Unfortunately over the years, a lot of good information about the Supercard (Utilities Unlimited - Jim Drew) has become scattered and tattered accross the Internet.

I am going to re-type up the literature from Jim as well as compile new listings of the custom copy settings that I have discovered in my dealings.

I love this device. (yes yes of course Nibtools and Maverick do a great job as well - but this post is not about them.)

So what am I asking for?

Share your custom copier settings here. Anything not in Jim's original documentation would be great.

Explanations of some of the tools on the disks that are not described in the literature or instruction manuals would be great as well!

How to use some of these tools to your advantage etc.

I'm going to combine all the documentation I have into 1 document (I'll PDF it for everyone.)

Let us know you have a supercard (does not matter the model really) - so we know who all of our supercard users are. From digging through the forums I can see that at a minimum the following had one:

r.Cade
LordCrass
Myself
JerryKurtz
Dmackey?

And hopefully a lot more!

Show us a picture of your drive with all the gear installed. We love custom copy mods.

Hoping to dredge up all the lost info on the Supercard(+) I appreciate your help.
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I think it's great that you're putting all this information together. I have two or three Supercards still new in the original zip-lock bags. I haven't actually installed them yet or ever used one so the extra information will be valuable. I look forward to your results.

Take care,

Heather

Thanks Heather - happy to do it. Hopefully some folks will pitch in with the info
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I've got a few of these devices (two of the SC+ units, and a Maverick RAMBOard). I also had the SuperCard-AMI II for the Amiga.

I wrote one or two custom copiers using the Copier Construction Set that was on side 2. TV Sports Football was one of them that I remember.

I've also disassembled the GCR nibbler to see how it worked under the covers. I think I also disassembled the TurboNibbler since it lacked any form of documentation, but I can't recall its purpose.

Here is what i have it's on my list f things too organize correctly.
ftp://cbm8bit.com/hardware/supercard/

enjoy.
Shane.
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Thank you Shane. I'll parse through all of that - I believe I downloaded all of that from your site a while back - but will double check.

If you have any custom settings for software titles to share - please do.

Posting a list of the AI copiers and some other Misc info next.
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Supercard+ (v6) AI Copiers
Action Fighter
Alcon
Alert Ego (Female)
Alert Ego (Male)
Alien Syndrome
Alien Syndrome 2
Aliens
Arctic Antics
Arctic Fox
Arkanoid
Bad Street Brawler
Block Buster
Bounty Bob
Bubble Bobble
Burst Nibbler 1.8
Burst Nibbler 1.9
CAD 3D v2.0
Captain Blood
Coil Cop
Cosmic Relief
Cosmic Relief 2
Countdown to Shutdown
Cycle Knight
Death Sword
DiskMaker Toolkit
Dragon's Lair
Fast Tracks
Fireworks Construction Set
Gamemaker
Gauntlet v2
Geo Programmer
GeoCalc 128
Geocalc v1/2
GeoFile 128
GeoFile v1.2
GeoPublish
GeoWrite Workshop
Great American Road Race
Hacker
Iniana Jones - Temple of Doom
Leaderboard
Little Computer People
Master of the Lamps
Mind Shadow
Mr. Nibble
Music Studio
Operation Wolf
PocketFile 2 128
Pocketfile 2 64
PocketPlan 2 128
PocketPlan 2 64
PocketWrite 2 128
PocketWrite 2 64
Pole Position
Portal
Qix
Rastan
Renegade
Rock 'N Bolt
Rocket Ranger (4 Reels)
Sky Shark
Takedown
Takedown 2
Tass Times
The Last Ninja
The Three (3) Stooges
Thunder Blade
Thunder Blade 2
Times of Lore
Transformers
Uninvited
Zoom


Supercard+ (v6) V-Max! Patches
Bop 'N Rumble
Circus
Defender of the Crown
Deja Vu
Eagles Nest
Gauntlet
Gradius
Ice Hockey
Infilitrator II
Paperboy
Side Arms
Slot Car Racer
Top Fuel
Xevious


Supercard+ (v6) Special Copiers
EA Patcher - Pirate Slayer Games Only
Newer V-Max! Weakbits

Also contains an AI creator called CCS on side 2 of disk 1 for SC+ v6 disks. You can use this utility to view the premade AI's from Jim or create / modify your own. This is going to come in handy.

