Re: On 'tros vs. pure cracks, my opinion

[Steve Nickolas <usotsuki@buric.co>]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2012, Hot Rod wrote:

> I do think there's need/opportunity to fix up some of the earlier stuff 
> that got hacked.  But I will say that the crack screens do serve one 
> useful purpose, in that they help identify which 'version' of program 
> copy it is.  Not everyone did (or does) things the same way when 
> normalizing to a 16-sector DOS/ProDOS format (or single load), so 
> knowing who's handiwork it is helps.  It's not so much a 'credit' thing 
> as it is a sorting/identifying thing.  If a problem is found later, then 
> which version is it?  That is the crux of placing some form of tag on 
> it.
>
> When I did stuff on my own, for my own archive, I typically never 
> bothered putting anything on them.  So I have several of these 'clean' 
> versions of things, but there's no way to know for sure (other than they 
> came off my floppies).  I've no plans to change them, but if I ever 
> upload them, there'd be no way to tell. As I sort through images, I'm 
> finding that it's helpful to know who 'packaged' it.

It's always good to hear from those who were actually there, which I 
wasn't (back in the 80s I was just a regular luser).  And it's certainly a 
different perspective xD, not quite the one I've heard over in C64-land 
(basically their perspective is the one I mentioned).

Point taken on version identification.  I have file cracks and packs of a 
few games that replaced the more commonly available ones in my collection, 
but they're completely untagged and that's really the only way they can be 
identified, as I didn't patch my tag anywhere. (I prolly could put it in 
some empty space in the binary...)

-uso.