Applesauce

You could ask here:

https://discord.gg/YrQKdwNhdR

I have heard of no such device mainly because the whole idea of imagining is to move away from actual diskettes to diskette images stored on mass media, aka a sd card. There is nothing to be gained by putting them back onto a Floppy, however it might be neat if it can be done.

Khaibitgfx wrote:

I have heard of no such device mainly because the whole idea of imagining is to move away from actual diskettes to diskette images stored on mass media, aka a sd card. There is nothing to be gained by putting them back onto a Floppy, however it might be neat if it can be done.

The reason I think they don't offer the ability to write a .woz back to a floppy is that they are worried about people counterfeiting copy protected floppies with labels, instructions and boxes, etc., and then selling them as originals.  It's been done but the copies are usually obvious because they are often made from cracked versions.  A little harder to detect if they are done with a nibble copier, but still probably not as hard to tell as what would be possible if there was software to write .woz.

In post #4, 'softwarejanitor' wrote:

" The reason I think they don't offer the ability to write a .woz back to a floppy is that they are worried about people counterfeiting copy protected floppies ..."

Uncle Bernie comments:

Correct. But this topic runs deeper: while in the 1980s, it was perfectly legal to produce and sell tools to make copies of "copyprotected" floppy disks (hehehe ... in this context, "copyprotected" is an oxymoron).

But soon after, most nations adopted new laws which made such tools illegal to sell. Such as the Y1998 DMCA in the USA. According to wikipedia, "it criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works" ... and these "measures" include copy protections. There are some very narrow exceptions from this prohibition.

I'm no lawyer so take this not as legal advice, but only my personal opinion: I believe that all the "technology, devices, or services" involving reading the flux data (Catweazel, Greaseweazel, my own 'Ratweasel', all the associated software tools, etc.) tread on very thin ice which is called "software preservation". As a countermeasure to the deteriorating original media. So far, I did not hear of any prosecution of this activity. Maybe it falls under the "very narrow exceptions" mentioned above, maybe not. But if anyone would add a "WOZ to physical floppy disk writer" device or tool to this endavour, then this could incite a crackdown on the whole tool chain and its makers. So it's only logical to avoid any such provocations like the plague.

- Uncle Bernie

UncleBernie wrote:

In post #4, 'softwarejanitor' wrote:

 

" The reason I think they don't offer the ability to write a .woz back to a floppy is that they are worried about people counterfeiting copy protected floppies ..."

 

Uncle Bernie comments:

 

Correct. But this topic runs deeper: while in the 1980s, it was perfectly legal to produce and sell tools

Wrong. RTFM. There are several technical issues when it comes to writing data back to physical media, especially with "fractional" tracks protections, etc.  Anyway, seems the topic starter iis just making fun of us and even flooding all similar forums with their question.

In post #6, "transwarp2" wrote:

" There are several technical issues when it comes to writing data back to physical media, especially with "fractional" tracks protections, etc. "

Uncle Bernie comments:

Don't throw us Red Herrings, "transwarp2".

THERE ARE NO UNSOLVABLE "TECHNICAL" ISSUES

Each and every copy protected floppy disk, even if it contains "fractional" tracks, has been produced on a floppy disk mastering machine, which came in several levels of sophistication. Most of the higher end mastering machines had modified but otherwise standard floppy disk drive mechanics in them. Such as giving the software access to the stepper motor phases, which allowed very fine posititioning of the head. Some even had voice coil (linear) actuators for the head positioning. But even those can be found in industry standard floppy disk drives (I have one specimen). Flux changes (aka write data) could be written with very high resolution - which, for instance, "Formaster" advertised as "density frequency modulation".

All this technology was known back in the day and could be replicated today much easier because what they did with boards full of TTLs nowadays can be done with a sufficiently fast microcontroller and maybe a small added CPLD.

DETERIORATING  DISKETTES

So it's only legal issues which  prohibits  people from developing such tools as the OP was asking for. This legal obstacle, if removed or dodged or ignored, would however not solve the problem with the deteriorated state of even "new old stock" 5.25" diskettes we can buy today. They may be less moldy as those from the 1980s found in your typical teenage software pirate's treasure chest which survived the ~45 years on some attic or  basement, but in general, they are unfit for storage of any data with any degree of useful reliability. I bought a few boxes of such "new old stock" diskettes from various sources to be able to do the tests of my floppy disk related developments (like the Apple-1 floppy disk controller and the 'IWMless') but found them to be unreliable. A few of them worked well enough, at least for a while, to finish these tests, but even these "good" diskettes often developed read errors after prolonged use.

