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From: treesh@bach.helios.nd.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Super Snap Shot Cart Detection??
Message-ID: <438@news.nd.edu>
Date: 18 Sep 90 18:09:37 GMT
References: <418@news.nd.edu> <1990Sep15.171530.12692@xenitec.on.ca> <436@news.nd.edu>
Sender: news@news.nd.edu
Organization: University of Notre Dame,  Notre Dame
Lines: 18

The Super Snap Shot Cartridge can do something that next to incredible!  It can hide itself so well, then I can not for the life of me write any software code at all that tell if someone has the cartridge in the port or not.  

This concerns me, and several people in my area use this device to pirate software.  I will openly admit Im a hacker myself when in comes to copy protection, but I do it for my own use, and my own thrill of cracking.  Half the time cracking the protection is more fun then the game itslef!

Well, since Super Snap Shot came along, anyone can be a hacker.  You pop that cartridge into your computer, pull up the menu, and select DISABLE, and by gosh-n-by-golly, that sucker is GONE!!

That is untill you press the button on it, and WAHAM!  your software is now fully frozen, and can be viewd by the monitor programs, or worse yet...SAVED onto disk!!   What kind of hacking is that???

I have worked hours and hours trying to figure out a way to tell via software if that cart is in there or not.  You can easly tell if its in there if the user forgets to disable it.  You can tell with one-hundred peeks to upper I/O addresing space.  This number will not stay constant if the port is empty.  It will lockonto one value and stay that way if you put in any other cartridge.

My question is this:

Can anyone tell me how via software to activate a deactivated cartridge in the 
port?  Is there ANYWAY AT ALL to write to the PLA???  Switch the ROML or ROMH hardware lines?  Switch the GAME or EXROM lines via software???  

It seems what they have done is completely pulled the ROM off the buss, and durring a power-up, or RESET signal it pops back into the memory map.  But those things are hardware generated.   PLEASE SOMEOME!!  ANYONE!!  Tell me the secret!!

ctfm