brett@umd5.umd.edu (Brett Bourbin) (08/29/89)
With all this bandwith about pirating software and that the people
who are DOING the pirating can not program themselves, I started looking
at the demos that I have been collecting from sources such as DELPHI and
other pay systems. These demos all seem to have amazing graphics, including
waving images, rotating around different axes and custom copper lists to
create astonishing color displays. Along with graphics, they have equally
impressive sound and music. The amazing thing about these demos, is that
they are apparently written by the same who are pirating Amiga software.
Now, after some disassembly of some of the demos, I can see that
they are hacks, since they include all the no-no's, ie. self-modifing code,
fixed memory locations for most of the code, non-multitasking, etc. Even
with these faults, these demos ARE impressive and show that some of the
people who spend their time cracking other programs, could be writing
their own, or at least be assisting development teams in creating new
titles. It would not really be a hard undertaking to make some of these
demos run legally under the Amiga enviorment, since some of the stuff seems
to be just to encrypt the code.
disclaimer: I, in no way, encourage and condone pirating in any
form, and feel those who do should be properly treated.
--Brett S Bourbin, Instructional Computing Programs -- Univ of Maryland
Computer Science Center, College Park, MD 20742
INTERNET: brett@umd5.umd.edu BIX: brettb DELPHI: brettb
brett@umd5.umd.edu (Brett Bourbin) (08/29/89)
> disclaimer: I, in no way, encourage and condone pirating in any ^^^ Sorry, that should be 'or' or '||'. I guess I should have checked my logic before posting. 8^) >form, and feel those who do should be properly treated. --Brett S Bourbin, Instructional Computing Programs -- Univ of Maryland Computer Science Center, College Park, MD 20742 INTERNET: brett@umd5.umd.edu BIX: brettb DELPHI: brettb
kelvin.rempel@canremote.uucp (KELVIN REMPEL) (09/03/89)
Well I agree with you, a lot of OverSea demos are impressive.. as a matter of fact there a lot more people in Europe who know how to program demos than there are people who know how to crack software... although I'm not very impressed with a lot of the code that is written.. as for not conforming to Amiga standards there are some good reasons for this.. first of all, all tricks that can be found to cut down execution time will be used (I.E. no system calls used).. Secondly Multi-Tasking is Forbidded because as I guess most people know the animation will get kind of jerky with it on (and who watches a demo and runs other applications at the same time?).. Thirdly having code at Absolute addresses is sometimes a must depending on what kind of Cruncher is being used, alot of them require absolute addresses and another problem is that if the file is not crunched at an absolute address, a lot of people will use a program such as PowerPacker, decrunch and save it as a normal file and then edit the text and put their own names in there for credits... Anyways, that's my 2 bits.. * QNet 1.03a2: Pokey's Place Winnipeg, MB (204) 253-1342 (HST) <<SmartNet>>
mark@xrtll.UUCP (Mark Vange) (09/05/89)
In article <5278@umd5.umd.edu>, brett@umd5.umd.edu (Brett Bourbin) writes: > > Now, after some disassembly of some of the demos, I can see that > they are hacks, since they include all the no-no's, ie. self-modifing code, > fixed memory locations for most of the code, non-multitasking, etc. Even > with these faults, these demos ARE impressive and show that some of the > people who spend their time cracking other programs, could be writing > their own, or at least be assisting development teams in creating new It's been tried. Unfortunately, the majority of these guys, while they can hack out impressive demos do not have the attention span and dedication necessary to complete a decent project. They are, however, a valuable resource because they ferret out little facts about the architecture that are as important as they are well-hidden. Finally, in all honesty, some of these guys can and do become programmers (particularly games programmers) How do you think Discovery Software got anything done!? -- Mark Vange Phone Death Threats to: PAS Systems - "Plain and Simple" (416) 730-1352 mark@xrtll 8 Everingham Ct. North York "Every absurdity has a champion Ont, Canada M2M 2J5 to defend it." - Oliver Goldsmith