Cartridge keys and emulation

[troed]

• Routine "A" (black dongle) we are working on:
  Synthworks Wavestation 1.14
  Avalon 2.1
  Cubase 2.01
• Routine "B" (red dongle):
  Cubase 3.10
  Cubase Score 2.0r6

Judging from PCBs/ICs I think Twenty Four (http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/ ... enty-Four/) and Roland Tentrax (developed by Steinberg, http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/roland-tentrax/852) are in the 'A' group as well.

/Troed

[troed]

Red dongle (Cubase v3, Cubase Score, Cubase Audio) on the way thanks to Evil/DHS.

Some reading about reverse engineering an LFSR here ('B' protection being one bit in, one bit out tends to support that alternative), in cases where the seed/key lengths are reasonably small: https://github.com/bertrandmartel/lfsr-reverse

/Troed

[beel1]

Before going any further, while I was looking for legal versions of dongled softwares, I found those "official" statements:

The following quote is from a message sent to the Cubase Alias list
by Wolfgang Kundrus of Steinberg on 30th June 1993.

> Hi there,
>
> Steinberg does not have objections agains updated versions of copy
> protected programs. In fact this possibilities is one of our
> arguments for hardware protected programs. They can float arround
> as nobody who is not authorized to use then actually can. So
> feel free to put into an archive. Unfortuntly we do not have
> access to FTP services, we just get internet mal, so we
> would not be able to provide the service. Another reason is that
> only us programmers are hanging out on internet and we are not
> entitled to send out versions. They are supposed to be handed
> out by out Q/A team.
>
> Cheers
>
> Wolfgang

4-12-02

I am now happy to announce that according to posts on the Atari newsgroups, Steinberg has decided to release the Atari version of Cubase Lite as Freeware.Download it below. While not as full featured as Cubase Score, or the other dongled versions, this version is still capable as an excellent entry level sequencer with enough features to wet your appetite. The same arrange screen is presented with cut, glue, erase tools (by right clicking into the arrange window) with also a good set of quantise tools. The only editor available however is a score editor, which is still impressive. You can do a lot with this lite version and we are very thankful for this release to the Atari community by Steinberg as a token they have remembered their Atari roots.As you can see from the screen shot, it works well under emulation on a PC using Steem. According to Oliver Kotschi, Atari Cubase-Lite was distributed on a cover disc of "KEYBOARD" a magizine from Germany, with a statement from Stienberg about the freeware release.This was logical as Atari Cubase-Lite never required copy protection as in the other "dongled" programs and would be much easier to release. Here is the official statment on the cover disc concerning Cubase Lite:

=============================================================================

Dear Atari Users, on this Keyboards CD you will find the final Versions of Cubase and Synthworks as well as some tools and MROS drivers. Since the Atari company retired from the computermarket in 1994 we will definately no longer develop these products. Especially the printerdrivers wont be supported anymore. In this case you have to use emulations or standardprinterdrivers. Have fun with these versions, your Steinberg Service Team 26.04.99

Steinberg - comprehensive collection of Steinberg software, with diverse versions of Synthworks, MROS drivers, Mixermaps, ACCs and of course Cubase, including first time free released versions of the Styletrax-module and Cubase light (please be sure to read the ATARI.TXT file in the STEINBRG folder)

=============================================================================

Unfortunately I don't know what's in ATARI.TXT (I only found the file list of this CD https://www.tagsucht.de/extern/24_Keyboards.txt , german Keyboards magazine CD of december 1999), but this made me rethink on why I didn't insisted much on the A-F topic, or why I didn't told STeven about this.

So Steinberg made Cubase Lite freely available, but not the other softwares which still need their dongle to run. Maybe they can't remove the protection, maybe be they don't want to. But it is clear that for Steinberg everything is fine as long as a dongle is required.

I made a proof of concept with a dongle I own, I shared a bit on how I did this, but I would like to make it clear that I didn't shared the data of the dongle needed to make a clone (virtual or not), nor the modified Steem (or its source code modifications) able to run a protected software (I own too) without dongle.

I support the idea of preservation of those softwares and their dongles but I'm afraid that once an emulator able to simulate dongles will be made publicly available, there will be no way to prevent dongles content to be shared, potentially putting a legal risk on everybody (people in this thread, Exxos, Hatari devs and so on) because protected software could be ran without owning an official dongle.
This thread is publicly available, so I prefer stopping myself here before things went out of control unless we have a clear "go" from Steinberg, which I'm afraid won't occur.

Maybe I'm way too cautious for softwares that old, but I'm not well aware of legal stuff in every countries and I don't want to bother about this, so I prefer stepping aside because I'm certain you will succeed in emulating those dongles (without me of course)

[exxos]

They won't release the copy protected stuff as allegedly they are still using similar protection schemes in their software today.

EDIT:

I'm happy to let this thread run for the time being.. But obviously we are knocking on the door of legal issues here...

[troed]

I'm Swedish. In Sweden it's legal to reverse engineer for the purpose of compatibility. My expressed purpose is to be able to run legal dumps of original disks in emulators.

/Troed

[JezC]

I don't want to make trouble for anybody here (or on other forums).

I've got dongles for all the software I use but am interested in access to my personal data/recordings etc. so being able to run the program on non-Atari hardware in the future (or on non-compatible hardware) to recover my data is a valid reason IMO.

Some of the companies had a very understanding upgrade path (C-Lab/Emagic for example let you keep the Notator dongle when upgrading to Logic & when I then switched to PC after they dropped Atari support I was allowed to keep the Notator and Log-3 dongles still).
The shame of that is their subsequent purchase by Apple.

So, if we need to be careful about quite how much information we post on the forum I guess that is fair enough.

We will rely on the moderators to judge where and when to draw the line!

[troed]

I've now purchased a Synthworks Masterscore dongle (version 'A' - black). Will continue when I've gotten the dongle(s).

As for any legal worries, this is how I intend to solve it. No dongle emulator will be distributed, only a piece of software that someone can run on their original ST with their original key and software, and that will produce a "key dump" that can then be used by them in an emulator.

/Troed

[exxos]

As for any legal worries, this is how I intend to solve it. No dongle emulator will be distributed, only a piece of software that someone can run on their original ST with their original key and software, and that will produce a "key dump" than can then be used by them in an emulator.

Music to my ears

[JezC]

I've now purchased a Synthworks Masterscore dongle (version 'A' - black). Will continue when I've gotten the dongle(s).

As for any legal worries, this is how I intend to solve it. No dongle emulator will be distributed, only a piece of software that someone can run on their original ST with their original key and software, and that will produce a "key dump" than can then be used by them in an emulator.

/Troed

Music to my ears (sorry for the awful pun)

[JezC]

Ok, I have tried the Avalon dongle in my Mega ST 4/Megafile 60 system & it boots up fine with the dongle (reports something like "No Key" without it present).

Now I need to find a way to get the s/w across onto the Mega 4...possibly via floppy (sneaker-net) or I could stick a Gotek in an external floppy case & use USB...

Will try to get it sorted this evening & report back from there.