I've noticed that the parallel copier included in v6 is pretty weak. And it requires that you have the SC+ in order to use it, however I don't think the SC+ provides any added benefit to the parallel cable itself. I've had better success with Burst Nibbler 1.9 and of course Nibtools.

Crucial to anyone who has a supercard, you must set the drive speed to as close to 298.1 as possible. I've had best success at this speed. (Even with Maverick RAMBoard copiers.)
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Even though I said this was not about Maverick - let's compare apples to apples. Here is a list of the titles accross all of the Parameter modules for Maverick that require the RAMBoard:

Maverick 5.04 Parameter Disks - RAMBoard
Action Fighter
After Burner
Alcon
Alien Syndrome
Altered Beast
Alternate Reality Dungeon v2
Arkanoid
Arkanoid II
Bad Street Brawler
Blockbuster
Bubble Bobble
California Games
Captain Blood
Championship Wrestling
Contra
Cosmic Relief
Galaxian
Galaxian v2
Gauntlet Deeper Dungeons
Gauntlet v2
Indiana Jones - The Temple of Doom
Jr. Pacman
Kick Butt and Slam
Legend of Blacksilver
Operation Wolf
Paperback Writer 128 v1.20
Paperback Writer 64 v1.20
Pocket Filer 2 128
Pocket Filer 2 64
Pocket Planner 2 128
Pocket Planner 2 64
Pocket Write 1 - 64
Pocket Writer 128 v3
Pocket Writer 2 128
Pocket Writer 2 64
Pocket Writer 64 v3
Pole Position 2
Qix
Rambo III
Rastan
Rastan v2
Realms of Darkness
Renegade
Road Runner
Rocket Ranger
Shinobi
Shinobi v2
Sinbad
Sinbad (PAL)
Sky Sharks
Street Sports Basketball
Summer Challenge
Super Pacman
Take Down S1 & S2
The Games - Summer Edition
The Games - Winter Edition
The Three Stooges
Thunderblade
Times of Lore
Times of Lore v2
Top Flight
Top Flight v2
Turbo Outrun
TV Sports Football
Uninvited
Warrior Combat Simulator
Zoom

Just slightly less (in #'s) than the AI's in SC+ v6 - However there are some titles in this list that are not on the SC+ v6 disks. I'd like to figure out how to reverse engineer these and create AI's for the SC.

Anyone want to help me figure that one out?

Also looking for information on determining what is needed for some the advanced setting in the GCR Nibbler of SC+ v6. If anyone can share - that would be great.

As all of you know (who have looked at the documentation that came with the SC's - it's very brief and doesn't come anywhere near covering all of the tools or settings.)
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Heather - would you mind posting some pics of the SC's you have please?

Here is my copy drive. This is a 1541c with the midboard in it. It's fitted with the Supercard+ Knock Off, a parallel cable (which I use primarily with my ZoomFloppy and Nibtools), and an Index Hole Sensor (IHS). Drive speed is at 298.75 consistently and alignment is as close as it's going to get without an o-scope.


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The Bounty Bob AI copier simply doesn't work. R.Cade and I have both tried it quite a few times.
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I've seen your posts in regards to that. Guess it needs some tweaking. I would say that places Bounty Bob in the #1 position for no possible way to copy it. Good job to the person who wrote the protection.

Of course since the disk is so scarce - the rest of us will never get a chance to try. So thanks for trying and letting us know.

Reminder - anyone who has advanced info to post on the Supercard or usage of the supercard - please post it here.

Starting to look like not too many folks dove into the advanced settings. (I assume majority of the Supercard users - myself included - have no idea how to rationally use those settings. How does one determine the density level for each of the 4? The scanner doesn't tell you much.)
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You can't really compare the number of 8k Maverick copiers against the number of the AI copiers from SC+. Some of those AI copiers are actually parameters for cracking the protection on the title, like Maverick's regular parameters.

