Sunday, February 12, 2006

News: Backup Magic Arrives!

Carl J. England has announced that Backup Magic for the Color Computer is now complete and ready to ship! Reports are that this wonderful piece of code will copy anything CoCo. I'll purchase it ASAP and have a review up on the Hut after a thorough evaluation. Don't wiat, though. Reports I've received from testers indicate it works like a charm.

Mr. England reports the following:

Besides backing up disks on a "real" coco, there is also a utility that allows you to transfer the disk to files that can be loaded on an emulator running on a PC. I have found no software titles that won't copy on the coco, but there are some that won't transfer to the emulator.

The program alone sounds like it is worth the price of admission. That it will backup to DSK image is a huge bonus. You can now back up those near impossible copy protected disks, convert them to DSK and store them on your PC, memory card, or other more reliable media for safe keeping. Imagine putting your entire CoCo collection onto a single DVD. While this has been possible for some time, getting those copy protected 5 1/4" disks in there has been a major problem. No more!

You'll need a two drive system to use Backup Magic. Perfect incentive for us single drive hold outs to get around to actually building a two drive rig. ;) (Seriously, slap a couple of 360K 5 1/4" drives together, add a cheap PC power supply, hook 'em up to a CoCo disk controller and you're good to go. Easy as pie.)

Pricing is US$25.00 for the email version. For that you'll need to use it in an emulator or have a way to port it over to the CoCo.

Also available is a 5 1/4" CoCo disk version for US$35.00. The price inludes the disk, some printed documentation (not much needed, of course), and includes shipping and handling.

Contact Mr. England for ordering information. mrspock12@juno.com

Get 'em while they're hot folks! And help preserve that CoCo software library well into the future!

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