doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (01/07/86)
Anyone out there have a solution to the problem of incompatible
diskette alignment?
Perhaps I'm the only person in C64-land who actually buys software
instead of copying it. I've never heard anyone else complain about
how commercial software is never recorded with the same diskette
alignment as anything else.
If I align my 1541 to load program A from company B, it goes bonkers
trying to load program X from company Y. I can't seem to find any
middle ground.
Most of my favorite programs are from Electronic Arts. They seem to
have fairly consistent alignment, so that if I align for one program
I can usually load another. But it looks like their copy-protection
scheme is very dependent on exact alignment, and there's absolutely no
room for compromise. (I use track 33 of Murder on the Zinderneuf as
my subject track because it seems to be the most critical).
SubLogic's Flight Simulator II is recorded with a different alignment.
I can't find a setting that will let me load both FS2 and EA programs.
I've given up on Sierra Online's BC's Quest for Tires. It isn't just
out of alignment, it's off-center! Aligning for QFT requires a lot of
trial-and-error, trying to find a spot where there is still enough
signal on both the inside and outside limits of the wobble, across all
tracks.
Anyone have any suggestions? I'm about ready to leave the drive out of
the case, with the 'scope connected to it all of the time. But it seems
to me that the C-64, and its commercial software, shouldn't require the
user to have the knowledge and equipment to align disk drives :-)
--
Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {hardy,savax,seismo,decvax,ihnp4}!terak!doug