Copy-Protection Schemes for Atari's ST Series of Machines on SF354 and SF31
Atari(U.S.)Corp.
1196 Borregas Avenue
Sunnyvale, California 94088-3427
(408) 745-2000
To: All Atari ST Software Developers
Re: Copy-Protection Schemes for Atari's ST Series of Machines on SF354 and SF314 Drives.
It is in the interests of Atari and our software developers who support the ST line that their software protection schemes will work on existing drives as well as new drives to be introduced by Atari. It is difficult to predict new technological breakthroughs which may affect copy-protection schemes but at the least to allow for improvement in technology the following should be borne in mind:
- Schemes that depend on timing based on 3 MS track to track stepping rates may not work for all drives. Technological advances may permit faster stepping rates or stepping rates other than the presently used rates.
- Schemes that depend on timing considerations based on the present existing SF354 or SF314 drives cannot be guaranteed to work on future product introductions. For example, an electronic buffer (for whatever reasons) may be interposed between an ST and a drive and this would cause the drive to not behave precisely as presently existing units.
We will be introducing very shortly a series of new drives.
If you want to ensure your software will work on the new drives, please write to us and ask us to test your software on the new drives with respect to readability of copy protected disks. (You, will, of course, have to send the software to the U.S.)
You can also order one of the new drives to test yourself. Please mention specifically the new drive and the reason for the order.
