---------Post-Demuffin Patcher--------- A 4am hack v1.20141204 --------------------------------------- "Post-Demuffin Patcher" (PDP for short) is a cracker's tool that can remove several forms of copy protection from Apple II disks. It is meant to be used in conjunction with Advanced Demuffin. Many programs contain secondary protections (nibble checks) or modified RWTS code that can no longer read disks in a standard format. After converting an original disk to a standard format with Advanced Demuffin, you (the cracker) are left with the task of disabling or reverting the secondary protection. This is where PDP comes in. Some facts about copy protection: 1. Many companies, especially smaller ones, outsourced their copy protection. I have seen byte-for byte identical copy protection on disks from 7 different companies! 2. Even companies that wrote their own copy protection would try to re-use it on multiple disks to get the most "bang for the buck." 3. Not everything has been cracked! Because there was so much piracy in the 1980s, some people assume that everything ever published has been cracked and ultimately preserved in an emulator-friendly format. In reality, there are hundreds of disks that have never been cracked. Thirty years later, these programs are still trapped on physical media, literally rotting away. If you can convert a disk with Advanced Demuffin, but the copy... - grinds loading DOS, or - hangs on boot, or - reboots endlessly ...PDP may be able to help. ~ Using PDP is simple. The program works under ProDOS, DOS 3.3, or DOS variants like Diversi-DOS. When you BRUN PDP, it will ask you to select the slot and drive of the disk you want to patch. NEVER PATCH AN ORIGINAL DISK. Even if the original disk is already in a standard format and does not need to be converted with Advanced Demuffin, you should still make a copy and patch the copy. Originals are originals, and we may some day be able to preserve them as-is without modification. Until then, don't reduce the number of original disks in the world. Anyway, use the arrow keys to select the slot and drive, then press RETURN. That's it; there are no other options. PDP will read the disk, analyze it for known copy protections, print out the modifications that need to be made, and write the modifications back to the same disk. ~ PDP comes with a test harness (PDPTEST) that can simulate cracking a disk. This includes a collection of test cases. Each test case is a snippet of a demuffin'd disk (usually a single track worth of data) and the expected output of running PDP on that disk. PDPTEST only works under ProDOS. It loads the PDP binary and a list of test cases from the current directory, then loads each test case from a hard-coded directory (/PDP/TESTS/). The collection of test cases is too large to fit on a floppy disk, so it is distributed as a larger .2mg image. You can mount this file as a ProDOS hard drive in most emulators. The following companies constitute the majority of the working test cases: - Edu-Ware (all known disks) e.g. Decimals, Algebra 2 - Hartley Courseware (all known disks) e.g. Tim and the Cat and the Big Red Hat - DesignWare (all known disks) e.g. Spellicopter, Crypto Cube - Sunburst Communications (DOS 3.3 file-based disks only) e.g. M-ss-ng L-nks, The Incredible Laboratory - Focus Media (all known disks) e.g. The Time Tunnel: The Presidents, Travels with Za-Zoom - The Learning Company (selected) e.g. Bumble Games, Gertrude's Secrets ~ PDP is 100% original code and 100% open source. It is distributed under the MIT license. Here is the license, which applies to the program itself and to the test harness. Post-Demuffin Patcher Copyright (c) 2014 by 4am Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. ~ 1.20141204 - added #JMPBEB1 and #JMPBECA patchers and tests 1.20141113 - added #NIBTABLE patcher and tests - split source code into multiple files 1.20141028 - initial release ------------------EOF------------------