**************************** TURBOBACKUP.README ********************** DISCLAIMER ---------- Copyright 1988 by Steffen Stempel and Martin Kopp. You may distribute this program for non-commercial purposes. You are encouraged to make as much copies of TURBOBACKUP as you like as long as you're not violating any of the statements below. - Nobody except the authors are allowed to gain any profit by using and/or distributing this program. This includes the duplication of commercial disks. - Nobody is allowed to change any part of the following files: TURBOBACKUPV1.00 TURBOBACKUP.doc TURBOBACKUP.readme ReadMe.First Execute.Me - If you are giving this program to someone else, it is your responsibility that these files are unchanged and that the person receiving TURBOBACKUP agrees to this disclaimer. - To protect them from getting lost or changed we decided to permit distribution only in one of these three forms: - the complete directory TurboBackupV1.00 (including all files mentioned above and the file TurboBackupV1.00.info with the icon.) - the file TurboBackupV1.00.arc (including the same files as the directory and the file Execute.Me which renames the files in the ARCchieve to their original names.) - both the above. - We encourage people who want to distribute TURBOBACKUP on their commercial disks. BUT you must contact Martin Kopp at the address below to get a special marked version that shows that you are entitled to distribute it. You also have to provide two versions of your program to the authors. (Little fee for providing your customers with a reliable backup-program and having minor trouble replacing disks!) - The authors have tested the program very intensive. BUT we can not give you any warranty regarding the function of the program itself or the reliability of the copies made with it (Sorry guy's but no commercial program can provide such a warranty nor can we do it with our program.) - Any questions regarding the above stated distribution on commercial disks, any error reports (not missing features, that would be too much to handle because we already got a 5 pages long list of features we would like to add !!!), any letters to encourage our work (please send NO money or other 'payment') should be directed to: MARTIN KOPP FRANKENSTRASSE 34 D-6800 MANNHEIM 52 West Germany - You as the user are responsible not to violate any copyright or law by using TURBOBACKUP. Dedicated ... ------------- Specially to Fred Fish for his longtime, intensive dedication to the Amiga community (Applause!). To his son, who does all the copying (even if he is earning a little money by doing it). To the people at Commodore-Amiga and especially those who originally developed the Amiga, even if they are not currently with Commodore (Hopefully not long!). To all sysops of Amiga-oriented bulletin boards, the Net-gods etc. and to all Amiga-users that love their machines like we do! We wish all of you a whole lot of fun with the Amiga and hope that TURBOBACKUP will help to prevent you from any pain by damaged disks and corrupt programs. WHAT IS TURBOBACKUP ? --------------------- TURBOBACKUP is the fastest, safest way we know to do backups of unprotected standard AMIGA-Dos-floppy disks on an Amiga with Kick1.2 or higher using two or more disk-drives and working with multitasking. WHERE DOES IT COME FROM ? ------------------------- The program was developed by two German Amiga enthusiasts: Martin Kopp and Steffen Stempel. We began our development of a save copy-program as a result of many problems with corrupt disks generated by the original Diskcopy from the Workbench (that works fine but does not do any verification on the destination disk) and many other programs available at mid 1986. These programs either were too slow or not reliable enough. So we developed a program called Extended Diskcopy. Steffen did a whole lot of work in the research for all this Amiga-stuff you need and Martin tested all versions and made suggestions for the user- interface and functionality. One version made it by accident to the public (named Extended Diskcopy 1.5a) while this was not intended by that time, because there were some well-known bugs in it. But perhaps you got it and found it useful. The main drawback was its speed and a lack of flexibility of the user-interface. Then on the Cebit 1987 Martin had some great ideas for a reliable, fast new backup program. So we decided to make a new approach and started developing TURBOBACKUP. It took one year of coding, testing, recoding etc.. But then it was ready to be released to the public. In it's Release 1.0 it is far from perfect regarding the userinterface and functionality. But it is thoroughly tested and there are no more known bugs in it. We think it's one of the best tested programs for the amiga on the market (not like for example a really