Applesauce Client Software

The Applesauce Client Software controls the Applesauce hardware, but is also a standalone disk image analysis/repair/conversion tool. It is free to use, so why don’t you download it and give it a try.

Platforms Supported

The software currently only supports macOS 10.11 or better. Runs natively on 64-bit Intel and M1 Macintosh computers.

Windows and Linux clients are in the plan, but the focus is still on the Mac client. Many users are successfully running the Mac client in a virtual machine (such as VirtualBox) on Windows and Linux.

Downloads

Applesauce Client v1.63 for macOS – May 15, 2022

Release Notes

15 May 2022 – Release 1.63

Some users were having issue with the imaging process hanging up while running under VirtualBox. This is hopefully resolved now.
Diagnostics for Apple 3.5 drives was incorrectly failing all write tests. Fixed.
Analog Characteristics test was incorrect for Apple 3.5 drives. Fixed.
Saving solved tracks into A2R files have been turned off until I can do some cleanup to the code.
Fixed an issue with an error repair routine for Apple II disks that would cause it to take a long time to process.
Cleaned up the CoCo RS-DOS detection in order to eliminate false positives.
The raw sector loader for IMG files will also now attempt to work with images with a DSK extension.

29 April 2022 – Release 1.62.2

Fixed regression in disk analyzer when processing Apple II disks.
Fixed an issue with the disk analyzer not replacing tracks in some cases.
Better handling of bad sectors when exporting as an IMD.
Disk analyzer support for IBM sectored disks that mark sectors on side 1 of a disk as being a continuation of side 0 (like Kaypro CP/M).

25 April 2022 – Release 1.62.1

Fix crash in Fast Imager when imaging disk with unusual sector numbering like Ampro CP/M.
Fixed Apple 3.5 diagnostics check for disk inserted signal.
Automatically dismisses the Drive Picker screen if Applesauce is disconnected.
Tweak FM detection to hopefully have fewer false positives.
Updated the Sparkle update software.

23 April 2022 – Release 1.62

This has been one of the longest release cycles ever for an Applesauce update. A tremendous amount of work went into this release as I was performing some very foundational changes to how Applesauce works. Previously, analysis of fluxes was happening with an accuracy down to 125 nanoseconds, but all analysis is now accurate down to 1 nanosecond. And several operations work on the picosecond level to ensure optimal accuracy. This change has proven to make for better data capture and repair, as well as enabling some upcoming advanced features. To go along with this improvement, the firmware has been optimized to allow the hardware to capture flux timings at 200% higher resolution, but with almost no extra bandwidth or storage increase. Yes, higher resolution A2R files that are most often the same size as the lower resolution version.

Another big focus of this release has been a completely revamped disk writing system. The new system allows for greater precision down to 20 nanoseconds. Most disks can now be written including crazier disk layouts like the Victor 9000. I’m still finishing up the client side of writing copy protected disks, but the hardware side of things is now ready.

There are also many new small features as well as dozens of bugs fixed.

Fixed visual bug when showing bad files in catalog of Apple II CP/M disks.
More reliable imaging of Atari 8-bit disks due to better detection of disks written at 288rpm.
Improved detection of some obscure IBM sector structure usage as well as more advanced copy protection detection and logging.
Improvements to repairs in Apple II and Macintosh disks.
Supports export of copy protected Atari 8-bit disks in ATX format.
Supports loading of MAME MFI disk images.
Added Tandy Color Computer DOS file system viewing.

06 March 2022 – Release 1.61.3

More improvements to IMD handling of bad sectors and loading.
Bulk Processor for rendering double-sided visualizations was not working properly. Fixed.
The Find command support a new ~ (tilde) token for hex searches. Anything after the ~ will be searched for after finding the pre-tilde sequence. So searching for DEAA~F7F9 will look for the DEAA sequence and then it will search the next 128 bits for the sequence F7F9. The F7F9 nibbles don’t even need to be synchronized. This was added specifically to search for a desynchronized copy protection sequence, but can be useful for other things as well.
Better handling of IBM-structured disks that contain an extra sector on track 0. This was frequently used as copy protection for Atari ST and other platforms.
The Metadata Inspector for WOZ files was changing the INFO chunk version in cases where it should not have been. Fixed.
Apple II CP/M processing was not correctly marking files with I/O errors.
Exported dates for files from Apple Pascal and Lisa Monitor disks were building faulty date timestamps.

