Notator Dongle Dump

[tOri]

Hi,

If it turned into a definite project, why not go big and add in all possible midi ports also, nice 3d printed case, could call it the Log 4 or Log X, lol

Let's try to develop a complete clone first

@frank.lucas - keep your equipment on standby for now.

tOri

[Atari74user]

@Zippy, I have placed original Notator SL 3.1 here, which will require a Notator dongle: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xQQ8nT ... drive_link

I can't actually test it, as about 20 years ago I bought a large amount of C-Lab / Emagic stuff which partly came in a C-Lab suitcase for tuppence. Notator SL is packaged as 3.1, but it only came with a Log 3 dongle, as I suspect it was upgraded as it also came with SL 3.21, as well as Logic 1.7 amongst other C-Lab MIDI hardware. Anyway, it is there, and as you rightly said the MCA Crack is Notator SL 3.0, as I quickly checked.

[tOri]

Hi,

So... It looks like work on restoring LOG3 may begin some time from now.

tOri

[Zippy]

Anyway, it is there, and as you rightly said the MCA Crack is Notator SL 3.0, as I quickly checked.

Thanks for the version 3.1 , which at least confirmed that the MCA version is 3.0 , the original version of which we're still missing. If anyone can locate a Notator version 3.0 (uncracked) please let me know.

[crashman]

Hi!

If anyone can locate a Notator version 3.0 (uncracked) please let me know.

Can't use a real Atari right now, so I could only check that it's uncracked....
Found on my personal archive with this photo on a folder called Notator 3.0 Backup.

Notator V3.0 Backup Disk Back.jpg

crashman

[Zippy]

Can't use a real Atari right now, so I could only check that it's uncracked....
Found on my personal archive with this photo on a folder called Notator 3.0 Backup.

Great, thanks!

But strangely, that doesn't match the MCA crack either. So the crack is apparently not based on version 3.0, 3.1 or 3.21!

Are there any other versions of 3.x out there?

Or maybe they used Easy Rider and completely re-assembled it or something??? Will need to take a closer look.

[crashman]

Notator SL 3.2 here

[Zippy]

Thanks, that seems the same as the version 3.21 from Atari74user.

There's something very strange with this MCA version... I'm seeing "Copyright 1989" messages in that one, but in the version 3.00 it has "Copyright 1990", in the version 3.10 it has "Copyright 1991" and in the 3.21 version it has "Copyright 1992". So the MCA version is somehow version 3.x but older than even version 3.00 ???

Maybe to get it working they had to take bits from an older version??? Seems that making any sense of what was done for the MCA crack isn't happening.

[Greenious]

Thanks, that seems the same as the version 3.21 from Atari74user.

There's something very strange with this MCA version... I'm seeing "Copyright 1989" messages in that one, but in the version 3.00 it has "Copyright 1990", in the version 3.10 it has "Copyright 1991" and in the 3.21 version it has "Copyright 1992". So the MCA version is somehow version 3.x but older than even version 3.00 ???

Maybe to get it working they had to take bits from an older version??? Seems that making any sense of what was done for the MCA crack isn't happening.

My guess would be that MCA got their hands on a beta/pre-release version, it's possible that it didn't even have dongle protection to begin with.

I know a hoarder, I've asked him to look around for 3.0, he might just have it. Not that I think it is likely, maybe there are different versions of 3.0...

[Atari74user]

There's something very strange with this MCA version... I'm seeing "Copyright 1989" messages in that one, but in the version 3.00 it has "Copyright 1990", in the version 3.10 it has "Copyright 1991" and in the 3.21 version it has "Copyright 1992". So the MCA version is somehow version 3.x but older than even version 3.00 ???

Maybe to get it working they had to take bits from an older version??? Seems that making any sense of what was done for the MCA crack isn't happening.