superb paint-program that has seen Version 2.0 before even the simplest guru-generating errors were removed !!! And the new European version would be send back to alpha-testing if tested by me, Martin Kopp!!!). WHERE IS THE VIRUS ? -------------------- There is NO Virus in our program! We know that some stupid guys over here in Europe have managed to make our bad reputation even worse by bringing up virus programs. We do hate these people for what they did just like you. (especially those who now know the danger and nevertheless develop more and more b*llsh*t.) We know that there is no way to prove that we are loyal amiga freaks and did not implemented a virus. It would be of no use to publish the source-code because there are very few users that could make a decision on virus or no virus. There would be the danger of getting 'new' versions from some br*indead people. So we came up with the following way: We will send the first copies only to people who know one of us personally, a trusted friend or a similar path. Only people of 'general trust' like Fred Fish (Applause!) etc. will get TURBOBACKUP in the beginning. These people can test it and decide to distribute it. We think this is the best if not only way to gain trust. WHY SHOULD YOU USE TURBOBACKUP ? -------------------------------- Because you want reliable fast backups, so you do not have to worry about each copy you make. And because for example we here in Germany would like to get our Fish-disks errorless. WHAT DRAWBACKS WILL BE THERE ? ------------------------------ For sure there will be drawbacks like: - you may have to use better disks now, because TURBOBACKUP won't copy on bad disks (it's may be more expensive, but it's worth the money!) - you cannot reuse a disk so often like: "Oh, the program is lost, then I can copy something else on this disk" - there are no coffee-breaks while making copies with verify. What will be next? ------------------ Maybe, if you like this program as we do, and we hear about that, we might decide to get our special disk with future improvements out of our desk and get to work on TURBOBACKUP 2.0. There would be enhancements like: - single drive copy - multiple copy for up to four drives - fast, reliable multiformat - directory-display - blocking only the drives in use (so multitasking for users without ram- or harddisks is more convinient) - special extended disk-testing - better user-interface - sizeable window etc. etc. etc. ..... BUT there will not be an option to copy protected disks! We are not willing to provide any help to pirates or people who think their software is not good enough to be sold for the price they offer it and make copy-protection on their disks. Sorry to all buyers of such software but there is NO way to make security backups of copy-protected software with TURBOBACKUP. Think of this when buying the next product and you will be much happier! HOW CAN I MAKE SUGGESTIONS, SAY THANKS, GET THE RIGHT TO -------------------------------------------------------- DISTRIBUTE IT ON COMMERCIAL DISKS? ---------------------------------- Ok, if there are serious errors, then please write an exact bug-report including system configuration (harddisk, ram, processor etc.), version of system-software, used software and a reproducible error-description. If you have suggestions to make that you think a boy with good phantasy (like me, who invented all those tricks for V1.0 8-) ) could not imagine, then write them down perhaps with some example code if necessary. If you want to express any thanks, or other comments you think could make us happy, write them down. (Very welcome!) If you want to distribute it on your commercial product disk you CANNOT use this version!!!! You have to write to us and get a version that will tell that you are allowed to do it! Anything else is violation of our distribution-rules. (We think you understand this, because we don't want that anyone can exploit the hard work we put in this piece of code !!) So what should you do ???? Write to : ...... MARTIN KOPP FRANKENSTR.34 D-6800 MANNHEIM 52 WEST GERMANY PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY DONATIONS (LIKE MONEY OR PIRATED SOFTWARE OR ANYTHING ELSE) EXCEPT YOUR BEST WISHES AND OTHER WRITTEN STUFF (source code examples). Please do not ask us for direct distribution if you are not somebody like a representative of a great user group etc.. The guy at the above address is not able to make a lot of secretary-work while thinking about other great projects and doing some studying at the university ! WE WILL NOT HANDLE ANY PIRATED SOFTWARE OR THINGS LIKE THAT! TURBOBACKUP IS NOT INTENDED TO HELP PEOPLE DOING SUCH DIRTY WORK! WE KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO GET A PROGRAM OUT AND YOU WOULD DO ANY OTHER AMIGA USER GREAT HARM BY PIRATING SOFTWARE!