22 February 2022 – Release 1.61.2

Fixed looping bug with flux images that contain a single index-to-index rotation.
Fixed issue with loading FM/MFM-based sector images that use 1024 byte or larger sectors.

21 February 2022 – Release 1.61.1

More Fast Imager geometry detection improvements.
Fix to IMD export when disk contains corrupted or copy protected tracks.

20 February 2022 – Release 1.61

Improved geometry detection in Fast Imager.
Fixed visual bug in sector displays for disks with more than 32 sectors per track.
Better logging for Apple II copy protections that do funny things with address fields.
Find function in Disk analyzer now supports M2FM disks.
More consistent detection of Commodore and Victor 9000 disk formats.
Fix potential crash in AtariDOS disks with corrupt sector chains.
Supports loading of 5.25″ ProDOS disks in .2MG format.
Added .diskcopy as valid extension for loading DiskCopy 4.2 images.

07 February 2022 – Release 1.60.1

Fast Imager was calculating the geometry incorrectly for disks that had an unformatted track 0.
A fix to IMD loading for some 8″ disks.

06 February 2022 – Release 1.60

There has been a major under the hood change to how Applesauce stores and manipulates low-level flux data. This change brings better efficiency and accuracy to many parts of the app. Hopefully I didn’t break anything with the work.
Fast imaging of 8″ disks in IBM 3470 and IBM 34 formats now supported.
Support for Intel M²FM disk encoding has been added. The Fast Imager can capture 8″ M²FM disks that use standard IBM sector structure.
Improved geometry detection for the Fast Imager.
The Fast and Flux imagers now have a new “sides to image” selector. The current functionality is contained within the “autodetect” option, but you can also now choose “single” or “double” to force single/double sided captures.
Previously, the Fast Imager would handle bad sectors by simply zeroing them out when you save the image (most disk image formats don’t support the concept of a bad sector). The Fast Imager will now mark sectors as bad within file formats that do support bad sectors, like .WOZ, .MOOF, .IMD, and .DMK. This will be a huge benefit when performing disk repairs.
The disk analyzer now supports 8″ disks.
Improved detection of disks that were imaged using the incorrect drive speed. Along with this comes automatic time-shifting with picosecond accuracy to correct the flux timings.
The stream recognizer that is used to validate Apple II tracks with an unknown format has been temporarily disabled as the replacement is being finalized. It was deemed that the old recognizer was doing nothing useful at this point.
When exporting files from file systems that support date/time, the exported files will now maintain the original dates/times.
The .IMD exporter produces a cleaned up header that conforms more closely to the original specification.
Retry Bad in the Fast Imager will now zero the head after performing its work.
Fixed two potential AtariDOS crashes when directories contain corrupt data.

24 January 2022 – Release 1.59.1

Fixed askUserMedia sheet not being linked to parent window.
Also don’t allow for loading multiple .raw files and having it instantiate many copies of the same kfraw disk.

22 January 2022 – Release 1.59

Now supports loading KryoFlux Raw image files. While loading it also recognizes 5.25” double-density disks that were improperly imaged at 360rpm and will automatically time-shift them to 300rpm to correct them.
Opening IMD (ImageDisk) files is now supported. Exporting IMD files also has several improvements.
Improved support for SCP (SuperCard Pro) disk images.
Improved support for DFI (DiscFerret) disk images.
Double-sided Victor 9000 disks stored in IMG files now use proper non-interleaved structure to match actual hardware. Side 1 follows Side 0.
Improved geometry handling throughout the app, especially when it comes to disks that have varying numbers of sectors per track. These are properly outputted in IMD, DMK, and IMG formats now.
Improved geometry detection for sectors in Fast Imager. It was previously possible for it to calculate too many sectors per track under certain circumstances.
Victor 9000 improved double-sided detection in Fast Imager.
File system support for Victor 9000 MS-DOS.
When viewing files on FAT12 disks, it now does better detection for text files in order to display them as pure text.
Diagnostics for PC drives will now engage the motor when checking the write protect status as some drives require.
Apple II DOS 3.2/3.3 has improved handling of disks with partially corrupted catalogs.
Fixes to some file system exporters to ensure that exported files retain the proper file extension.
Minor cleanup and text changes.

