| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ DEPLOMBAGE ★ BEEBUG SOFT - LOCKSMITH ★ |
| LOCKSMITH (CPC Revue) | LOCKSMITH (Amstrad Action) | LOCKSMITH - Beebugsoft (The Amstrad User) | BEEBUG SOFT - LOCKSMITH (CPC Magazin) |
While their previously released Disc Demon only skirted the issue of back-up copies/piracy, Beebugsoft are putting themselves right in the firing line with this one. It's an unashamed copier-cum-deprotector, and as such it's going to get a few people rather hot under the collar. As in Disc Demon the routines making up the package are implemented as bar commands, but can be called up from a menu instead if you can't remember the exact name or you're just feeling lazy. The cassette and disc versions reside in memory, loppmg a hefty 11K off the user RAM. This shouldn't cause too much of a problem though, as you're highly unlikely to want these utilities while you're programming. The commands start off with four different file transfer routines covering all the combinations of copying to and from tape/disc. These are all fairly simple pieces of work - the tape routines can only read standard files with headers, while the disc routines need CAT-able files to work on. You can avoid the disc limitation easily enough by using the BACKUP command. This copies the entire disc, and very rarely fails to work. Rather less reliable is the command HCOPY. This is supposed to transfer headerless tape files, but works only with certain provisos. Firstly, the file must have been written using the firmware headerless save routine. Secondly, you have to know the sync byte used. If neither of these conditions makes any sense to you, you'll have an interesting time trying to copy headerless files. The first condition essentially means that Locksmith can't handle turbo or flash-loading files, and the second means it could take quite a bit of work to make it handle any headerless files at all. The remaining commands include a BASIC deprotector, a header reader and a tape speed utility. A pretty uninspiring package then. If you're a bit of a hacker and can lay your hands on a disassembler, you could get the system going quite well -but then if you're a hacker, you could probably write at least as good yourself. AA#9 |
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