delaney@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (John R. Delaney) (01/25/89)
The situation: I recently bought a copy of "Shanghai" (a Mah-Jongg-like game) by Mediagenics (nee Activision). When I got the original disk out, I went through my usual ritual for new software: Copy the original disk onto a blank disk, then open the copy and move the relevant bits of its contents to my hard disk. Then try to run the new program. [Not entirely safe from the viewpoint of viruses, but I only do it with commerical software received in sealed packages.] Imagine my irritation when the game application bombed my Mac. So this is copy-protection! The program runs fine from the original floppy, but reboots the machine when you quit (also not cultured behavior). The request: How do I break the copy-protection on the original disk without trashing the program. I believe I recall some traffic in thie forum at one time which recommended Copy II Mac for that purpose. But I would like some assurance that it works on Mediagenics' products. And also any special tips on how to use it if necessary. Advice on hope to avoid rebooting would be nice, although I expect THAT is hard to defeat. The disclaimer: I wish to break the copy-protection ONLY to back-up the original disk (for safety) and to put the application on a hard disk (for convenience). I feel this technical violation of Mediagenics' copyright is a "fair use" in the same sense as recording a TV program for replaying later at a convenient time. With friends and relatives in both the fine arts and software areas, I understand the need for and abuses of copyrights. But copy-protection which interferes with safely and conveniently using a product seem over-kill. John
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (01/27/89)
In article <1226@xn.LL.MIT.EDU> delaney@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (John R. Delaney) writes:
<The situation: I recently bought a copy of "Shanghai" (a Mah-Jongg-like
<game) by Mediagenics (nee Activision).
<The request: How do I break the copy-protection on the original disk
<without trashing the program.
Shanghai is on the list of programs that Copy II Mac can copy to a floppy
but it is not on the list of programs that it can copy to a hard disk.
However, I do have it on my hard disk, though I don't know how it got there.
I bought a used system with a hard disk and it was already there. I know
that it doesn't run under MultiFinder (without crashing occasionally), so
I don't use it. If they had a version that is not copy protected and ran
without crashing, I would buy it. But I don't even consider buying copy-
protected software.
By the way, there are other reasons to buy Copy II Mac, such as undeleting
lost or erased files, making files visible and invisible, view and edit
any block on a disk, etc. Not being any kind of a hacker, I don't have
a copy of ResEdit nor know how to use it. Copy II Mac made is possible to
read a document that came with the new TOM init the other day, although
their support had to walk me through it.
Shirley Kehralexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) (02/02/89)
I can't tell you how to defeat the copy protection on Shanghai (I'm sure it's not too difficult, though, I've seen deprotected versions). I can tell you how to defeat that horribly annoying shutdown at the end. Look in all of the CODE resources for a sequence of bytes like this: 3F3C 000x A895 where the x is either 1 or 2. This pushes a word onto the stack and calls the Shutdown trap. Replace this with: A9F4 4E71 4E71 which is an ExitToShell and two No-ops. Note: I have not tried this (I don't have shanghai). Since you need to do this on an original, make DAMN SURE you know what you're doing and can reverse the change if I've screwed up somewhere. Caveat Emptor. Alexis Rosen alexis@ccnysci.uucp