[Coco] Question about disk images & copy protection.

[Carey Eugene]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Devries" <devries.bob at gmail.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 01, 2006 11:02 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Question about disk images & copy protection.


> HUH? My copy of Deft Pascal has no copy protection. Was that on a later 
> version perhaps?

Bob;

It's in the linker.

I don't think the earlier ones did, but the later ones did.  Mine is v4.1

I remember reading somewhere on the web some time back a comment from the author about that he didn't want the copy protection but they insisted.  He managed to keep it limited to just the linker.  (No, I have no idea where I read that...  Who knows, maybe I dreamed it.  It's been within the past year or so, though.)

I don't remember what the copy protection was.  The linker checked for something specific on the disk, but I can't remember what.  Some little quirk in the disk structure.  I think around the directory area, but don't hold me to that.

But it was easily patched around.

Let me see... the post-it on it says to patch the linker locations $e6a, $e6b, $e6c from $17, $21, $9a to $12, $12, $12.  In other words, NOP the subroutine call that checks the copy protection.


That was one of my earliest efforts at cracking copy protection.  After that I did a few games and ROM packs.  Can't remember what they were, but I remember printing out pages and pages of source code looking for key areas.


I gotta admit, I had a few unpleasent experiences with Deft Pascal, mostly due to limitations in the Pascal language, but after experiencing other versions of Pascal for other systems, I have to say that I was wrong.  Deft Pascal was an impressive version of Pascal.

Carey


> 
> --
> Regards, Bob Devries, Dalby, Queensland, Australia
> 
> Isaiah 50:4 The sovereign Lord has given me
> the capacity to be his spokesman,
> so that I know how to help the weary.
> 
> website: http://www.home.gil.com.au/~bdevasl
> my blog: http://bdevries.invigorated.org/
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Carey Eugene" <carey at cebridge.net>
> To: <Coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 1:18 PM
> Subject: [Coco] Question about disk images & copy protection.
> 
> 
> I was just reading an email from somebody about disk images and the effort 
> they went through to make backups etc.
> 
> That got me curious...
> 
> How do I deal with copy protected disks?  I know I have some.  I've got 
> post-it notes on the floppy jacket about using Spit-N-Image to make backups 
> of it.
> 
> And I remember several games that had copy protection.  And Deft Pascal 
> (although that's easily bypassed.)
> 
> So, do disk image programs deal with that?  I know with some other 
> emulators, people have developed special disk image formats that store the 
> whole track info and all of it's oddities.  That way it can be read properly 
> by the emulator.
> 
> 
> Carey
> 
> 
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