7 January 2022 – Release 1.58

The save file name has now been separated into 2 parts. The first is the product name as before, and the second part can optionally be used for a disk number or other identification. What benefit does this have? Well, if you choose to create enclosing folders then the folder is named the same thing as the product name (without the disk number). This means that if you are imaging a product that uses a set of disks, then you can just change the disk name for each and it will save all of the disks into the same product folder. Previously it would make a new folder for each disk you saved.
The Show Catalog feature now highlights files with errors by showing the file entry in red.
If you stop the imaging while in progress, there is now a Resume button that will allow you to continue the imaging instead of needing to use the slower Retry Bad data recovery.
The imaging status text now includes the volume name after imaging has completed.
The Flux Stream Editor in the disk analyzer has some fixes where it wasn’t always showing correct nibble values for encodings whose nibbles don’t always start on a flux transition (like MFM, and GCR for Commodore and Victor 9000).
Ability to load Victor 9000 disks (single and double sided) contained in IMG files.
Improvements to the Compare/Repair function. It is much better at repairing/replacing highly damaged tracks.
Flux Imager will no longer overwrite the disk/side name if autofill is enabled but you have manually entered a name.
Apple II copy protections that used changed sector markers will now generate logs showing the changed markers.
Allow EDD files to be exported as WOZ.
Stream recognizer was overwriting neighboring quarter tracks when manually adding tracks to an image.
Head cleaning function in 5.25 flux imager was not working properly. Fixed.

18 December 2021 – Release 1.57

Official support for 8-inch drives is here! You can now specify them in the Drive Configuration screen. If you were being sneaky and already using an 8-inch drive with a 5.25-inch profile, then you should edit your profile to change it to 8-inch. This will be required for disk format detection.
Support for Victor 9000 disks (single and double sided). This system had a crazy variable-rate floppy drive that was coupled with a disk writng system that really wasn’t paticularly good at its job. It is highly recommended to only image these disks with the Fast Imager.
Low level support for handling disks with changing encodings or sector structures like using multiple sector sizes on a single track. This hasn’t been trickled up to the images as of yet, but the groundwork is now laid.
The Flux View in the Disk Analyzer now shows you the FM/MFM value (clock and data bits) along with the final nibble value.
The Find command in the Disk Analyzer will now allow you to search for desyncronized disk nibbles in FM/MFM encodings. And if you are trying to reverse engineer a new disk format, you can put an ! after a hex value in order to allow it to ignore clock bits for that value.
Improved support for disks that use multiple disk encodings (GCR, FM, MFM).
When doing volume name autofill in the fast or flux imagers, it will now be sure to trim whitespace from the ends of the volume name.
Saving 3.5 woz images from the fast imager could sometimes save an incorrect number of sides value to the woz header.
Fixes to Analog Characteristics tests for Apple 3.5 drives.
Can now export DMK files for disks that use multiple encodings, like TRS-80 disks that have FM encoding on track 0 with the rest of the disk being MFM.
Fixes to the Go command in the Disk Analyzer.
Some improvements to loading of SCP files.
IMD export now shows warnings for sectors that have bad data checksums.

4 December 2021 – Release 1.56

A new system has been created for processing hard-sectored disks. This will allow for the rapid implementation of support for new disk formats.
Added another data repair technique for disks using IBM sector structure.
Added DMK exporting for TRS-80 disks.
Improved IMD exporting.
Analog Chacteristics test has been revamped a bit to allow for drives with very tight filters to be able to run the test successfully. You can also now choose to run the tests while viewing head 0 and 1 (like existing) or against inner and outer tracks.
Cleaned up reporting of bad sector checksums on Apple 3.5″ GCR disks.
Apple II disks using standard sector structures will now log messages in the Disk Analyzer when they are using incorrect/invalid track/sector numbers.
Fixed crash in FAT12 file system parsing that was triggered by an Atari ST copy protection. Yes, a 30 year old copy protection that tried to make disk copiers crash is still doing it’s job.
Fixed logging of IBM sectors with a bad data checksum. It was sometimes using incorrect log messages.
Fixed potential crash in Mac MFS file system parsing if the directory structure is corrupted.
Improvments to flux reading that increase clock accuracy and prevent timebase decoupling for hard sectored disks with a high sector count.

