but didn't see any. Do they have the same bug as HxC?
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#4
SAMDisk can convert various images types, centered around the PC disk (same format as TRS-80).  PCE Tools is another that convert those images.  I wasn't aware of any problems with any program converting images until this just popped up.
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#5
I tried SAMdisk but it can't convert to scp format. It can convert to other formats such as imd but then you still have to use HxC to get the file to scp format and you know that doesn't work. None of the PCE Tools can read dsk files.
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#6
SAMDisk definitely converts to .scp. In fact, the latest version (4.0 beta) can control the SCP hardware directly to read/write disks.
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#7
(05-09-2020, 09:35 AM)admin Wrote: SAMDisk definitely converts to .scp.  In fact, the latest version (4.0 beta) can control the SCP hardware directly to read/write disks.

This is what I get with 3.8.11:

D:\Users\tlake\Downloads\SAMdisk>samdisk ld3-531.dmk ld3-531.scp

Error: SCP is not supported as an output type
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#8
Yeah, I think you have to use the new beta 4.0 version for outputs. It will read/write directly using the SuperCard Pro hardware as well.
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#9
(05-09-2020, 01:58 PM)admin Wrote: Yeah, I think you have to use the new beta 4.0 version for outputs.  It will read/write directly using the SuperCard Pro hardware as well.

I've been trying to compile it with no luck. Is a binary available somewhere or could you provide an exe?
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#10
Sorry, I don't have a binary for the new one. I am not 'C' guy, so I couldn't tell you how to compile that code. I have been chatting with Jeff. He partially fixed HxC, but has another thing to fix still It actually exposed an issue I have with single sided disks that are NOT C64 format. So, now I have to figure out how I am going to handle these types of disks with the SCP software itself. I think I am going to end up adding some new disk types for single-sided 40 track, single-sided 80 track formatted disks and also adding the heads to the copier.
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