Take a look at either of the BurstNibbler AI copiers. The copier file contains a standard track layout, nothing special. But take a look at the sector editor file and you'll see what bytes it modifies to remove the protection. I'm not sure what's on BurstNibbler, but I'm guessing its a weak bit or sync length protection, since those are two common ones that the 8k copiers would fail on.

The density level in the SC+ GCR Nibbler refers to the number of bytes on the track for that density. Track start and track length are the two main pieces of information you need when copying a whole track, and determining these values is the heart of the copier routines. The AI copiers usually use the "special" track mode, which specifies a number of bytes that mark the start of the track and also the length of the track. So the copier reads GCR bytes, throwing them away until it finds a match, then reads in $TRACK_LENGTH number of bytes.

In order to determine these values, you need to look at the track with a GCR editor. The Maverick Track Editor is the best tool for this job since it can show the entire track, gap bytes and all (and thus requires 8k drive RAM itself). If you know what a standard track should look like, you can see what's there and determine the values accordingly. If the track is completely alien, such as the newer Vorpal ones are, you'll have to look for patterns and perhaps take an educated guess. The track gap usually sticks out. In worst cases, you'll need to disassemble the game's loader to see what it's actually looking for.

So, to sum it up, once you know what is non-standard about the track, you can then use that info to adjust the copier routines to compensate. The average end-user would not be able to figure this out though, which is why Maverick is a much better choice for them. All of those details were figured out on a title-by-title basis by the experts and put into nice little copier routines.

Thank you Lord Crass - exactly the type of info I'm looking for. Had to take a couple of motrin to wrap my head around it - but I'm learning. And this information is great!
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Actually, I don't own a Supercard BUT I do want one. The pictures I have on my site were from a guy On IRC that was looking for the software for it.

I posted the pictures so people knew the exact board I was talking about.

My Friend WizardNJ (freeweb on ebay) sells them every now and then.
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Thanks - yep - I purchased one from him a few days ago to replace my damaged unit. I also ordered some parts stateside to fix the broken one.

Hoping some of these folks from IRC and newsgroups will share their info on Supercard as well.
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And as a correction - some of the Maverick Ramboard copiers have parameters built in as well. So essentialy it was a fair comparison.

But like I mentioned before (and I burned myself) - this thread is not about Maverick.

All Supercard goodness here.
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If you would like to know something about the SuperCard+ software/hardware, just ask.

In comparing the RAMBoard to my SuperCard+, I was able to copy things without needing parameters that the RAMBoard actually cracked.

The parallel copier used the 8K RAM (and my routines on EEPROM) to shift through the data and then transfer it to the C64/128. It was definitely required, and which is why it worked better than anyone else's version.

If your copy of Bounty Bob Strikes Back boots to the startup display and crashes when you start the game, it is likely because the media is failing. I ran into this issue a few times using generic floppy disks. Using a good quality disk, I never had an issue. ALWAYS write protect a copy if the original was. You might be surprised at just how many commercial programs try to write to the disk as their first check for protection.

I am going to my storage this weekend to pull out all of my old C64 stuff. I have been threatening to do it for awhile, but now I am curious how much of my stuff has survived the years of just sitting. I will be surprised if anything loads still after 25+ years of sitting around. But if it does, then perhaps I can post some source code and explain how some of this stuff worked.

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Went to storage, not real confident that any of the disks will work. I did find cartridges, SuperCard boards, power supplies, etc.

Please don't pitch them if in doubt. Alot of us archivers have gotten them to copy over even after extreme cruddyness(is that a word?) I've gotten data off of moldy, stale, packed away disks, and would hate any part of disk protection history to be lost.

DemongerX

Well, I would like to think that if anyone can get magnetic media to work, it would be me! I am excited to see source code for Copy ][ 64/128 and SuperCard+, because there were versions of these that were never released to the public.

I will try dumping them using my Ultimate-II in my SX-64. I will keep you posted.

Hi,

there is a circuit scheme of supercard+?
I buyed a sc+ (maybe a clone) last year that does not work.

TIA