[SIGCIS-Members] Apple II DOS question

[Brian Berg]

(note re: this post: Andy Hertzfeld may also provide a reply)

From: Ron Nicholson
Date: Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: Apple II DOS question

My knowledge only goes back to mid-1980, after DOS 3.3 was already on the
market, but at that point in time, in-depth knowledge of RWTS
(read-write-track-sector) code seemed to be fairly widespread knowledge
within the Apple II programmer community.

An RWTS was included in the boot ROM on the Disk II controller board.  Game
programmer's could probably quote the necessary 6502 assembly language code
required in hex needed to implement an RWTS, and then read or write an
Apple II floppy without DOS.  So they didn't need DOS to load their games,
and they could hardcode their own customized RWTS routine directly into
their game or app.

There were a vast number of schemes, using custom RWTS routines (sometimes
encrypted), to render a disk format incompatible with the DOS disk copy,
and then play cat and mouse against the copy apps.  Andy Hertzfeld likely
knows a ton more about them that I do.

Ron


On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 2:09 PM Brian Berg <brianberg at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a query out to the cited Apple folks and a number of others, and
> Steve here cited two more:
>
> *From: Steve Wozniak*
> Date: Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 1:05 PM
> Subject: Re: Apple II DOS question
> Cc: Randy Wigginton, Andy Hertzfeld
>
> *All I can say is that this was a LONG time ago, before this practice
> which is common today. I never heard anyone complain about this form of
> copy protection. Our platform back then was a step lower, largely hardware,
> and our open source approach made it easy for others to understand and
> modify things.*
>
> I'll keep you all posted re: other replies.
>
> Brian Berg
>
> On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 1:12 PM LO*OP CENTER, INC. <
> lizaloop at loopcenter.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi Laine,
>>
>> When I was at Personal Software (subsequently VisiCorp), we had Apple
>> boot disks. That was in the early '80s. Maybe some of the staff from that
>> period can help you - - try Visi- people Dan Fylstra, Brad Templeton, Bob
>> Frankston, Dan Bricklin and others. Most of them are easy to find but let
>> me know if you have difficulty. Of course, Woz probably knows and Daniel
>> Kottke as well.
>>
>> Good luck,
>>
>> Liza
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 12:14 PM Laine Nooney <laine.nooney at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Some of you may know, I've been spending my pandemic days chipping away
>>> at a software history of the Apple II (under contract with U of Chicago,
>>> hopefully forthcoming… 2023?). Anyway, I finally had a question that
>>> neither I nor my extended network of retro computing enthusiasts seems to
>>> be able to answer--and was wondering if anyone at SIGCIS might have some
>>> insight here.
>>>
>>> I'm looking for any information available on when Apple began permitting
>>> publishers/developers to put DOS on the floppy disks of their own products,
>>> thus allowing programs to boot without need for a System Master. My
>>> understanding is that this development happened either with DOS 3.2 or DOS
>>> 3.3, but I can't actually verify when this occurred at all.
>>>
>>> The reason this is coming up is because I'm currently working on a
>>> chapter focused on the disk copy program *Locksmith* and copy
>>> protection. Allowing developers to put DOS on their commercial disks would
>>> seem to be an extremely important development for creating increasingly
>>> sophisticated copy protection schemes. Since DOS controlled how data on a
>>> disk was read, all devs/publishers had to do to create an uncopyable disk
>>> was store the data to the disk in an unconventional format, and then ensure
>>> they modified the DOS on their disk to be able to read it. While the disk
>>> would run just fine, it couldn't be copied by the System Master
>>> COPY/COPYA subroutines, which assumed a standard organization for data on
>>> the disk. So while not intended to allow developers to enhance their copy
>>> protection schemes, that was certainly one of the knock on effects of
>>> allowing DOS on disk.
>>>
>>> Cheers to anyone who followed any of that. If anyone has a sense of how
>>> this industry level transition came about, or is even just certain of which
>>> DOS version it can be attributed to, I'd be incredibly grateful.
>>>
>>> -Laine
>>>
>>> Laine Nooney <http://www.lainenooney.com/>
>>>
>>> Assistant Professor |  MCC <http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/mcc/> @ NYU
>>> <http://www.nyu.edu/>  | she/they
>>>
>>> -Need to make an appt? Click, don't email: https://bit.ly/2GIHuK0
>>> -Probably typed by voice recognition, so please cherish typos
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Liza Loop
>> Executive Director, LO*OP Center, Inc.
>> Guerneville, CA 95446
>> www.loopcenter.org
>> 650 619 1099 (between 8 am and 10 pm Pacific time only please)
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion
>> list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member
>> posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list
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>
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