[net.micro.cbm] An open letter to Bryce

egb@burl.UUCP (egb) (04/12/85)

A friend whose login is akgua!gcuxc!gccwb asked me to post the following
message for him (he doesn't have net.news, just what I send along to him):

Subject: An Open Letter to Bryce

An Open Letter to Bryce Nesbitt ('of 1541 'FLASH'')

Thanks, Bryce for sharing with us the 'Magic Incantation' that
prevents destructive head-banging when loading certain
copy-protected commercial software.

I just bought the highly-touted 'Fleet System 2' word processing
program and I must say it deserves the applause I have seen it
given in technical reviews.

But the folks at Professional Software, Inc. (Needham Mass.) who
produce the package have seen fit to protect it against piracy by
the tried-and-miserable 'bad block' method.  At three points
during the process of loading the program the poor head is caused
to hammer itself bloody against the track 1 stop.

I found it just wasn't practical for me to load the program on
Monday morning and leave it there all week - just to cut down on
the damage.  Fortunately, I had saved the article you wrote to
1541 users about the problem so I looked it up and prepended the
incantation to the boot program.  Results? Superb!!!

I still see the red light flash when the read errors are
encountered, but the banging no longer occurs.  My grateful
thanks!

Why does a 'J' placed at that particular spot in the drive's
memory have such a beneficial effect?

I hope this message in some form reaches the Professional
Software people.  If they feel they have to build a drive-killer
into their programs, they might consider modifying the 'boot' as
you suggest and thereby reduce the raging anger some of us feel
when we see our purchased, otherwise high-quality software
tearing up our expensive equipment.


Wally Blake     gcuxb!gccwb

Ed Baldwin, burl!egb

dillon@ucbvax.ARPA (Matt Dillon) (04/15/85)

In article <664@burl.UUCP> egb@burl.UUCP (egb) writes:
>Subject: An Open Letter to Bryce
>
>An Open Letter to Bryce Nesbitt ('of 1541 'FLASH'')
>
>Thanks, Bryce for sharing with us the 'Magic Incantation' that
>prevents destructive head-banging when loading certain
>copy-protected commercial software.
>Results? Superb!!!
>I still see the red light flash when the read errors are
>encountered, but the banging no longer occurs.  My grateful
>thanks!
>
>Why does a 'J' placed at that particular spot in the drive's
>memory have such a beneficial effect?

  The way the 'Magic Incantation' works is by modifying a flag in the drive
that tells the 1541's "Brain" that it has already banged the head. The normal
value for the location is (5). Up that to 128 and the head will 'shake'
but never bump. 133 and most of the 'shake' goes away. 156 and you are home
free. PLEASE NOTE; all this does is prevent the banging. The bad sectors
(3 in the case of Fleet System II) are still there and read as such.

 For those that missed the incantation here it is again;

 OPEN1,8,15:PRINT#1,"M-W"CHR$(106)CHR$(0)CHR$(1)CHR$(156):CLOSE1