cthulhu@athena.MIT.EDU (03/09/86)
From: cthulhu@athena.MIT.EDU
Firstly, 'weak bits.' As an Apple ][ hacker, I saw more of this than I would
like. There are lots and lots of variations on this, but they usually
depend on drive speed. The bits are not weakened with a magnet as Jef
suggested but again, they are written at a funny speed, out of alignment.
When the track is read in again, a checksum is run on the data. If your drive
speed is off, even a little bit, you lose. Evil tracks also tend to
deteriorate over time, as any players of Apple Wizardry would tell you.
After a while, it dies, and again, you lose. I've used Maxicomm a good
deal and it's just beginning to complain that my original disk isn't a master.
The remedy: reinsert and eject the disk repeatedly until it calms down.
EA- if you're out there: cease and desist! If you're going to protect your
disk, DO IT ANOTHER WAY! Key disk protection isn't so bad so long as you
provide for hard drives, but NO WEAK BITS! Write data in weird places,
use strange address headers, even put serial numbers or names in the program,
but keep it reliable. I don't know about the rest of you, but unless I see
a change in EA's policies on copy protection, I'm not going to trust their
software. The copy protection makes it less reliable, less useful, and
less worth the absurd prices they demand. The Amiga's one fantastic
piece of hardware, and I don't want to see its usefulness destroyed by
unusuable, unreliable, copy-protected software.
*** flame off
Anyone know of any dealers in the Boston or New York area who will sell me
the developer's manuals. Offers of my soul, the shirt off my back, as
well as a good deal of money have all failed to get me the %^&#%# things!
How about Lattice C? Why doesn't it seem to be around the east coast?
Something mighty weird is going on with C-A's east coast distribution...
- Jim Reich
cthulhu@athena.mit.edu