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I am building an FDS copying website

 
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seeb49



Joined: 25 Apr 2010
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 4:08 am    Post subject: I am building an FDS copying website Reply with quote

Okay, I'm not really sure how to start this off and I almost feel stupid doing this, so I guess I'll just try to go from the top. I'm building a website dedicated to FDS copying. My goal is to have a newb-friendly site (newb-friendly being the key here, as I am a newb myself (is it newb or noob?)) of full tutorials detailing the many ways to read/write/copy FDS disks. So far I have a page on Copy Programs (Disk Keeper, Copymaster, etc.), a page on copiers (TGD4+, Game Doctor, etc.), and I've started writing my first full tutorial on how to write a .fds image from a PC to a blank FDS disk.

The problem is I'm a high school student with very little knowledge in web-site building and "techy" stuff, so my knowledge ends there. I know there are many other ways to do such things but I can never find full tutorials on them, and if I do they're usually in Chinese or Japanese (unfortunately Google Translate fails miserably with those particular languages). So I'm going to need some help. My email is posted on the homepage of the site, so if there is anything you wish to contribute (read/write/copy methods, corrections, etc.) please let me know. I'm trying to revive interest in the FDS area and make this stuff easier for begginers, so if this site is succesful you might thank me one day. Here is the link: https://sites.google.com/site/diskcopier/. It's not on Google or anything because I know nothing about SEO.

I posted this at FC World too, but I think I'll have better chances here.
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Newbie or beginner works. Noob is an insulting term generally. I wish you luck with your site. I'm sure there are plenty of people interested in how copying disks is done. You say you don't need a Copier unit to do it which I haven't heard that before. I thought you had to have a Copier unit.
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seeb49



Joined: 25 Apr 2010
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 9:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MottZilla wrote:
Newbie or beginner works. Noob is an insulting term generally. I wish you luck with your site. I'm sure there are plenty of people interested in how copying disks is done. You say you don't need a Copier unit to do it which I haven't heard that before. I thought you had to have a Copier unit.


You might be right, I'm sure you know more about this than I do. I thought you only needed it if you wanted to get it all in one pass, but maybe it actually does something other than adding to the memory that I'm not aware of.
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kyuusaku



Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us

PostPosted: Wed Dec 01, 2010 9:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you dig around here you can fill in many gaps, I've written a lot about the copiers and a bit about disk copying. Famicom copiers weren't created to copy FDS disks, they were created to play cart games. Because FC games come with too many incompatible bankswitching methods to support in hardware (without using FPGA), Bung expanded the design to be able to emulate the features of other more powerful mappers, while adding minimal hardware to the original 1M Game Doctor. Through hacking, many games that couldn't be played on the original 1M and 2M units could be. All copiers expand on this original hardware, except for the Japanese copier made by I2.

"Game Saver" on a TGD4 refers to an optional accessory for TGD4/6 that allowed users to perform real time save. This was a breakthrough that set it apart from the GD4M that it was otherwise a clone of. Apart from real time save, there is no way to backup save RAM to disk before powering off and losing your RPG game save.

Yup it's totally possible to copy a FDS disk without a copier, but not with Copy Master like your page suggests. Copy Master requires a copier to run, and while it works with just about any unit, it works best with 1M and 2M GD for some reason, on any other units some functions are buggy (not copy however). Some Disk Hackers can copy in multiple passes I gather, probably other software too like Kosodate Gokko, but the original Disk Hacker I believe requires the Hacker hardware, which is 32KiB of RAM interfaced to the FDS expansion port.

While the FDS RAM adapter contains 32KiB of program memory, it also contains 8KiB of character (tile) memory that can be used for disk copying. In all with just a FC and RAM adapter you have 2 + 2 + 32 + 8 = 44KiB of memory to use for disk copying, minus a few KiB of code to hold the copy routine. At most a disk holds 65 KiB so 2 passes is all that is required with good software. Bad software may require a pass for each individual file... I don't know of any software that does this though.

Nobody has been able to get FDS Loader to write disks on its own so that might as well not be taken into consideration.
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seeb49



Joined: 25 Apr 2010
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 12:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

kyuusaku wrote:
If you dig around here you can fill in many gaps, I've written a lot about the copiers and a bit about disk copying. Famicom copiers weren't created to copy FDS disks, they were created to play cart games. Because FC games come with too many incompatible bankswitching methods to support in hardware (without using FPGA), Bung expanded the design to be able to emulate the features of other more powerful mappers, while adding minimal hardware to the original 1M Game Doctor. Through hacking, many games that couldn't be played on the original 1M and 2M units could be. All copiers expand on this original hardware, except for the Japanese copier made by I2.

