[net.micro.atari16] copy protection flame

pes@bath63.UUCP (Paul Smee) (10/27/86)

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Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
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Both Sundog (Software Heaven Inc, aka FTL) and Rogue (Epyx) are copy protected.
Worse, though, both insist on being run with the disks write-enabled.
This is a real ***** .

FTL, at least, tell you in the instructions that this is the case,
and offer an address from which one can (for $10) buy a single backup
copy.  Epyx do neither.

I had a go at copying the Epyx disk.  It appears to work, but when you
try to run the copy, you get put into what appears to be an infinite
'put disk A into drive A; put disk B into drive A' loop.  I actually
gave that a try for a bit over 80 swaps, figuring that, since they hadn't
said it was copy-protected, they might have simply made it 'unattractive'
to copy by requiring that you somehow 'validate' the 80 tracks individually.
Finally decided that's not the case.  It annoyed me enough to decide that
I think I'll try to crack that one, though.

Before I get flamed in turn, let me make it clear that I have bought, from
authorised dealers, still shrink-wrapped copies of both at the proper
price for real money; and that I want backups for my own use -- since I'm
not convinced that I can run a write-enabled disk indefinitely without
managing to have an accident with it.

braner@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (braner) (10/30/86)

[]

At the risk of being repetitive:

	Before I shell out money for ANY piece of software, I find
out whether it is "copy protected".  If it is, I DO NOT BUY IT!!!!!!!

FLAME ON:

I will not buy a car with that thin spare wheel and a 55 mph mechanical
limit, nor an insurance policy where other drivers are excluded.

I will not buy a book printed in ink that is visible only under a
special lamp.

I will not rent a house with limits imposed in the lease on guests
staying overnight.

And I will not pay for software that will not run off a hard disk,
a ram disk, and a backup.

FLAME OFF.

- Moshe Braner

holloway@drivax.UUCP (Bruce Holloway) (10/31/86)

In article <246@bath63.UUCP> pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Paul Smee) writes:
>I had a go at copying the Epyx disk.  It appears to work, but when you
>try to run the copy, you get put into what appears to be an infinite
>'put disk A into drive A; put disk B into drive A' loop.  I actually
>gave that a try for a bit over 80 swaps, figuring that, since they hadn't
>said it was copy-protected, they might have simply made it 'unattractive'
>to copy by requiring that you somehow 'validate' the 80 tracks individually.
>Finally decided that's not the case.  It annoyed me enough to decide that
>I think I'll try to crack that one, though.

I copied Rogue over to my hard disk, and it runs fine from there, although
it requires the original disk in 'A'... it just accesses it for a couple
of seconds. Also, you can only save files to the original disk! But at
least the loading time is slashed, especially for those l-o-n-g picture
files.
-- 
....!ucbvax!hplabs!amdahl!drivax!holloway
(I'm not THAT Bruce Holloway, I'm the other one.)