Re: PET WordCraft tape port dongle

From: Didier Derny <didier_at_aida.org>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2025 13:53:49 +0200
Message-ID: <6268a4f2-fc03-423c-ade8-728f40f7d521_at_aida.org>
HI All  :)

in 1982 or 1983 I removed a dongle with the following method  (with a 
working program and dongle)

step 1
logic analyser connected to the K7 port
this helped me to find  a suitable signal to use as a trigger

step2
logic analyser connected to the 6502    A0..A15, D0..D7, R/W, SYNC and a 
few other signals
with SYNC, A0..A15, D0..D7 I was able to trace the code executed and 
find in which location the check of the dongle was done....
as far as I remember I found 3 locations  I patched them and the 
software works

step 3
then I applied to patches to the disk

I had a rom modified to be able to reset the commodore without loosing 
the memory content

if someone has a working wordracft with a working dongle it is probably 
possible to do the same

to remove it it took me less than 2 hours

later the dongle was officially removed the software existed in 2 version
the hard disk version (not protected) and the floppy version protected

it's probably easier with modern logic analyser able to capture large event
the one I was using was limited to 256 captures...
but it was connected by IEEE488 to CBM3000 with a software
  to trace the execution


Le 20/04/2025 à 21:56, Justin Cordesman a écrit :
> I bet it’s something simple like enough gates for an XOR and I/O loopback.
>
> Justin
>
>> On Apr 20, 2025, at 14:10, Didier Derny <didier_at_aida.org> wrote:
>>
>> no way to find a working workcraft with it's dongle ?
>>
>> and put a logic analyser to analyse the transfers ?
>>
>>
>> then eventually reproduce the dongle with a small fpga to understand how the system works ?
>>
>>
>>
>>> Le 20/04/2025 à 20:22, Rhialto a écrit :
>>>> On Sun 20 Apr 2025 at 09:57:23 -0400, Craig Taylor wrote:
>>>> See: http://bitbarn.co.uk/dryfire/dcpe.php#pets for how to emulate.
>>> Interesting find! Especially the link near the end
>>> http://bitbarn.co.uk/dryfire/dcpe.zip which contains some code to run on
>>> the hardware from the page. It doesn't seem to be 100% complete
>>> though, since the implementation of "dongle = shiftIn(dataIn, clockIn,
>>> LSBFIRST);" seems to be missing.
>>>
>>> An interesting discrepancy is that the text mentions an 8-bit shift
>>> register, and the WordCraft code shifts 15 bits in (and MSB, not LSB
>>> first). This would fit better with the serial numbers, for instance one
>>> instance of WordCraft claims it is serial number 16105.
>>>
>>> WordCraft also reads from both tape ports in parallel. I'm not sure if 2
>>> dongles are required, or if it simply accepts a dongle in either
>>> position.
>>>
>>> So I have made an emulation of something, but it doesn't convince
>>> WordCraft yet.
>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Apr 20, 2025 at 9:35?AM David Roberts <daver21145_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Do we need to warm up the cracking tools again?!
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, 20 Apr 2025, 13:46 Rhialto, <rhialto_at_falu.nl> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi all. I was looking into the PET version of WordCraft. It is one of
>>>>>> the fairly few programs that uses the 8096 memory expansion. But it is
>>>>>> protected with a dongle on the tape port, and I did not come across any
>>>>>> cracked versions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does anybody know how to emulate the dongle? Or have one? Or have a
>>>>>> cracked version of WordCraft?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> After startup, WordCraft appears to work, and you get into command mode.
>>>>>> However no command actually works, and when trying to get into editing
>>>>>> mode (STOP key), it executes a JAM instruction.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So far I found out that you get to the "interesting" part of the code if
>>>>>> you set a read breakpoint on E811. The code being executed is
>>>>>> "encrypted" in the file as loaded from disk. It gets decrypted before it
>>>>>> is run, and re-encrypted afterwards. I haven't found a trivial way to
>>>>>> disarm it yet.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There is a ROM on zimmers.net that suggests it is for use with
>>>>>> WordCraft, but if so, it's not the protection part, since installing it
>>>>>> does't seem to make a difference (although according to Vice, it does
>>>>>> read from the $9xxx area several times).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Olaf.
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> ___ Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert                            <rhialto/at/falu.nl
>>>>>> \X/ There is no AI. There is just someone else's work.           --I. Rose
>>>>>>
Received on 2025-04-21 14:00:01

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