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COPY 2 PC Option Board

C

collector

Experienced Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2004
Messages
109
Location
Snohomish,WA 98296
Picked up this board the other day and not sure what it is/does. Can someone fill me in on the details and maybe tell me what it might be worth?
 

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Central Point had several different cards: Deluxe to handle Apple II and Mac disks and the Option to copy copyprotected disks that couldn't be copied using the normal floppy controller. I seem to recall another version that had its own controller so that additional floppy drives could be added.

Value: depends on model. Copy II PC cards tends to be invaluable to someone that needs the model but almost useless to anybody else.
 
A non-Deluxe Option Board can copy Apple II 5.25 floppy disks, the Deluxe board allows for 3.5" Macintosh and PC disk copying, and probably Apple II 3.5" disks as well. It can allow the user to exchange data from a Mac and a PC. The deluxe board is able to copy non-protected Atari and Commodore disks as well.
 
Nice find! Pop it on ebay. I've only seen one go below $80 in the last 2-3 years (That was to me for $36, and only because they mistakenly called it a "transcopy board" rather than the Deluxe Option Board - it was also the bare card w/ no accessories)
 
You have an option board deluxe. It daisy chained the standard ISA controller of its day, and would copy almost any floppy software in the 1980-1990 era except Prolok protected types. (Prolok used a laser hole burned onto the key disk--copying this required and "enhanced option board" to duplicate the laser holes. Not sure of the value. One sold on E-Bay last year; I will see if I can find the link. Good luck selling if you still own.

I actually have the exact same board, installed in a 386SX system, 1.2 and 1.44 floppy drive, keyboard, 30 MB SCSI hard drive, keyboard, transcopy software up to version 5.4 (last released). I plan to package with software copyiipc, Quaid disk analyzer and CopyWrite (last versions) with all owners manual/docs. I found everything in a box in my basement when I was moving this past summer. I was going to recycle everything, but someone may want something like this; anyone have any idea if anyone would be interested in this nowadays?
 
Copy II PC Board Setup

Copy II PC Board Setup

marcft said:
You have an option board deluxe. It daisy chained the standard ISA controller of its day, and would copy almost any floppy software in the 1980-1990 era except Prolok protected types. (Prolok used a laser hole burned onto the key disk--copying this required and "enhanced option board" to duplicate the laser holes. Not sure of the value. One sold on E-Bay last year; I will see if I can find the link. Good luck selling if you still own.

I actually have the exact same board, installed in a 386SX system, 1.2 and 1.44 floppy drive, keyboard, 30 MB SCSI hard drive, keyboard, transcopy software up to version 5.4 (last released). I plan to package with software copyiipc, Quaid disk analyzer and CopyWrite (last versions) with all owners manual/docs. I found everything in a box in my basement when I was moving this past summer. I was going to recycle everything, but someone may want something like this; anyone have any idea if anyone would be interested in this nowadays?
Click to expand...

I have the Deluxe Option Board, which I purchased from Central Point years ago but never used. I have the documentation as well and I think I still have the distribution disks, although the software is on line somewhere I believe. I'm not sure about the cabling, however: If I still have the cables I would not recognize them as such. Do you have a picture of the ones you use?

Since this is an ISA card I will be using this on an old HP mobo, which has the controller on the board. Looking at the documentation, it seems as though a cable with a 34-pin female connector plugs into the motherboard and the other end, a 34-finger edge-card connector, goes to J3, line one at top. A 34-pin female connector goes from J2 to the 3.5-inch drive, again line one at top. Jumpers J4 and J5 are shorting the lower four pins at either block. Is this how you have yours set up?

Thanks for your reply,
Charles Hudson
 
Just for the record I have the following
- Copy II PC Option Board
- Copy II PC Option Board

(I have 2 of the same board)

never used them
 
My option board I have the following

- Deluxe Option Board Version 5.4 (with BOX and full package)
- Deluxe Option Board Version 5.4 (only H/W with TransCopy Chip)

I also have 2 of the same board.

I'm using it on Pentium 2 (Under 400MHz) PC with ISA slots.
 
Dunno, but the DOB works in a P3.

Funny, I always thought that the big reason that people bought the DOB was to handle 400K and 800K GCR Mac floppies. I guess I was wrong.
 
Just for fun, lurking the other day some old BBS files...

