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From: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Copy protect methods & paranoia
Message-ID: <5841@sun.uucp>
Date: Tue, 5-Aug-86 13:23:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.5841
Posted: Tue Aug  5 13:23:14 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Aug-86 03:53:21 EDT
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Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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Mike Schwartz writes :
> I lost two copies of Arctic Fox (before I got a refund).  I am sure that
> I lost one of them when I turned off my amiga when it was showing me the
		            ^^^^^^^^^^
> score page (there was no disk activity, and the screen was static for
> quite a while).  The first copy of the program died after 1 day.  The
> second died after about 2 weeks (I only played it a few times though).
> I believe that EA does not write as part of copy protection, but I do
> believe that if their disks are written to (by their programs...) to
> store any kind of data that the copy protection will fail.  This is just
> a hunch.
> 

Mike and to anyone else out there who isn't aware of a rather peculiar
trait of floppies. If there is a disk in the drive when it is powered
of there is a better than 50% chance that the *drive* will write 
garbage on the disk. This is because during that time when the power
levels are sinking down to 0 (no it is not instantaenous) the logic
enters an undefined state (more like the linear region) and often
times can send current through the write head of the floppy. So anyone
who uses floppies always either lift the heads (by opening the door on
5.25" one or *eject* the disk before powering off. It will prevent a
lot of problems. 

--Chuck McManis