During testing of the 'IWMless' I also discovered that some of my original floppy disks deteriorated quickly when being booted repeatedly. Some are unreadable now. They tend to lose some the magnetic coating which then gums up the read/write head. Which means, for these tests, to preventively clean the read/write head before trying another diskette, just to avoid that a bad diskette could ruin a good one.

So it's pointless to attempt to write back any WOZ file to a real diskette. It will not last long. And some 20 years from now, it will be totally hopeless to attempt using real diskettes. This is why floppy emulators are the way to go.

- Uncle Bernie

UncleBernie wrote:

Each and every copy protected floppy disk, even if it contains "fractional" tracks, has been produced on a floppy disk mastering machine, which came in several levels of sophistication. Most of the higher end mastering machines had modified but otherwise standard floppy disk drive mechanics in them. Such as giving the software access to the stepper motor phases, which allowed very fine posititioning of the head. Some even had voice coil (linear) actuators for the head positioning. But even those can be found in industry standard floppy disk drives (I have one specimen). Flux changes (aka write data) could be written with very high resolution - which, for instance, "Formaster" advertised as "density frequency modulation".

You constantly like to explain in a wordy manner things most of us know, and as if we don't know. But you are missing, for example, a fact each protection has its own algorhythm/sequence of writing data on the physical diskette ;) RTFM again. Here is a second (partially "overlapping"  ;) ) example -- how would you replicate today with a standard floppy drive the fat tracks protections on physical diskettes ;) ?

In post #8, 'transwarp2' wrote:

" You constantly like to explain in a wordy manner things most of us know, and as if we don't know. But you are missing, for example, a fact each protection has its own algorhythm/sequence of writing data ..."

Uncle Bernie comments:

What do you mean with "most of us" ? I don't think that most readers of these threads have any idea about floppy disk copy protections of the 1980s because they were not even born back then.

Needless to mention that "each protection has its own algorithm/sequence of writing data ... " as this is a technical necessity. How much did you make with writing and selling disk copy programs back in the 1980s ? I guess, none. You stayed poor. But I made my first million with such a product.

- Uncle Bernie

Wizard1969 wrote:

transwarp2 wrote:

You could ask here:

 

https://discord.gg/YrQKdwNhdR

First I have to figure out why discord does not work properly on my Linux machine. :-)

I have accessed it using an Android tablet both app and browser, no problems, maybe you need to upgrade to Android, 《ducks lol 》

The reason is that it is actually not that simple to write a flux image back to a disk. One way to think about this is that the raw bits captured during flux capture will never "fit" on another disk if it rotates at a slightly different speed, no matter how small the variation. So some additional interpretation of the data is always required.

If a flux capture is converted to a regular disk image (like a .do or .po) then writing it back to a floppy disk is straightforward: this type of image can always be written normally. But copy-protected disks use tricks that aren't handled by these simple disk images. The purpose of the .woz format is to represent, as closely as possible, the tricky aspects of bits stored on a disk, so that it will behave correctly when emulated. The format doesn't guarantee that it can be written to a real floppy disk, and in some cases, it can't. Even with a flux reading device like the AppleSauce, there are copy-protection schemes that will never be copyable on normal drives, since the original disks required custom modified drives to be created.

If the copy-protection schemes are less ambitious (like using long runs of zeros, or resynchronizing the GCR state machine at different points), then writing them to a real floppy disk should be possible. But it still is not simple: unlike a normal .do sector image, the software doesn't know exactly how to write a flux image. The necessary interpretation of where writing should begin and end is not part of the image format.

The AppleSauce Analyzer tool can be used to interpret the flux data in order to "master" the sectors that should be written to each track: instructions are here. It tries to make it as easy as possible to find the sector data, but you must still bring knowledge of Disk II implementation and copy-protection schemes to successfully master a disk.

There's another situation where writing a .woz file may be desired, which doesn't involve copy-protection at all. Sometimes people choose to archive floppy images in what they believe to be the most accurate image format, even if a normal sector image would work just as well. In these cases, you simply need to convert the .woz file to a .do or .po file and then write that. The simple sector image is really all that is needed, and software knows exactly how to write that to a new disk.

In post #16, 'robespierre' wrote:

" Even with a flux reading device like the AppleSauce, there are copy-protection schemes that will never be copyable on normal drives, since the original disks required custom modified drives to be created. "

Uncle Bernie comments:

Correct. As I wrote in my post #7 above, mastering machines typically used modified drives and despite I did some work with these machines I never fathomed what they had done to them. Apple (the corporation) forced them (due to the DISK II) to make the stepper motor phases accessible, this I know for sure. Whatever further mods were there, this was a carefully guarded company trade secret.

