Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!timbuk!cs.umn.edu!uc!noc.MR.NET!msi.umn.edu!umeecs!umich!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ub!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!cs4w+ From: cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles William Swiger) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Re: Test Drive II & GSOS Message-ID: Date: 8 Nov 90 08:25:23 GMT References: <90311.123313CXK126@psuvm.psu.edu> Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 24 In-Reply-To: <90311.123313CXK126@psuvm.psu.edu> Test Drive II uses a very through and unnecessary copy protection scheme that is a real pain to deprotect. At least on my copy, you can't update to GS/OS or a newer version of ProDOS 16, nor can you boot of another drive with a newer system and then use aprogram selector to run the game. Additionally, you can't have a RAMDisk active, because it complains of "memory fragmentation". And, of course, their is a sync check & nibble count on tracks $20 and $21, if I remember correctly. An ugly mess. Since I have a master disk, I (not so) simply removed the checks for the operating system code and for the RAM disk...leaving the sync/nibble count in (it wasn't worth the effort to find the code.) So now I can copy the disk into the RAM disk, then run the program from the GS/OS 5.0.2 system disk, leaving the original disk in drive one. The program loads the data of the RAM disk but does the sync/nibble count routines on the master disk....for a HUGE speed improvement. It takes as long to boot the disk as it did before, but once you're playing, the wait between sections is about 5 seconds...much better!! -- Charles William Swiger cs4w+@andrew.cmu.edu