I have to say, in my experience C-Lab / Emagic appear to be all over the place with Copyright years for some reason. Notator was released in 1988, and I have seen Copyright years displaying 1988 in the initial release of Notator, yet the 'boot up screen' sometimes states Notator Copyright as 1989, which is oddity number one. Oddity number two, I have also seen the boot up screen on SL 3.21 state Notator copyright 1986 - 1992, so again the start year jumps around. Yet staying with SL 3.21, despite the boot up screen, mine stipulates 1993 as the Copyright year within the program on the top bar for that version.

Regarding SL 3.0, if you take a look here within Notator on the top bar Copyright is stated as 1991: https://sites.google.com/view/ataritoss ... lea7r6mppf

On the copy of the MCA Crack I have it says Notator 3.0 Copyright 1991 in the program on the top bar.

Regardless, C-Lab / Emagic has definitely created confusion with their mention of Copyright years.

[Zippy]

OK now that I've actually opened my eyes and read what it says at the top of the screen on the MCA crack of version 3.0 , it says "Notator 2.1"

So does anyone have an original uncracked version of 2.1 ?

Or where did you get this cracked version that shows "Notator 3.0" at top of screen?

[Zippy]

So I found the MCA Notator 3.0 version and it's identical to this 2.1 version except that a few bytes have been edited to change the version text from "2.1" to "3.0"

There's definitely some bizarre nonsense going on here... maybe it's really version 2.1 'cause it's definitely not the same as the real version 3.0

[cb170]

It's definitely not V3. Just "optimistically" renamed...

Regarding the Notator dongle - hopefully you guys saw this post: viewtopic.php?p=432060#p432060

[Atari74user]

OK, so I had a bit of work downtime, and quickly checked the MCA Notator Crack I have, which states it is Notator 3.0 within the program on the top bar.

However as cb170 says, despite it saying so, it definitely is not Notator SL 3.0. I haven't used this Crack as I have Notator SL 3.21, nevertheless Notator SL 3.0 introduced Soft Link, hence SL, which is essentially a separate bundled program which allows pseudo multi tasking. This Crack does not include Soft Link. Doing another quick check of functionality, SL 3.0 also introduced Hyper Edit, and this Crack also does not have this function under the Edit Menu, so as cb170 says, it is definitely not SL 3.0.

This is the MCA Notator Crack I have attached, which states Notator 3.0 in the top bar, but which is not Notator SL 3.0. Confused yet...hahahah

nslcrk3.zip

So I think it is likely it is 2.1 given what you stated earlier Zippy!

[Zippy]

So I think it is likely it is 2.1 given what you stated earlier Zippy!

Yes, I think most likely it's really version 2.1 , but I can't find an original version of that even.

Anyone have an un-cracked 2.1 Notator? (I also saw "Version 2.12" internally)

[troed]

Russ Campbell, 2018: "all of the original disks starting from 2.0 to 3.1"

The Mega link does not work. Actually, don't click it. It was taken down and the reason message wasn't pleasant.

viewtopic.php?t=35653

[Zippy]

Cool, maybe rcamp48 still has an original copy of version 2.1 ?

[troed]

Or any of the others who downloaded that archive

[Greenious]

He posted about his Mega account being closed, he moved all files to his FTP instead.

viewtopic.php?p=450995#p450995

[sarnau]

Congratulations! I was hoping that somebody would do that at some point.

A few comments:

- Notator is Creator + Score. There should be no good reason for a Creator dongle.
- Notator SL 3.2.1 was the very last version. Not sure if it worked on a non-68000, like the Atari TT or the Falcon. I'll doubt it, because the Softlink part (the "SL" in the name) is kind of a multi-tasking add-on on top of TOS, which I wrote before the Atari Falcon was released. Released in 1991. In 1991 we started working on Logic. I think the version version was released sometime in 1992.

- Logic. The protection for Logic is very different. I still have Macintosh source code from that time to test a dongle. It was simulating a CPU, so much more complicated – any failed communication crashed the dongle and required a power reset to try again. Three dongles existed: Logic, an Audio dongle and a Kombi-dongle (Logic + Audio). Available for Windows, Mac (ADB _and_ the Logic dongle even for the Mac Plus) and Atari. If you try to hack it, get a Kombi-dongle to work with.