The mastering machines had proprietary programming languages to specify how the diskettes were to be written and verified. I had the manual for the Formaster but this was under NDA so I can't publish it or show you any details.  But the key point is that any 'Write WOZ to real diskette' tool must reconstruct a similar formatting plan to be followed. This is not trival. For my 'Ratweasel' flux engine (designed in the 1990s) I began to write such a tool (not for WOZ files / Apple GCR though) but got stuck and then abandoned the project due to the shifting laws against such devices.

From this background I concur with 'robespierre' that it's impossible / infeasable to write such a WOZ-2-disk tool which would cover all known copy protections. But if we settle for less coverage, then it may be feasable. Still, the legalities I wrote in my post #5 above have to be reckoned with. I would not go there and do that. If some current software publisher has acquired the rights to legacy software from long defunct software publishers we can't know that and this is a hidden and undetectable trap for the unwary. Current software publishers are known to be very litigious and if you get sued, your defense will gobble up all the money you could make from such a device, and then some. As an example, just look how Sony sued Datel Electronic over Datel's "Action Replay" cartridges. Despite Sony lost the lawsuit, Datel suffered bigly. As far as I'm concerned, I won't go near any such thing and I won't touch it even with a ten foot pole. This is why I never published the 'Ratweasel' technology. It has been obsoleted anyways. Try to get a laptop with parallel port and the "Super I/O" chip which can pump 2 Mbyte/sec in ECP mode. All this is gone. Modern flux engines can do all of this with one microcontroller having USB ("GreaseWeazle").

Finally, there are some copy protections which can't be reproduced even on professional mastering machines. Not even meaning those involving physical damage to the diskette's magnetic surface (the infamous 'Prolok' laser hole for instance). Some protections just rely on the slight randomness of the actual number of flux changes written on a track and the number of bytes/track can be counted with any type of FDC. So the method is: format a diskette normally, no tricks involved, then scan of the number of bytes per track over several tracks, and write the resulting table into a normal sector. The software would use this table to check if the tracks still have the same number of bytes (with a vey small margin allowed, +/- 1...2 bytes). This copy protection never has been copied. The beauty is that no formatting tricks are involved, everything is "normal", but each diskette produced has a different table. You could take any floppy disk with some software on it and add this protection as an afterthought. But I don't know if this ever has been used on Apple II disks - just mentioning it as one stunning example of a copy protection nobody could ever copy (of course, it then was "cracked" - there are many ways to skin a cat).

Now, knowing that a "perfect" flux-file-back-to-diskette tool is not possible, as undefeatable copy protections do exist, we can forget the 100% goal and could gladly settle for less. Except that the greedy lawyers of the big software outfits would be sicced on anyone trying to offer such a  tool.

- Uncle Bernie

UncleBernie wote:

So it's pointless to attempt to write back any WOZ file to a real diskette. It will not last long. And some 20 years from now, it will be totally hopeless to attempt using real diskettes. This is why floppy emulators are the way to go.

The real diskettes will last longer than you and me.  If kept under normal conditions  most of the diskettes are fine. A lot of drives had been produced.  Curious young people will be able to see them at work, I am confident.  My place is floppy emulator free, so far. I don't need them, yet.  But you blurred with wordy bla-bla and never answered my technical questions, old daddy digital cop. You stareted as usually  to slip away with attacks and stupid self-boasting. Your first million, haha, I was poor , haha. My favourite saying is -- the biggest money are in the people's stupidity. 

One more thing - the only software I have purchased separately,  not forcibly bound with any computer, or device , ever  in my life was a vintage Apple2 copy program from ebay several years ago.  I am poor, you see,  I can't afford this , as you say, you-  a person that measures richness with constantly  devaluating paper currency.  

In post #18, "transwarp2" wrote:

" But you blurred with wordy bla-bla and never answered my technical questions ... "

Uncle Bernie comments:

Sorry, you never asked real technical questions, because you are incompetent in these matters. All you can do is to fill threads with your useless provocations and ad hominem attacks.

'transwarp2' also wrote:

" My favourite saying is -- the biggest money are in the people's stupidity. "

Uncle Bernie comments:

So in your little ex-Communist, distorted world view you must be  insanely  rich.

Good luck with that and with your loser attitude in general. In how many forums were you banned already ?

- Uncle Bernie