20 November 2021 – Release 1.55

Lots of new techniques added for automatic and manual repairs of disks with IBM sector structures.
Improved repair routines for Apple 3.5 and 5.25 disks.
Added a Duplicate button to the Drive Profile Picker window. This allows you to make a copy of an existing profile. This can come in handy for things like making a profile that is limited to 35 tracks so that older 5.25 disks with the smaller media window can be safely imaged.
Heath hard sectored disks are now supported.
Fast Imaging of hard-sectored North Star and Heath disks is now supported.
Added exporting to NSI image format for North Star disks.
Added exporting to H8D image format for Heath disks.
Added exporting to IMD (ImageDisk) format.
Added support for disks with 500kbps FM streams.
Added new Reprocess Entire Disk command to the Disk Analyzer. This will allow you to re-initiate the processing of a disk from the raw sources. Upcoming features will use this.
Metadata saving for Atari 8-bit disks was messed up a bit and not saving the Systems or Requirements. Fixed.
Diagnostics could sometimes lock up if you unplugged your Applesauce while running tests.
When converting a disk to 40 tracks, the log messages now get properly remapped.
Fixed crash in Sync Sensor Assistant when trying to use the beeper when the Applesauce was not being powered.
Fixed bug preventing loading of DFI image files.

7 November 2021 – Release 1.54

Vastly improved experience when flux imaging hard sectored disks.
Disk Analayzer now shows index/sector signals on the flux timing graph.
Support for North Star disks has been added. Flux imaging and viewing in Disk Analyzer work, but I still need to add Fast Imaging and NSI file handling.
Applesauce could sometimes get confused when using PC drives that were low-density only.
The Clear Metadata button in the Flux Imager will no longer change the current Platform setting.
Analog Characteristics now allows you to specify the densty (Low or High) that you want to test.
Some diagnostics tests could become stuck if you unplugged your Applesauce while running the test.
Loading standard-sized IMG files that don’t contain a BIOS Parameter Block (like early MS-DOS disks, will now use a default geometry size.
Fast Imager could sometimes skip track 1 side 1 when imaging a 40-track disk in an 80-track drive. Fixed.
The disk search feature wasn’t taking you to the found physical sector when clicking on the search results.
Sectors over 512 bytes were not always appearing correctly in the Physical Sectors view.
DSK files for Apple II weren’t working properly in the Disk Writer. Fixed.
Apple II CP/M disks that used a special 140K mode instead of 128K could cause Applesauce to crash.
Improved the Head Cleaning pattern.

31 October 2021 – Release 1.53

Fixed a crash in the Disk Analyzer flux edit view if selecting invalid nibbles.
Drive Config/Probe will properly set sane defaults if you skip things like the HD test. It will also properly set sane values if you manually change the supported density. This was causing some drives to not be able to image some formats if you didn’t successfully complete a drive probe.
Flux imaging from a PC drive will now correctly require an index sensor or other sync mechanism.
Increased the tolerance for inrush current when powering up a drive. This was preventing some drives from powering up.
Fixed regression in loading of SCP files. The files were not being processed after loading.
Cleaned up some disk description messages when flux imaging from PC 3.5 drives.

29 October 2021 – Release 1.52

Added the ability to control the density pin for PC drives in the Speed Test in Diagnostics. Various fixes to the Diagnostics tests.
Improved the logical blocks display when looking at disks in the Disk Analyzer.
Refined the peak detection algorithm used for identifying disk encoding on disks to better filter tracks with large amounts of noise.
The Notes field of metadata wasn’t being saved. Regression occurred in release 1.50.
A bunch of other small fixes that I’m too lazy to list right now.

22 October 2021 – Release 1.51

Now can specifically detect an Atari ST disk separately from a FAT12.
Loading and Exporting of .ST files.
Fast Imager, Flux Imager, and Disk Writer should all work better with Atari ST disks and .ST files.
Allows you to save A2R files that have repairs and modifications made to it. This doesn’t change the raw captures of A2R file, but instead have a separate set of solver tracks. If you need to undo changes to a track, you can use the Reprocess Current Track in the Analysis menu. This will overwrite the track with one generated from the raw captures.
Metadata Requirements field was not being properly saved for some platforms. Fixed now.
The Flux Imager could be pushy about overwriting a platform selection you may have manually made. I told the Flux Imager to simmer down a bit.
Don’t allow the What Drive is Connected screen to be opened while the Applesauce is busy doing something else. This was causing issues.