Changes

My comments - == 3 Inch Discs Comments from Jonathanen: == When [https://web.archive.org/web/20110428132206/http://www.pcwking1.netfirms.com/ John King ] has told me about using CF-2DD discs as standard CF-2 discs for the first time after I've purchased one of them (with the [[Media:CF2DD Blue.jpg|Blue label]]) back in Friday 2nd April 2004 as a souvenir as well purchasing other Amstrad CPC / PCW stuff from him (I was his regular customer, always calling him to reserve the items for me to collect after I've checked out his web site and then I travel 2 - 3 hrs by train, checking / testing out the merchandise at his house when I got there, collect, paid him by cash and then make another 2 - 3 hrs back on my way home, I didn't care how far he lives or how heavy the items that I'm carrying on my way back, as long I got the items that I always wanted), I thought he was making it up, until when I got home and decided to tested out his own theory, it turns out that he is right along and it works perfectly. Then, I've tried the reverse order using any standard CF-2 discs as CF-2DD discs, and it turns out that I'm right as well, as it works perfectly - check out my [https://web.archive.org/web/20130505073822/http://www.jonathanen.com/pages/Help/badsector.html "Re-using 3 Inch Floppy Discs with Bad Sectors"] link to see what I mean.

Some specific moded disk drives could perform special formats that were actually used as copy protection for some games, the most (only?) known exemple being Defender of the Crown on CPC. The french developper for the CPC version [[Brice Rive]] developped this specific method and went on to become UBIsoft copy protection specialist. He produced/coded [[Defender of the Crown]], but also E.X.I.T and copy protection for various UBIsoft [[Ubi Soft]] prods on CPC. The story of this copy protection scheme was explained at CPCrulez french forum. The method consisted of moding some specific 3" floppy disk drives models so they could format the 3" floppies into something like 200-220ko per sides... Normal unmodified disk drives wouldn't be able to format disk the same way so the datas would need more floppies to be spread on and the copy, while still possible, would ask for many more disk switch and would render the game experience far less enjoyable. Cracked version of Defender of the Crown using 3 sides instead of only 2. Un-modified disk drives would still be able to read the specially formated floppies anyway (well, most of times I guess) and the extra sectors would not all be used actually.  More infos on this story there : http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/brice-rive-programmer-for-defender-of-the-crown-guest-star-at-cpcrulez/

The nostalgia value from those 3 inchers is always touching anyway: the solid recomforting view of a brand brand new elegantly grided Amsoft CF-2 floppy in this sweet classic "mode1 palette" of Black-Grey-White-BrightRed, often rendered in many demos in sweet pixel art, is so emblematic of the CPC era to most of us old CPC664-6128-externaldrive users. It is integral part of the Amstrad CPC culture.