- XSKey. The last protection dongle from Emagic. USB-only based on the CY7C63101A, only available for Windows and Macintosh. Similar to the Logic dongle, but with additional flash memory for licenses (the memory is encrypted) and an even more complex CPU. All communication is dynamically encrypted. I have the full source code for everything on my disk, because I wrote all of it…

No, I can not release the code, it is technically owned by Apple. Maybe at some point in the future.

[Greenious]

- Logic. The protection for Logic is very different. I still have Macintosh source code from that time to test a dongle. It was simulating a CPU, so much more complicated – any failed communication crashed the dongle and required a power reset to try again. Three dongles existed: Logic, an Audio dongle and a Kombi-dongle (Logic + Audio). Available for Windows, Mac (ADB _and_ the Logic dongle even for the Mac Plus) and Atari. If you try to hack it, get a Kombi-dongle to work with.

Looking at the log3 pcb, it has an EP330 and an EP600 (which I assumed was the 2 different dongles) aswell as a PIC16C57 which I assumed was there to control the extra midiports.

It would be interesting to see a photo of the NSL3 pcb, which is a log3 without the audio dongle.

No, I can not release the code, it is technically owned by Apple. Maybe at some point in the future.

Wait a second, I got an idea...

[cb170]

I guess you could probably compare the last version of Notator that used the Notator dongle, with 3.2.1 that used the LOG3 to target implementation differences in the protection code, especially as AFAICR there weren't many (or any) additional changes for the version of Notator that worked with the LOG3.

I had to give my LOG3 back when I upgraded Logic back in the day, though it would be great to get a version of LAT 2.5 running in an emulator (I have an old project that won't import in any later versions without crashing, I'm interested to see if that project would still load in the Atari version and could be therefore recovered), but Notator is probably a good first target anyway, more important to the Atari ST historically, and less likely to get the suits at Apple upset as it doesn't include the word "Logic".

I still have my XSkey, but still need and use it for Logic 7 as the universal legacy project convertor* (and for the last SoundDiver version).

Kind of a privilege to have the guy that knows/wrote some of the protection code on hand for some helpful clues along the way... I was impressed at the work done for the Cubase dongle, so I'm also really happy to see people take this on!

(On a related note, it would be also similarly cool to "release" SoundDiver Atari from it's disk-based scheme. Transferring auths to a hard drive never worked for me so I was always chained to the floppy master disk (which I still have). AFAIK I don't believe Apple own the SoundDiver IP, as I believe the ownership remained with MH, and emagic acted more as a distributor for that, but @sarnau will likely know more about that. And there's the SD2 Atari that I've never seen... Maybe the hotline to SoundDiverBox still works )

* http://www.difficultaudio.com/logic

[sarnau]

No, Sound Diver is also owned by Apple. At some point in the mid-90s Emagic officially hired all engineers who worked on their products since the 1980s. Michael moved from Munich to Hamburg and I dropped out of university.

All the Atari ST floppy disk protection schemes were done by me as well… It is copy-able with todays tools (it relies on an extra-long track with a sector that starts at the end of the track and goes over the index hole, plus counting "illegal" bytes in the track)

SD died with the arrival of Mac OS X at some point (not sure if we ever released the Mac OS X build). Because the point of SD was to support external MIDI hardware (hundreds of devices) it was a complete nightmare for QA to test and at some point that became too much.

[cb170]

Ah Ok - thanks for the info!

Yes - the last SD OSX build was the V3 beta, it never reached an official release.

[ijor]

I have the full source code for everything on my disk, because I wrote all of it…
No, I can not release the code, it is technically owned by Apple. Maybe at some point in the future.

Very interesting, Sarnau.

Do you also have any documents about the dongle logic, schematics, or whatever?