VGA-Copy

VGA-Copy was a MS-DOS software to copy floppy disks. It was able to read erroneous floppies.[1]

VGA-Copy
The GUI of VGA-Copy
Developer(s)Thomas Mönkemeier
Final release
6.25 / February 6, 1999 (1999-02-06)
Operating systemMS-DOS
TypeUtility software
LicenseShareware

Development

VGA-Copy was created by the German software developer Thomas Mönkemeier. The first public version of VGA-Copy was the version 2.0.[2] Later versions were published under the names VGA-Copy Pro and VGA-Copy/386. Some earlier versions were published by cdv Software Entertainment.

The main code was developed in Turbo Pascal, some low level hardware parts were written in Turbo Assembler.

VGA-Copy was released as Shareware. A free test version was spread through Bulletin board systems and Shareware CDs, a license key file to turn the test version into a full version could be ordered for a payment. The Shareware version had two limitations: It had a ten seconds waiting time on startup and it was not able to write individual boot sectors.

In 1999 the latest version 6.25 of VGA-Copy/386 was released as freeware without restrictions. It is still available for download on the author's web page.

Features

VGA-Copy was popular because it could often read erroneous floppies. It did so by automatically doing multiple read retries on errors. Furthermore, VGA-Copy could read floppy images and save them in a format with the extension .vcp.

A special feature of VGA-Copy was the ability to format floppies with capacities beyond the normal specification. It was able to format floppy disks with a specified capacity of 1,4 Megabytes with up to 1,7 Megabytes of capacity (see also 2M). It also supported the Distribution Media Format used by Microsoft. To access such over-formatted floppies VGA-Copy delivered a special persistent DOS driver.

VGA-Copy had the ability to compress images with the ARJ packer. It was able to scan floppies for boot sector viruses with an internal heuristic and could also scan the full floppy with F-Prot.

References
  1. "Datenrettung: Defekte Disketten auslesen". PC-Welt. 2003-07-23. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
  2. "Documentation file form VGA-Copy 4.6". Retrieved 2014-07-13.

Further reading
  • VGA-Copy/386 Programmdokumentation. Oldenburg: Isensee Verlag Oldenburg. 1994. ISBN 3-89442-175-4.
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