"Game Saver" on a TGD4 refers to an optional accessory for TGD4/6 that allowed users to perform real time save. This was a breakthrough that set it apart from the GD4M that it was otherwise a clone of. Apart from real time save, there is no way to backup save RAM to disk before powering off and losing your RPG game save.

Yup it's totally possible to copy a FDS disk without a copier, but not with Copy Master like your page suggests. Copy Master requires a copier to run, and while it works with just about any unit, it works best with 1M and 2M GD for some reason, on any other units some functions are buggy (not copy however). Some Disk Hackers can copy in multiple passes I gather, probably other software too like Kosodate Gokko, but the original Disk Hacker I believe requires the Hacker hardware, which is 32KiB of RAM interfaced to the FDS expansion port.

While the FDS RAM adapter contains 32KiB of program memory, it also contains 8KiB of character (tile) memory that can be used for disk copying. In all with just a FC and RAM adapter you have 2 + 2 + 32 + 8 = 44KiB of memory to use for disk copying, minus a few KiB of code to hold the copy routine. At most a disk holds 65 KiB so 2 passes is all that is required with good software. Bad software may require a pass for each individual file... I don't know of any software that does this though.

Nobody has been able to get FDS Loader to write disks on its own so that might as well not be taken into consideration.


Wow, that's awesome kyuusaku, I'm definitely going to make some updates to the site now. But I don't understand your first paragraph. Are you saying that one could copy cart games to disks and then use the copiers to take the role of the mappers?
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kyuusaku



Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us

PostPosted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 2:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

No, you can't backup games with them, you can only playback ROM images already hacked and transferred to disk by Bung (and other companies) using proprietary methods. This is actually why people call them "copiers" with quotes, because they cannot backup CART games. I was commenting on it because that's why they have more than 32KiB of RAM, were they to only backup disks (they have no innate ability to do this) that's all they'd need for a single pass copy. There would be no point in a unit having 6M of RAM just to copy disks back when 6M of RAM would cost US$90.

The copiers can emulate some mappers, but only the most simple ones. Still they can natively play the vast majority of games until 1987. As more and more games started using 3rd party and more complicated hardware, they had to resort to hacking/software emulation to get more games running (albeit with slowdown and graphical glitches) on the custom copier mappers.
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seeb49



Joined: 25 Apr 2010
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 2:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

kyuusaku wrote:
No, you can't backup games with them, you can only playback ROM images already hacked and transferred to disk by Bung (and other companies) using proprietary methods. This is actually why people call them "copiers" with quotes, because they cannot backup CART games. I was commenting on it because that's why they have more than 32KiB of RAM, were they to only backup disks (they have no innate ability to do this) that's all they'd need for a single pass copy. There would be no point in a unit having 6M of RAM just to copy disks back when 6M of RAM would cost US$90.

The copiers can emulate some mappers, but only the most simple ones. Still they can natively play the vast majority of games until 1987. As more and more games started using 3rd party and more complicated hardware, they had to resort to hacking/software emulation to get more games running (albeit with slowdown and graphical glitches) on the custom copier mappers.


I see... Now that you say that, I remember hearing about "Game Doctor Disks"... The only thing I still don't get the vast amount of memory. Why would there need to be 6m of ram just for one game? What else is it for? Hopefully this will be the last I have to ask about it, I don't want to keep nagging you.
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

6m would allow for 4 megabits (512kb) of PRG-ROM and 2 megabits (256kb) of CHR-ROM. That is big enough for most NES games that exist.
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seeb49



Joined: 25 Apr 2010
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Thu Dec 02, 2010 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MottZilla wrote:
6m would allow for 4 megabits (512kb) of PRG-ROM and 2 megabits (256kb) of CHR-ROM. That is big enough for most NES games that exist.


Ah, now I see. I didn't realize NES games were that big. Thanks for the info kyuusaku and MottZilla.
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cpix



Joined: 18 Nov 2003
Posts: 122
Location: Norway

PostPosted: Fri Dec 31, 2010 12:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Im doing the whole thing there,

copymaster reads from the fdsloadr, but when im about to copy, cocopymaster starts to verify the disk i get error 22.

any suggestion? bad transfer from the pc pherhaps?

EDIT: Got it working, but not with copymaster, a other program that i right now dont remember thhe name, but great tutorial you got there, thank god not having to use the MGD with fdsloadr! =D
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Daryldiaz



Joined: 19 Apr 2018
Posts: 2

PostPosted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 5:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cocopymaster starts to verify the disk i get error 22.
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