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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: lewis_slade on February 16, 2013, 05:33:55 PM
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I brought a bundled package of Amiga bits, and this was amongst it, what is it please??? I have no idea...
(http://i47.tinypic.com/24xfknc.jpg)
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I'm not saying I know I'm right, but I think it is highly suggestive that the light in the centre is labelled 'df1'. 'WP ON' could mean "write protect". Side A and B are obvious if I follow my opening assumption. My bet is it plugs into a floppy drive external connector and with a piece of software listening to it, drive accesses could be analysed perhaps for software debugging maybe? Is there a switch on it for toggling write protection? Could that be done in software?
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Looks like some kind of floppy-disk activity monitor...
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Assuming going by the label on the front some sort of floppy drive copy protection bypass/fix?
What's inside it?
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I brought a bundled package of Amiga bits, and this was amongst it, what is it please??? I have no idea...
(http://i47.tinypic.com/24xfknc.jpg)
Well i havent a clue ,but it looks interesting ,it must have some thing to do with a Floppy because of the read and write ,i cant wait for someone to come up with the answer,certainly a good ,what is it question, Brian.:D:D
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Thank you everyone for your comments so far, it is a curious thing, the guy I brought it off didn't know much about it either...
Here is an image taken from the back
(http://i48.tinypic.com/wvv6mc.jpg)
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Have you opened up yet? What's inside might give you more of a clue...
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OK, just prized it open, and, there's not too much in there that I can make sense of! Could this be some home-made thing?
(http://i50.tinypic.com/3480fbo.jpg)
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Well, that's pretty simple alright. Looks like it just runs a handful of wires from the connector through LEDs, and then I presume out to the pass-through connector. As before, I think this is probably a simple disk-activity monitor, though why you would need that I don't know.
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Was hoping for more, but as has been said looks like it just shows what the floppy drive is doing.Switch on the back probably disables it or the floppy drive.
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Isn't the floppy access LED and the beautiful drive music enough?
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Thanks everybody, maybe this was someones project at School or something :banana:.
Any more strange objects and I shall return...
Be well x
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What does the sideA and sideB mean? Sounds like a cassette/tape drive. Maybe a C64 fan made this?
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What does the sideA and sideB mean? Sounds like a cassette/tape drive. Maybe a C64 fan made this?
Nope. DD/HD floppies do have 2 sides, it's just that they're both handled internally so there's no disk flipping.
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Nope. DD/HD floppies do have 2 sides, it's just that they're both handled internally so there's no disk flipping.
True. But why would anyone want to know which side of the disk is in use? A cassette on the otherhand might be different. Some tape equipment have counters on them whereas diskdrives seldom do.
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It is used to defeat disk-based copy protection. This looks like a home made unit, but these were sold to folks to let them know what tracks were involved, so they could use a disk editor to locate the code and disassasemble it to un-copy protect a game.
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I guess in the event that you were fault finding a drive, it would be good to know which head was in use when the fault occurred ;)
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Well, that's pretty simple alright. Looks like it just runs a handful of wires from the connector through LEDs, and then I presume out to the pass-through connector. As before, I think this is probably a simple disk-activity monitor, though why you would need that I don't know.
Tend to agree. I don't think its doing anything smarter like copy protection as those types of units also displayed the "track in use" as well. Could it also be an external DF0 enabler as well? So you can run DF0 externally?
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Thanks again, I've not actually tried the thing, so when I get around to loading up some disks, I'll see what happens...!
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OK, so I plugged it in with the A500 and it certainly showed me what the disk was doing, reading from each side etc...but the switch at the back toggled the write protection function on or off????
(http://i48.tinypic.com/28wcffr.jpg)
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OK, so I plugged it in with the A500 and it certainly showed me what the disk was doing, reading from each side etc...but the switch at the back toggled the write protection function on or off????
(http://i48.tinypic.com/28wcffr.jpg)
Fascinating! You should make a video :)
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HaHa, as long as no one suffers from Epilepsy!
Such a strange little box, which just seems to serve no real need...
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I brought a bundled package of Amiga bits, and this was amongst it, what is it please??? I have no idea...
(http://i47.tinypic.com/24xfknc.jpg)
it is called a phaser ..a device to protect any disk u put in the drive attached from being written on ..basically a virus protector..
designed by digital applications..
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Wow really?
Is that certainly it? Fantastic we've got a name!
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CU Amiga 1991 (jun), page 164
http://archive.org/stream/cuamiga-magazine-016/CUAmiga_016_Jun_1991#page/n163/mode/2up
Will link a lager picture later (at work right now)
Link found with the help of the info provided by AAACHIPSET (http://www.amiga.org/forums/member.php?u=7490)
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YEA! Spot on my friend, that is excellent, mystery solved...
Top marks :banana:
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There were track no. displays as well and external drives with integrated track display. Computer pr0n...
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What a scam. It's nothing but a write protect switch and some indicators.
Putting the WP tab on the disk in the proper position would accomplish the same thing.