Re: inCider's "Top 40 Games of All Time"

[rwmlodoc@ingr.com (Rich Mlodoch)]

In article <2msdlo$89o@nedata.reston.ingr.com> wsgentry@nedata.reston.ingr.com (W. Scott Gentry) writes:
>rdippold@qualcomm.com (Ron "Asbestos" Dippold) writes:
>
>>Wizardry had one of the nastiest @#$! copy protection schemes around.
>>It _could_ be copied with sync bitcopy (Tracks $11-$14 if I remember
>>right), but it took lots of time, fiddling and drives that were
>>running at the right speeds.  A real pain, because with the use the
>>disks got a backup copy was a must.
>
>If memory serves, there were several versions of Locksmith that could copy
>the disk.  Just an FYI.  There were also several character editors available
>but I don't know if the copy protection scheme was used for character data.
>I mention this because an old friend of mine, Rich Mlodoch (hi!) wrote one.

I copied it using Copy ][ plus (I don't remember which version). My Character
editor edited the chacters on the backup disk (A DOS 3.3 format disk).Iremember
the hours I spent pouring over the printout from a dump of those disks to
figure out what each bit and byte did. I also wrote a character editor for
some of the Ultimas. Lord British and Robert Woodhead were none too pleased
when told of my programs when they visited a computer club I frequented. It
seems that commoners such as myself didn't understand the balance and fine
tuning required to make the Worlds artists such as the aforementioned created
perfect. I told Lord British (Can't remember his real name) that his games took
too damn long to play and that I didn't have the 4-5 hours a night for three to
six weeks it took to play it out, fighting encounter after encounter after
encounter just to rack up the levels needed to move on in the game.