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APE's Pro System
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Author:  thewhiz [ Mon Apr 01, 2013 10:55 am ]
Post subject:  APE's Pro System

(Also posted at AtariAge)

I haven't used the Pro System in years, but a question at the AtariMax forum got me curious about ProSys images, so I pulled out a couple of copy-protected utilities from the early 80's and proceeded to make PRO images from them.These were copy-protected with lots and lots of bad sectors, so processing them took about a half-hour each! Of course, I made a quick copy with a Happy onto much newer disks to avoid trashing the originals.

A quick calculation of the time being read showed that each sector is "read" about 400 times on a track with all bad sectors -- lots of wear and tear on the drive and disk. But offsetting that, once the image is made, then that disk doesn't ever need to have any more use. The images that I made were fully functional, and load much faster than the original disks. They load basically as if there is no copy protection -- no accompanying drive seeks, etc.

I definitely don't think I'd want to do a hundred disks with ProSys, but for doing a few disks, no problem, and if there are not bunches of bad sectors, the process should be quite a bit quicker. Too bad about VAPI -- using the Happy Drive would have streamlined this process quite a bit.

So... does anyone use the Pro System on a regular basis? The concept is great, I think, but the time and disk/drive wear is a bummer.

-Larry

Author:  roye [ Mon Apr 01, 2013 11:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: APE's Pro System

Hi Larry,
I use the Pro system to copy the ABBUC membership disks that I get several times a year. But I have never had any protected disks that I wanted to try to turn into a PRO system image..

Author:  thewhiz [ Mon Apr 01, 2013 12:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: APE's Pro System

Hi Roy-

Yes, handy way to make a disk image from an unprotected disk.

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