Steve Nickolas

This is more a curiosity thing. Came out from MECC in the mid-80s.

I've got these disks mostly off Asimov...

1. Early Addition
4. Space Subtraction
6. Multiplication Puzzles
7. Quotient Quest
Worksheet Generator
Diagnostic System

I've also got these disks that I think were added later to the MM series
(plus the old, pre-MM version of Early Addition which I cracked myself):

Circus Math
Addition Logician

(These might be the missing 2 and 3, but wouldn't be compatible with the
MM control system?)

(I mighta cracked a Circus Math myself too, but it was the same as the
Asimov one. It's been years so I might be misremembering.)

I *think* there's only the 7 disks, plus the 2 teacher disks and the
student master. 10's a nice number for disks. xD

-uso.

Steve Nickolas

Followup: I got a copy of Subtraction Puzzles which is disk 5.

I still think there might be newer versions of Addition Logician and
Circus Math out there, which would be disks 2 and 3 (not sure which
order). They would have a different splash screen than the versions
currently on Asimov and elsewhere.

Early versions contain a simple logo, like this:
http://i.imgur.com/eh9U7.png
This is what the logo is like on the Circus Math and Addition Logician
disks in the collections. But I think newer versions exist and have a
splash screen like this:
http://i.imgur.com/6ShSW.png
as other disks in the series have. I'm pretty sure these are the missing
disks (lol, it's been 25 years now).

There's also still the student master. Protip: the teacher menu is
usually accessed by pressing Ctrl-A at the main menu (this is common to
most MECC software).

-uso.

Steve Nickolas

Replying to myself since I just found a manual for a MM version of Circus
Math.

Confirmed: Disk 2 *is* Circus Math and disk 3 *is* Addition Logician.
However, like Early Addition, it is likely there are two versions; only
the later versions would be compatible with the master system.

-uso.

Antoine Vignau

Good job, that's it!
av

Steve Nickolas

On Mon, 16 Jan 2012, Antoine Vignau wrote:

> Good job, that's it!
> av
>

o.o? lol

They're the actual programs by which I learned some of the basics of math
back in grade school, so I guess I'm a little biased toward them.

Hell, I learned a bit of primes from Number Munchers.

Nice thing about the old MECC stuff is they don't have much in the way of
copy protection. Just replace the DOS and ademuf 'em - might need to use
a smaller image, like ProntoDOS, to make more room - that's really all
there is to it. And a lot of the stuff is mostly FPBASIC to begin with.

Other things I've wanted to do tie into this too. Stuff that supports a
48K ][+ with DOS 3.3...could perhaps be rejiggered through emulation of
the DOS hooks to run on ProDOS on 64K. (This is how PDOS RDOS works,
actually.) I could graft together a few disks and slap 'em on a .800 or
something.

I remember this multi-MECC scheme we had on our middle school Corvus
LAN...

-uso.

Antoine Vignau

Sorry, my message was a little bit short.

I've recently cracked 150 MECC disks (among those were the Mastering
Math series), I think I can discuss a little bit about the different
protection schemes used on their disks: either 3"5 or 5"25, either
simili-DOS 3.3 or ProDOS.

Basically, there were two diferent schemes:
- on 5"25 disks: change of markers (I don't have the list by me,
sorry)
- on 3"5 disks: check of block 8 (which must generate a I/O error
otherwise it is a copy)

If the disks is simili-DOS 3.3 based, the RWTS (or pseudo-RWTS) had to
get the standard markers back and that's it.
If the disk is ProDOS based, ProDOS system file had to get the right
marker and MECC.SYSTEM needed some changes.

The system is smart enough to use the right protection check based on
the medium (either 3"5 or 5"25, either DOS 3.3 or ProDOS), nice stuff.

Antoine

Vladimir Ivanov

On Tue, 17 Jan 2012, Antoine Vignau wrote:

> - on 3"5 disks: check of block 8 (which must generate a I/O error
> otherwise it is a copy)

Toto et al.,

Any known 5.25" protected title that relies on either:
a) weak bits
or
b) defective media regions, aka "laser holes"?

Info on whether they exist and example names would be helpful to me.