Remastering original V-MAX protected C64 games

In this episode I run through the equipment and steps required to successfully re-master original games with V-MAX copy protection.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:22 Requirements
02:59 OpenCBM and nibtools
03:31 Plug in XUM1541/ZoomFloppy
05:52 Reformat destination disk
09:15 Using nibwrite to write disk
10:50 It fails - and why
12:44 Rewriting disk at 297.5 RPM
13:34 It succeeds
14:30 Wrap-up

Equipment and software required:

OpenCBM - https://github.com/OpenCBM/OpenCBM
nibtools - https://github.com/markusC64/nibtools
A 1541 disk drive with a parallel port mod, or a stock 1570 or 1571.
An XUM1541 USB-CBM disk drive adapter - a ZoomFloppy is one implementation of the XUM1541 which will work.
A blank floppy disk.
A .nib or .nbz file containing the original game disk image you want to write.

Really importantly, for a V-MAX copy protected disk you must adjust the speed of the drive your’re writing the disk with to 297.5 RPM. The game won’t write successfully at 300 RPM. But it will only load at 300RPM - it won’t load at 297.5 RPM!