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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:	AMIGA NOTES
Notice:	Join us in the NEW conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:	HYDRA::MOORE

Created:	Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:	Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	5378
Total number of notes:	38326

3898.0. "Freezer cartriges" by MEALA::COLLINS (STEVE) Tue Jul 03 1990 11:45

 Has anyone bought either of the new freezer/cartriges that have recently 
 become available for the Amiga in Europe .I'm interested in their game
 backup potential but have only seen a couple of brief reviews ...
 One is made by Datel and the other is called Nordic power .

 From what I have seen so far they seem to have loads of usefull features ie.
 Freeze game , and play in slow mode (speed variable by pot on the side)
 68000 disassembly of memory contents ,
 search memory for IFF sound samples and pics and save to disk ,
 save of entire memory contents to disk for saving state of gameplay for games
 that don't have that option.

 The backup potential of these cartriges was only briefly mentioned .I suspect
 the reason for this is to discourage game hacking and pirating .I seem to 
 remember reading some time ago that a cartrige of this sort for a different
 machine was withdrawn from sale because of it's ability to crack copy 
 protection .I suspect that when these cartiges become more widespread that
 there may be similar resistance from some quarters which makes me inclined
 to buy quickly .


 It seems the cartrige would not be usefull for saving games that require disk
 accesses through out the game for different levels .But I do see potential
 for these things to be abused , particularly with respect to the demo versions
 of large software applications that have just the save options disabled .
 
 Steve..

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
3898.1	I can't see a major problem.	SHARE::DOYLE		`Tue Jul 03 1990 12:20`	25
	Some how I'm not too worried about these becoming a hazard to copy protection.... I've not seen many games that run completely from memory, those that do are usually, inexpensive enough for honest purchaseing. There might be some demo application programs that these might save graphics from, but in most cases, it won't save enough information, ie: Caligari (sp?) demo... You could save the screen, but not the objects data file.... Then there is documentation. Many of the more expensive packages need that documentation to be of any use ie: Sculpt 4D, I find the interface easy, but without the documentation, I would'nt be able to use it productively. I would like to be able to grab the screens from some of the games I have, to get a good look at the technique used to make them... Grabbing Sprites & bobs and IFF sounds would also be a great convienence. Some of the other features are "neat" but I'm suspicious as to the consistancy of operation. At any rate >$100 is a bit expensive in my opinion. I could get my hard-drive up and running with that... Ed P.S. I'm familiar with the Datel advertisement. Do you have any info on the Nordic product? I'm unfamiliar with that one.
3898.2		WOTVAX::HARRISC	A man has to know his limitations	`Thu Jul 05 1990 10:21`	14
	If your able to get it, there is a full review of the Action Replay and Nordic Power Cartridges in the JULY issue of Amiga FORMAT (UK MAG). But to cut a long story short, the Nordic does everything the Action cartridge can but in the opinion of the mag, not as well. The price of the Action Replay cartridge is 59.99 pounds and is available for the A500 machine only. The price of the Nordic Power cartridge is unknown at the moment and is also only available for the A500 ! If anyone wants me to photocopy the article, just let me know! ..Craig
3898.3	2000 version on the way	MEALA::COLLINS	STEVE	`Thu Jul 05 1990 11:55`	30
	" There might be some demo application programs that these might save graphics from, but in most cases, it won't save enough information, ie: Caligari (sp?) demo... You could save the screen, but not the objects data file.... " As far as I understand it the cartrige saves the whole of memory to disk along with all the register contents etc. I would have thought that in the case of caligari that the data for the objects held in memory would also be saved ? The English mag "Amiga computing" (July 1990) has a quick checklist comparing the features of the Datel and Nordic power cartriges. I'd type it in here but I'm not sure if that would infringe copyright ? It seem there will be a version of the Nordic power cartrige available for the 2000 but it will go in the slot that the brigeboard presently occupies. Also it may not work with cpu's other that 68000 which is a bit of a bummer as most people these days seem to have there eyes on cpu speedup boards. (BTW I have an 68020 board on order from Solid State Leisure limited in the UK it's just called the "20 board" it's for A500 and it's cheap , I'll post a review when I get it). Steve..
3898.4	More bother than it's worth, I think.	SHARE::DOYLE		`Mon Jul 09 1990 09:49`	26
	> > " There might be some demo application programs that these might save > graphics from, but in most cases, it won't save enough information, ie: > Caligari (sp?) demo... > You could save the screen, but not the objects data file.... " >> As far as I understand it the cartrige saves the whole of memory to disk >> along with all the register contents etc. I would have thought that in the >> case of caligari that the data for the objects held in memory would also >> be saved ? You're right..., But if you do pull the data out of memory and save it to disk, It doesn't mean it would be in the right format to read back in, also you might pull out some extraneous material as well, (all the data might not be in one neat block)... All these things could lead to much hair pulling and agravation, more than at least the casual user would bother with. But then again I'm no expert on programing. Ed