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From: pes@bath63.UUCP (Paul Smee)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari16
Subject: copy protection flame
Message-ID: <246@bath63.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Oct-86 07:22:47 EST
Article-I.D.: bath63.246
Posted: Mon Oct 27 07:22:47 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Oct-86 09:18:36 EST
Reply-To: pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
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Organization: AUCC c/o University of Bath
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Both Sundog (Software Heaven Inc, aka FTL) and Rogue (Epyx) are copy protected.
Worse, though, both insist on being run with the disks write-enabled.
This is a real ***** .

FTL, at least, tell you in the instructions that this is the case,
and offer an address from which one can (for $10) buy a single backup
copy.  Epyx do neither.

I had a go at copying the Epyx disk.  It appears to work, but when you
try to run the copy, you get put into what appears to be an infinite
'put disk A into drive A; put disk B into drive A' loop.  I actually
gave that a try for a bit over 80 swaps, figuring that, since they hadn't
said it was copy-protected, they might have simply made it 'unattractive'
to copy by requiring that you somehow 'validate' the 80 tracks individually.
Finally decided that's not the case.  It annoyed me enough to decide that
I think I'll try to crack that one, though.

Before I get flamed in turn, let me make it clear that I have bought, from
authorised dealers, still shrink-wrapped copies of both at the proper
price for real money; and that I want backups for my own use -- since I'm
not convinced that I can run a write-enabled disk indefinitely without
managing to have an accident with it.