Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!maytag!watdragon!rose!hardware From: hardware@rose.uwaterloo.ca () Subject: Re: FALCON backups Message-ID: <1990Sep26.185904.7969@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Owner of Many System Processes) Organization: University of Waterloo References: <24402@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> Date: Wed, 26 Sep 90 18:59:04 GMT Lines: 31 In article mg20+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Paul Greelish) writes: >You should be able to copy the game by doing a *file* copy from the >desktop, not a *disk* copy. I copied all of the stuff from the two >single sided disks the game comes on to a double sided disk and it works >fine. > >Incidentally, many, many "non-copy protected" programs can only be >copied as files. Seems there are a lot of weird disk formats floating >around out there... I guess I would have to agree with you there. For instance the Union Demo couldnt be copied because it was using 1024 byte sectors which means most existing copiers would cough and die. However there are a few intellegent copiers out there that check sector size etc. The Union demo used 512 byte sectors for the first three sectors then resorted to 1024 byte sectors for the rest. Of course you need a special formatter for it and at one time hypercopy had this built into it. Other manufacturers are using laser holes to identify disks they sent out as compared to backup disks which wouldnt have the holes which send out a distinct error code. With all the time spent into protecting the software it would be wiser to track down the culprits that leak out software before it has hit the market. Sometime this is done via backdoors other times it is a result of theft at a computer show. ********************************************************************** Hardware Dave at your Service PS. Good movie to watch if you like comedies is "Nuns on the Run" *********************************************************************