ScuzzBlog: Diaries January 2022
Entry 28th January 2022: Post 1: Supersoft - C64 Disk Revealed and Turbo Disk.
Supersoft - C64 Disk Revealed and Turbo Disk.
Supersoft have been around since 1978 and I believe still exist.
Their first adventure into the world of Commodore was with the
PET and in addition to creating games and software they were
responsible for the first user installable firmware product in
the UK. Games included Pac-Man and even Hitch-hikers Guide to the
Galaxy which was withdrawn due to legal action.
For me their business and utility software is of great interest.
I particularly enjoy disk management and so when I discovered
they had a disk salvage utility similar to Toolkit on the PCW I
snapped the thing up. That was a couple of decades ago now, and
along with the excellent Turbo Disk I thought I would check and
see if the disks were sound.
Disk Revealed was the first to be checked and the disk loaded no
problem.
' Disk Revealed is a fast machine code utility which allows you
to examine and modify information stored on CBM disks even if
the directory is corrupted! You can display any block, trace
through files sector by sector, or search part of the disk for
a chosen ASCII or hex string. '
It was amazing getting deep inside a busted disk and playing
around with the code. Time was with the PCW I could track back
through old disks an un-erase files by simply reverting a flag.
The display here was very much the same. True to its word I was
able to reveal the contents of busted disks. Amazing fun.
Next up I tried Turbo Disk which in addition to being much much
quicker than the normal disk utility speeds, had shorthand
command lines, often just two letters/symbols, which really made
disk management so much easier. First thing I did was make a
back up copy of the software, which was a doddle. I then copied
files in a blink of an eye from one disk to another. Seriously
I didn't even see the drive light flicker.
I did hit one issue and that was with quick format. I am using a
1571 and the software is for earlier drives, so that may be the
issue. Not a problem, I just did it old hand. I keep my 1571
bible close at hand at all times.
It is amazing that software disks over 35 years old are still
working. Better is that it gives me the facility to repair and
to rebuild old broken disks. I do enjoy this aspect of computing
and I can truly lose myself in the coding and disk structures.
I certainly prefer this kind of activity to playing games.
Anyhoo I backed up the software and placed the book sized folders
back on the shelf. So do keep an eye out for Supersoft, their
software is a great addition to your C64 collection.
Supersoft - C64 Disk Revealed and Turbo Disk.
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