jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) (12/29/89)
[ Feed Ann Richards and Jim Mattox to the lineeater. ]
I just got a shiny new Bard's Tale I for Christmas. Unfortunately, it
is copy protected. I want to put it on my hard drive (it is painfully slow on
floppies!!!) Can anyone out there tell me how to "break" this sufficiently to
make it run on my HD? I can live with "key disk" systems, but I really hate
brain dead CP systems that require me to run on floppies when I have this nice
HD and lots of RAM disk space available!
Thanks,
--
Jim Pritchett
UUCP: {attctc|texbell}!letni!caleb!jdpcmcmanis@stpeter.Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (12/29/89)
In article <4623.AA4623@caleb> jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) writes: > I just got a shiny new Bard's Tale I for Christmas. Unfortunately, it >is copy protected. I want to put it on my hard drive (it is painfully slow on >floppies!!!) If you find out how to "break" it (and BT II) I would be interested. A simple workaround for those folks like me who don't get into long logic analyzer or dissassembly sessions is to put an 'Addbuffers df0: 250' in the startup sequence before it starts up. That helps a lot. (On BT II there isn't enough room to put the addbuffers command on the disk, so I put it on my character disk and put df1:Addbuffers ... in the startup sequence. Works great. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@Eng.Sun.COM These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. "If it didn't have bones in it, it wouldn't be crunchy now would it?!"
dbuchtal@math.lsa.umich.edu (Dave Buchtal) (12/29/89)
In article <4623.AA4623@caleb> jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) writes: > I just got a shiny new Bard's Tale I for Christmas. Unfortunately, it >is copy protected. I want to put it on my hard drive (it is painfully slow >on floppies!!!) A solution I used was to put the command to mount the hard drive on the Bard's tale disk (supramount for me) and then assign "Bard's Tale Character Disk:" to a directory on the hard disk. This is a must for those poor single floppy drive users in the world. Happy adventuring! Dave Buchthal
vode@niksula.hut.fi (Kai Vorma) (12/30/89)
In article <129684@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> cmcmanis@stpeter.Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) writes: >If you find out how to "break" it (and BT II) I would be interested. I have also tried to put Bardstale I&II on my harddisk. I didn't succeed with BT I, but BT II works just fine. It was rather easy. I copied all necessary files to harddisk and then ran newzap and correceted all references to floppy disk. Finally I made an assigment for "destiny knight charackter disk" In fact, I couldn't assign "destiny knight..." wiht spaces in it so I had to change all strings "destiny knight charackter disk" to "destiny_knight_charackter_disk" If there are references like "df0:something" and you are going to put BT II on "dh2:games/role/etc/etc/", you can change it to "BT2:something" and then assign "BT2: dh2:games/role/etc/etc" -- _ _ _ // Kai Vorma, Ti/I # 1100 10 1110011111 100101 101011 10010 ? \\ _ \\ // vode@niksula.hut.fi # - 10001 11001 1010010 101 ! \\ // \X/ # - an ancient adage from early 40's \X/
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (12/31/89)
In <25513@cup.portal.com>, FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) writes: >[line eater food] > >Does NewZap recalculate the checksum for you ar is there another program >you need to run to take care of it? I have used a product called >Mirror Hack to patch binaries and while it can be done it is very tedious. >I had to take several shots at it because the checksum would come out wrong >and had to be redone. I didn't enjoy the experience so have generally >shied away from doing it again. Does NewZap make it more pleasant? NewZap is not a sector editor. It is a file editor that happens to show the file in binary and ASCCI. You can patch away to your heart's content and never worry about checksums. As with anything you use to modify a file, apply the changes to a copy of the original, if possible, and be careful what you change. NewZap is quite easy to use. -larry -- " All I ask of my body is that it carry around my head." - Thomas Alva Edison - +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
barrett@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dan Barrett) (12/31/89)
>In article <4623.AA4623@caleb> jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) writes: >> I just got a shiny new Bard's Tale I for Christmas. Unfortunately, it >>is copy protected. MARAUDER II deprotects this program completely. It comes with a utility called (I think) "decoder" which will remove the copy protection completely. In article <129684@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes: >If you find out how to "break" it (and BT II) I would be interested. Bard's Tale II (for the Amiga) is not copy protected. Dan //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ | Dan Barrett, Department of Computer Science Baltimore, MD 21218 | | INTERNET: barrett@cs.jhu.edu | UUCP: barrett@jhunix.UUCP | | COMPUSERVE: >internet:barrett@cs.jhu.edu | BITNET: barrett@jhuvms.bitnet | \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////////////////////////////////////
FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) (12/31/89)
[line eater food] REgarding the talk about NewZap and patching game binary to take out hard-coded references to Floppies: Does NewZap recalculate the checksum for you ar is there another program you need to run to take care of it? I have used a product called Mirror Hack to patch binaries and while it can be done it is very tedious. I had to take several shots at it because the checksum would come out wrong and had to be redone. I didn't enjoy the experience so have generally shied away from doing it again. Does NewZap make it more pleasant? Dana @ cup.portal,com
jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) (01/13/90)
[ Insert stupid lineeater joke here. ]
Thanks to all who helped me get Bard's Tale working on my hard drive. Marauder
II broke the copy protection, but I found that the program still gurued until
I reduced my stack to the default 4000 bytes. (Only a really brain dead program
would guru because the stack was too big!!!) Anyway, although I now have it
running on my hard disk, I really didn't achieve my main objective. The main
objective was to make it run faster. Although it does load pictures faster
from the hard drive, it is still VERY slow! My Apple II+ probably runs Wizardry
faster!!! (For the uninitiated, Bard's Tale is much like a clone of Wizardry.)
Does anyone out there know why Bard's Tale is soooo slow? Is it written in COBOL?
Interpreted BASIC? Maybe it ignores the 68000 (actually 010) chip and runs off
the Z80 in my A2090? A combination of the above???
--
Jim Pritchett
UUCP: {attctc|texbell}!letni!caleb!jdpstewartw@cognos.UUCP (Stewart Winter) (01/20/90)
In article <5399.AA5399@caleb> jdp@caleb.UUCP (Jim Pritchett) writes: >running on my hard disk, I really didn't achieve my main objective. The main >objective was to make it run faster. Although it does load pictures faster >from the hard drive, it is still VERY slow! My Apple II+ probably runs Wizardry What I do, is copy Bard's Tale I into RAD:. Works like a charm, and really zips along then. You need a bit of expanded memory to pull this off of course. I have not knowingly deprotected the program with Marauder, although I used it to create the back up that I use. Hope this helps, Stewart -- Stewart Winter Cognos Incorporated S-mail: P.O. Box 9707 VOICE: (613) 738-1338 x3830 FAX: (613) 738-0002 3755 Riverside Drive UUCP: uunet!cognos!stewartw Ottawa, Ontario "The bird for the day is .... nanday conure." CANADA K1G 3Z4