ggray@wpi.wpi.edu (Gary P Gray) (05/09/90)
I was waxing nostalgic about my old Dos 3.3 games a few minutes ago and dug
them out. To my shock, some of them didn't work (gee, the disk is only 8
years old, you mean they don't last forever?) Well, anyway, does anyone know
if the new disk copying programs can defeat the copy protection scheme of
these old gems, and maybe even repair some to save them from oblivion? Alien
Rain (my favorite Apple game, the author put his phone number on it!) and the
Asteroid Field have died. I can't find my copy of the Arcade Machine, but I
fear the worst. It's not like I want to get out of paying for these games,
it's just that they aren't available anymore (to the best of my knowledge.)
Ideally, I would like to put these all on a 3 1/2" disk (if there are any
legitimate Dos 3.3 formatters for 3 1/2", didn't the author of one of the
major ones demand that everyone delete it?) but I fear that the copy
protection on it would have to be really munged for this to work. It's kind
of a pity that the software I bought legitimatly years ago can't be used
anymore, but "cracked" games can. One more strike against copy protection.
--
-- WARNING!!! The above opinions may be HAZARDOUS or FATAL if swallowed!!! --
"My mind is going... I can feel it... | Gary Gray -- ggray@wpi.wpi.edu
I can feel it..." | GEnie: GGRAY6
(This space unintentionally left blank)cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles William Swiger) (05/10/90)
Yes, Copy //+ and Locksmith 6.0 were both able to copy Alien Rain (I've tried) and I would assume Asteroid Field as well. Locksmith can also do a disk repair, but only on more-or-less normal formatting schemes. I don't think Alien Rain qualifies. . . . If I remember right though, it only uses the first $10 or so tracks. Try running the sector editor on Copy //+ and determining which sectors fail the checksum (give a read error.) Try re-reading these sectors a few times, praying vigorously that you'll get a good read :-) If not, disable the checksum check and read the sectors a couple of times, making printouts of the disassemblies. If you know 6502 machine language, try to work with the disassmblies so that you get workable code. If not, fill the damaged area (the one where the disassmbly either changes from read to read, or shows illegal instructions: ???) with NOP instructions ($EA). Praying hard here might help, too. If you are lucky, and only a small number of bytes are unreadable, then perhaps you'll get the program working again, more or less correctly. I've done this before twice (Archon II, by EOA and Ultima IV, by Origin Systems), and got both programs to work, although one had its display scrambled a bit (Ultima IV). Of course, there was only one sector damaged in each case, so I had it easy. If any large area of data is scrambled, then I'd suggest getting a copy from someone else. As to putting the games onto 3.5" disks, its easy if they use ProDOS, harder if they use DOS 3.3 (or a modification thereof), and quite difficult if they use a customized DOS. ProDOS games can be copied fairly freely, once you remove any disk-specific copy-protection, such as syncronized track checking, nibble counting routines, et cetera, ad naseaum majoris. If you can get versions that have been hacked into BRUNable DOS 3.3 files, then they can usually be copied freely onto 3.5" disks. If the program requires multiple files, then you might have to modify the filenames a bit (both in the disk directory and in the program code itself). You may notice that I don't appreciate copy protection much. You can flame me if you like for this, but only if you leave me an Email address that I can _bombard_ with flames back at you. Gotta go, I've got an exam tomorrow. Wish me luck. -- Charles William Swiger cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu