[net.micro] BASIC \"unprotect\"

Wiedemann@RADC-MULTICS.ARPA (03/01/85)

Is there a method for "unprotecting" Microsoft BASIC code (16-bit) which
has been saved with the "p" flag?  I know that MBASIC (8-bit) uses a
simple one byte header change but the 16-bit BASIC encodes the entire
file.  I am aware of several commercial packages available to do the
decoding, but i though there MUST be something in the public domain with
all those "blue" and clone machines.

Wolf Wiedemann RADC-MULTICS

carlj@hp-pcd.UUCP (carlj) (03/07/85)

Unprotecting Microsoft Basic

I have unprotected some basic files, but the way that I did it was to load
the program into basic after basic had been loaded by debug, then escape
back to debug and save the memory where the program was located.  I don't
have the addresses where it is saved now, but if you are familiar with
debug it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out.  
   Normal non-ASCII save files are just the program memory image that has
been saved to disk.  This means that if you know where basic puts its programs
in memory you can use debug to save that block of memory to disk.  This is
a fairly tedious process, so if anybody has a better method, use it.  If you
want further information send a mail message to me and I'll try to find
where I wrote down the information.

Carl Johnson, HP Portable Computer Division
hp-pcd!carlj