X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to djgpp-bounces using -f Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 18:57:15 -0500 From: House Cat Subject: Re: Creating a copy protected floppy In-Reply-To: <1121199731.361001.326030@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Message-ID: References: <1121199731 DOT 361001 DOT 326030 AT g43g2000cwa DOT googlegroups DOT com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Complaints-To: abuse AT usenetserver DOT com Organization: UseNetServer.com Lines: 37 X-Trace: c9d7442e58a87e442678506907 To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: djgpp AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk > I am trying to create a copy-protected floppy for distributing my > application. I searched online and decided on bit-counting as perhaps > the best way for me to implement copy protection. A description of bit > counting is given below: Hey, arizvi, perhaps you could learn from the Spanish guy who created 2M. He's probably the world's expert on floppies. His (DOS) software is cardware (send him a postcard). He created high capacity formats (open standards) using 82 sectors per track, extra tracks, etc. On a 360k floppy, he can fit >900k; on a 1440k floppy, he can fit almost 2MB! He also developed techniques to increase access/transfer speeds by about 50-100%! He, too, determined that there were limits to what he could do--even talking directly to the floppy drive controller, so he found some way to trick the controller into letting him talk directly to the drive. He has some way of measuring the capabilities and tolerances of a given combination of drive and media so that he doesn't exceed those. He's also on top of compatibility issues. (He can make the LED blink too.) His information as I found it in his software (v3.0): Name: Ciriaco Garcia de Celis Preferred Language: English or Spanish emailto:ciri AT gui DOT uva DOT es 2M software: ftp://oak.oakland.edu Simtel/msdos/diskutil 2m*.zip You can get his snail-mail address from his software--I'm not going to post it. I'm afraid my information is at least 6 years old, but maybe it'll be useful to you, arizvi. Good luck, --House Cat