+--------------------------------------+
!    An Odyssey into Copy II+          !
!        By the Disk Cruncher          !
+--------------------------------------+

      Call the Ski-Lodge

           (312) 282-9272

    If you have questions.

Subtitled: Using a nibble copier without a PhD.

Pertains to only Copy II+ versions 5.0 or higher. It is best to know how the hexadecimal system works before reading this.

     Sitting up late one night, you attempt to copy a disk a friend lent you. You pull up the "AUTO COPY" on your Copy II+ 5.2 menu, and choose the "NEWSROOM" entry. You insert the disks into your two-drive system, and let the computer run. You go over to
 get a pizza, and come back and find it's finished, all with "0" error codes. You try out your copy. AHA! The Springboard logo comes up and then you hear a perpetual whir from the disk drive. You wait. Nothing. It was an unsuccessful copy.
     "But there was all zeros as the bottom!" you silently cry and you try to copy it again. Nothing works.
     You try Locksmith 5.0. EDD. The disk appears incopyable. What can you do?
     You can wait a few weeks for a cracked copy of Newsroom to appear on AE lines. You can attempt to boot trace it. But cracking a disk is aggravating. Is this program worth the effort?


     Yes. With a little time on your hands, be prepared to be aggravated, and possibly not have a copied disk. But, if you want your program copied without waiting a *LONG* time, read this file.


I. How your nibble copier works.

Ever notice when Copy II+ copies a track, it displays a whole bunch of bytes like "FF FF D5 AA AD" and the like? Those bytes are the actual beginning of the track you are reading. This section explains in detail what those bytes mean, and how to interpret
 whether you are getting a good copy or not.

Example 1-1:  The Average DOS 3.3 Track

             |FF|FF|FF|FF|FF|FF|FF|FF|
             |FF|D5 AA 96 AA AB AA EF
              FB DE AA D2|FF|FF|FF|FF|
              D5 AA AD FF FE B6 96 96
              96 96 96 96 96 96 FF FF
              FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF

Note: The "FF"s enclosed in lines (like "|FF|") are supposed to be highlighted.


This output from Copy II+ might be called your average, unprotected track. We will take it apart piece by piece.

A. The Sync Bytes

Look at the first group of highlighted bytes (surrounded in lines in here). These Copy II+ assumes as "sync bytes". What are sync bytes? Look at the hole on your normal floppy disk, right near the big hole in the middle. Also, on the actual disk itself in
side the jacket is a smaller hole. When the disk is spun, these holes will meet. Other computers such as the Atari and Commodore will flash a light to this hole and when both holes are together, the light can flash through the diskette and be picked up by
 and electric eye. Then the computer knows when the disk has made one complete turn. But it's not like this on the Apple. Sync bytes, like the highlighted ones, are put on the diskette so when the computer reads those, it knows it had made one complete tu
rn. Disk drives like the Apple's are called Soft-Sectored, and disk drives like the Atari and Commodore ones are called Hard-Sectored.

Occasionally, a computer company when copy-protecting their diskettes will change the amount of sync bytes (usually 10 on a normal DOS 3.3 disk) to a different amount like four to nine so DOS 3.3 doesn't know where the track begins and thus, can't read th
e track. But the program on the disk knows how many sync bytes there are and CAN read the disk. One job of the nibble copier is to find out how many sync bytes there are. Often, computer companies will put sync bytes in the middle of the track to fool the
 nibble copier. The nibble copier usually will assume the beginning of the track is where the greatest amount of sync bytes are. Alas, the copier starts at the wrong place and screws up the copy. Thus, we set parameters to make the copier do different thi
ngs to find the right sync bytes.

Also, computer companies will start the track in several places, making half tracks, quarter tracks, and three-quarter tracks. Then the nibble copier must start the track in both places, and copy them to the
same positions on the copy diskette. But the computer company will mix 'em up. They will put false start sync bytes with the real ones and mess up the whole copy process, but a good copier like Copy II+ can tell between the real ones and the fake ones, us
ually.

B. The Header

You'll notice the sync bytes end and new bytes begin. Usually, right after the sync bytes come the header. The header is like a code on the disk to make sure the disk drive head is even with the track. It is three bytes long. After every byte in the disk,
 comes things called "frame bits". To even the head with the track, the computer reads in the FF and then reads in the frame bits. Frame bits are usually one or two "0" bits between every byte, which the computer reads to check whether it is even with the
 track, for if it reads a byte, and then reads the frame bits and the frame bits aren't zero, then it knows something's wrong. Usually with DOS 3.3 disks there are two frame bits.

  1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0
 ------------ ----
    "FF"      Frame Bits

"Wait!" the aware computer user might ask. "I thought there was 8 bits to a byte. You're telling me 1 1 1 1 1 1 is a complete byte?" Well, disk drives use the something called the six bit code. It takes two bytes of a disk drive to make one 8 bit byte. No
rmal bytes are transalated into a six bit code which really are from only $0-$3F, but are transalated to the normal six-bit codes. Then you must use two six-bit bytes to convert to a normal 8-bit byte. To transalate two six-bit bytes to one regular byte, 
do this:

1. Take the two bytes, starting with each first byte. In this example they are $EE $EA.

2. Convert them into binary:
   11101110=$EE  11101010=$EA

3. Pick out every other bit
   11101110=$EE  11101010=$EA
    ^ ^ ^ ^       ^ ^ ^ ^
    1 0 1 0       1 0 0 0

4. Put all those bits together and you get the hexadecimal number of $A8

See? We will at the end of this section show how all this fits together to read tracks and sectors in.

