[Coco] [Color Computer] Another flaky question: RAM "snapshot" device

[Ron Bihler]

I do recall in the day there was a program that would run and allow a 
memory dump of the program in memory.  One would load the cracking 
program into memory and then run the protected software and halt the 
coco allowing the memory to be extracted. 

It's been a very long time, but I do know this program had been used to 
make pirate copies of software of several big protected titles.
Again I know there is was a program available then, but don't remember 
the name. 

Doesn't help much other than to say someone might still have this software.

Ron Bihler
RiBBS



David Bush wrote:
> I have several CoCo programs which, as far as I know,
> exist only on my 5.25" floppies: Pyramix, The Source,
> Demon Seed, Sinistaar.
>
> I purchased each of these legally. Their copy protection
> schemes are in the long run potentially damaging, both
> to the diskettes and the diskette drive. Demon Seed in
> particular is quite a drive thrasher.
>
> I would like to be able to disassemble and modify these
> programs so they can run off my hard drive. To that end,
> I have in mind a hardware device which would work as
> follows: I load and run the software. While it is
> running, I push a button, and the CPU receives a
> non-maskable interrupt. The address of the NMI routine
> is also changed, so control is transferred to another
> program while the copy-protected program is still
> sitting in RAM. I could then transfer RAM to a disk file
> to examine and disassemble at my leisure.
>
> Does this seem feasible? Is there a simpler solution?
> Thanks!
>
> BTW there is a bug in Demon Seed which crops up if you
> attain the boss ship level (fifth level) for the second
> (or maybe third) time. Sometimes it works, and sometimes
> the program crashes the moment the boss level starts.
> Does anyone have a patch?
>
>
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