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From: wdao@castor.usc.edu (Walter Dao)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Demos (and piracy ?????) Naaaaahhhh ...
Message-ID: <10836@chaph.usc.edu>
Date: 14 Jul 90 21:20:32 GMT
Sender: news@chaph.usc.edu
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 21


Contrary to popular belief, 99.99% of the demos do NOT encode their text file
to prevent editing but pass their program thru Program compressors like the 
powerpackers series . This makes all the text unreadable unless uncompressed. 
The only time I have seen encoded text files was in viruses (bootblock or
executable sticking types).

A simple thing to do is to find a proper decompressor program for the demo, 
decompress it (powerpacker sadly doesnt cover the most recent one ...) and then
simply use favorite file editor to remove the text you find offending. (like
putting a veil on the mona lisa's face  because it is the thing to do .... ).

It is also the reason why there was a person on the net who couldnt run a 
demo (cebit and coma) and ran it trhu an executable file analizer (or 
something) and found out that the file was made of 2 hunks, 1 correct one and 
then a long hunk of garbage... Well It is because the first hunk is the 
decompressor that will take that hunk of "garbage" and decompress it into the 
memory making it a proper executable. 


						Walter