========
Date: 10-30-87 (22:12) Number: 9895
To: ALL Refer#: NONE
From: MICHAEL CHARNESS Read: (N/A)
Subj: COPY2PC OPTION BOARD Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE

From the "I Thought They Couldn't Be Bought" file:

For you users of the COPYIIPC OPTION BOARD, I just found out some
disheartening news. I have a legit copy of ALACRITY, a $2000 financial
software package that works with FRAMEWORK (Ashton-Tate) from a
company in Canada. Hating copy protection, if I couldn't create a
unprotected copy, I AT LEAST wanted to be able to make a back up of
the key disk. But my OPTION BOARD kept either hanging up or dumping
out during disk write on a certain track, under any setting. Calling
CP Software resulted in them telling me it's probably my 386, use it
on an AT. Tried it on an AT Clone (CSS Labs), same result. Another
call, "it's probably the controller card on your AT is not producing
tight enough signal, even if it's within spec. If you use it on a
REAL IBM XT you'll be fine." OK, open cases and swap boards around
on an IBM XT, no luck, same error. Another (toll) call, "You're using
software version 4.2? You have the silver dot on the diskette label?
That's the best we've got, we'll get back to you." Yeah, sure.

One of my "inside" contacts has done some contract work for Central
Point Software up in Oregon. He provided me an OLDER version of the
Option Board software, and told me he'd bet money it'd work, since
I knew the protection scheme was Superlok 3.0. "OLDER?" "Trust me!"

He was right. The word is that the owner of Central Point made an
agreement with the SoftGard/Superlok president that the Option Board
software schemes he wrote and kept updated would work on AN ORIGINAL
but not back up A COPY. Some "clever" (?) software publishers
are thwarting Option Board owners by shipping ORIGINALS that are
really ONCE-REMOVED OPTION BOARD COPIES. That stinks! Therefor,
the "pre-agreement" versions of the option board software will still
work, when the latest version doesn't. If you've got version 3.2 or
2.7, hold on to it.
....Michael C.
 
I don't have a COPY II PC Option Board but I do have a disk with the software for the TRANSCOPY card. It has both:

tc.exe v4.30

and

tc-old.com v2.7

on it.
 
Just for comparison:

In the disk copiers pack i maintain (shared in some sites) i got catalogued these different versions of TC programs:

Transcopy: 1.00, 2.20, 2.40, 2.60, 2.70, 3.00, 4.00, 4.10, 4.20, 4.30, 4.50, 4.70, 5.12, 5.18, 5.20, 5.20 (deluxe version), 5.30, 5.40

Some of these are not complete, but many has readmes, and tools as transedit, etc

Ver 1.0 file is dated 21/06/1985 and last version 5.40 is from late 1990 (july-september)

Comparing to Copy2PC versions (only software), first version 1.0 is copyrighted 1982 (file date jan/11/83), and last version 6.00 is dated oct/11/1990

Note: Long time ago i remembered all this story about copy2Pc and transcopy newer versions (also in copywrite versions) being worst thant certain older versions, so i keep all versions i got. Also some other programs worked this way, better=not fully complete, for example about Teledisk:

From: http://www.oldos.org/Downloads/MSDOS.html
"Note: Versions after 2.11 may not work reliably with a 40 track, 360 kByte floppy drive."
 
Copy II PC Deluxe Optionboard (Trans Copy) works on Pentium II/III with ISA machine but the clock must be under 500MHz.
I run Trans Copy on 440BX motherboard (with Pentium III CPU) but I set the FSB as 66Mhz.
 
I currently have two Deluxe Option Boards, each is installed in a dual 1Ghz Pentium III system.
I use the TransCopy software to create images of Apple II disks for later analysis and usage in emulators.

I patched the TransCopy software to capture larger dumps (more rotations.) The software usually captures data from one index pulse to another, and then truncates it. My patch causes it to continue recording for several rotations, and then save all the data.

A similar patch should be possible to force the software to recognize the data as MFM instead of GCR.

The only issue that I have is that there is a burst of invalid data after the end of the first pass. Remaining passes over the track are complete and contain valid data. I don't know if this is caused by the host system, or the Deluxe Option Board itself.
 
Do you have your patched version somewhere online, or an explanation of the transcopy format? That would be interesting to read, and I could add it to the archive.
 
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