[Coco] [Color Computer] COCO Copy Software

[Steve Ostrom]

SPIT'N IMAGE will work on many (not all) older protected Coco disks, but 
I don't think anyone currently has the rights to sell it.  The COPYIIPC 
program and Option board for older IBM-type computers can copy many 
protected disks - both Coco and PC disks.  I also have heard that the 
Catweasel PC floppy controller board can copy most everything.  I bought 
one on eBay a few months ago, but have not tried to install it yet on a 
PC. It may not have Coco support drivers yet, but it is possible that 
some existing driver will also work on the Coco.

Of course, all of these just make another protected copy, but you'll at 
least be safer with a newly created copy.  One thing that I find very 
interesting is to crack the copy protection by disassembling the 
loader.  Some protection is very deep and almost impossible to crack, 
but it's a lot of fun to try.

One other way I've heard about is to have a toggle switch installed 
(maybe Cloud 9 could do this), so that once the program has been loaded 
from a protected disk or tape, the user can wrest control back and then 
maybe dump the program to disk in an unprotected mode.

Marty Goodman, one of the first notable early Coco users to strongly 
object to copy protection, was (or still is) very adept at removing copy 
protection.  He issued a few cracking programs, but I don't know if he 
ever compiled these into one big set of source disks.  (Marty, are you 
listening in?)

-- Steve --


Charlie wrote:

>Does anyone have any information on what software for the COCO3 can 
>copy copy protected disks? What software, where it can be purchased...
>
>After 10-15 years of using all these disks I have, I'd like to be 
>able to finaly back everything up.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Charlie
>
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