Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!wb1j+ From: wb1j+@andrew.cmu.edu (William M. Bumgarner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Moebius patch (deprotection) and warning Message-ID: Date: 2 May 89 04:09:32 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 75 Late last week, I finally received Moebius from the campus computer store (after recieving and returning an SE fan by Mobius...). Excitement, excitement... Open the shrink-wrap, copy it to my hard drive, remove the excess System Folder, and double click. No problem, works beautifully. GREAT! So, I quit the game, unmount the master disc, and put it away for safe keeping. Double-click the game again-- machine crashes after a good-way into the load. Hmmm... The game works fine from the master, but won't work off the hard drive. A fresh copy does the same thing-- won't work from hard drive. Aw, hell... Call the company-- they give me the number for 'tech support'. Call that. After a length discussion, I finally get the guy to admit that the game is copy protected... it requires the master disk to be in the internal drive when I run it. BUT I HAVE TRIED THAT! It doesn't work-- "What kind of machine do you have?" me: "MacPlus w/2.5 megs of RAM" him: "Let's see... looking Moebius up on the support chart, it says it works on a 512Ke, an SE, and a Mac II." me: "What about a Plus?" him: "not on the list-- not supported" me: "It worked fine once, why isn't it working now... could it be the copy protection?" him: "err, uh, maybe... i don't know much about Macintosh, you would have to talk to a mac guru." me: "Is there one their to talk to?" him: "" me: "Thanks, I will see what I can figure out..." After playing with Moebius, it does work fine a Mac Plus, but you have to put the master disk in the EXTERNAL drive... Note that it is not documented (that I could find) that there is copy protection, nor does the game ever ask for the master disk. The ONLY reason why the game won't work on a MacPlus is the copy protection; but a copy of the game will work fine on a Mac II (the protection doesn't work on the II...). How incredibly stupid! Needless to say, the company will be receiving a call from me tomorrow... Now, the patch: I had a look this afternoon, and was able to remove the copy protection in fairly short order (and have not had a single problem with the game on my MacPlus since then).... Use a disk editor and find: 6604 4EBA 2EA8 422D and change to: 6604 4E71 4E71 422D BTW: Other than the incredibly stupid and annoying copy-protection, Moebius is an excellent game! BBTW: A similar patch can be applied to AutoDuel-- Find: 6604 4EBA 017A 422D Change To: 6604 4E71 4E71 422D BBBTW: The patch to Moebius is intended to allow people with MacPlus's to actually play the game-- it is not meant to aid in piracy of the game (I bought it because I though it was worth it, and would have returned it if I hadn't been able to remove the protection). Autoduel for the same reasons-- though I don't think the game is worth buying, and have since deleted the copy that I tried the patch on. Hope this makes someone's gaming life a little more enjoyable... b.bum wb1j+@andrew.cmu.edu