Back to sync bytes and headers...the computer gets synchronized with the track, and reads in the header bytes. If they are what they are supposed to be "D5 AA 96" then the computer knows its in correct sync with the track and continues. If it isn't, it ma
ke a scratchy sound that we've all heard while going back to the beginning of the track and then tries reading again.

Computer companies will change these bytes in their programs to foil DOS 3.3 and sometimes Copy II+. They usually change the header to "D5 AA B5" or "AA D5 96" or like this, but beware. Copy II+ can usually foil and attempt like this too.

C. The Second field of Sync Bytes and the Prologue.

If the disk head gets past the header, it goes into a smaller field of sync bytes. The function of these sync bytes are about the same of the first ones. These sync bytes are usually in groups of 4 or 5 in normal DOS 3.3, but computer companies will chang
e the amount, or sometimes dispose of them altogether. These bytes precede the prologue, (usually "D5 AA AD" in DOS 3.3), which does the same job of the header. Like the header, it is also three bytes long. These can be changed too to foil DOS 3.3. It's a
lso harder for Copy II+ to pick this up too, but it can.

D. Putting it all together.

To read a track, the computer will:

1. Synchronize itself with the first group of sync bytes.

2. Make sure it's synchronized with the header.

3. Read the second group and make sure the prologue is correct.

4. Read the data afterwards and use the six-bit transalation technique to decode it.


II. Warning signs and things to do about them.

A. Special Control signs:

Directly below the bytes which make up the start of the track on the screen, there are three columns:

SOURCE:        OBJECT:      ________

                            Word Here, usually
                            SYNC,HEADER,GAP

And explanation of what each one is:

SOURCE: The number after this word is the number of actual bytes there are on the track being read.

OBJECT: The number after this word is the number of actual bytes the computer is writing to the destination disk. When you set the nibble count, it matches SOURCE, or gets pretty close, or it is rewritten and attempted again.

SYNC, HEADER, GAP: If it says one of these words here, it means

SYNC- You might need to synchronize the track. To do this simply select "Y" to the SYNC question.

HEADER- You might need to set/reset the header pointer. To set the header pointer, set parameter 55 to 03. To reset the header pointer, set parameter 55 to 01.

GAP- You might need to set the GAP mode. To set GAP detection mode, set parameter 55 to 02. To reset to normal mode, set 55 to 01.

B. How to know when to set the track numbers and step.

If you see odd things with the sync bytes, such as sync bytes not FF or FE, or odd Header bytes (experience will help you determine these) try modifying the sync bytes.

C. What is synchronizing and nibble count?

Synchronizing and nibble counting is two methods of copy protection. They are basic but very important. Both are a way of exacting the copy you make, but shouldn't always be used.

Synchronizing- When you answer "Y" to the "Synchronize Tracks?" question, you tell the computer to start the track on the copy exactly where is on the disk of the original. Normally this is not needed, but occasionally there will be a program to measure t
his and will stop if it isn't. Most companies don't today, since with this option it is easy to foil copy protection. When the SYNC words is in the column, you should probably set this.

Nibble Counting- when you answer "Y" to the "Keep Track Length?" question, it makes sure there is exactly the amount of sync bytes and data bytes on the destination disk. On a normal DOS 3.3 disk you don't need this, but some programs access the disk peri
odically to determine the nibble count, and if it's wrong then it quits the program. There is no real way to tell when you need this, so experiment.

D. Try these also.

If everything else doesn't work, try modifying parameters 3E to 02, and 09 to 01. I know 3E to 02 sets the amount of frame bits to 2, but I don't know what 09 to 01 does, but only it does work sometimes.

Try copying with only one drive. If you copy in the same drive, you're more likely to get a better copy. Try copying from drive 2 to drive 1. Or borrow a friend's drive and try to copy with that.

E. Last resort

If nothing else will work, we will modify the drive speed. Notice you can only do this with Disk ][s without needing a technician. This must be done with games like Wizardry I and Flight Simulator II and Bank Street Writer. You can use Copy II+ Utilities 
to help you test the drive speed. You should set the speed of both drives. You should usually set the speed to 200.0, but sometime speeds like 198.5 or 201.5 may be required. Here's how to adjust the drive speed.

1. Boot up Copy II+.

2. Flip the disk drive over. Unscrew the four screws, set them in a heavy cup and set them aside.

3. Slide off the cover carefully away from the disk drive cable.

4. Go to verify and turn on the Drive Speed option.

5. Look at the back of the disk drive near the cable. there should be a screw jutting off to the side near the circuit board. Slowly turn this screw to either side to adjust the drive speed to what you want, usually 200.0 for both drives.

6. Slide the cover back on and screw it to the disk drive.

7. Run Bit Copy and try it out.

F. One last note.

If you find the Copy II+ Parms don't work, all you usually need to do is copy only with one drive or set the drive speeds of the drives to 200.0 . The Copy II+ Parms are usually correct, all you need to do is modify your hardware.

Also, if you figure out new parms or know things that will help one copy software, then PLEASE POST IT ON A BBS! There are many users out there that need help, and many sysops gather information about copying software and post it in G-Philes to help peopl
e. They will usually give you credit for figuring out how to copy it. Please be generous with your information.

-----------------------------------------------------------

That's it for this installment of Copy II+ help, maybe I'll post a file of parms for people who need help. Please distribute this G-Phile all over, but keep my name in.

                                   Thanx,
                                    D.C.

If you need help, you can call the Ski Lodge (312) 282-9272 and contact me through E-Mail.

               This Has been a G-Phile by
                   The Disk Cruncher.