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Re: EDD Plus Project
sicklittlemonkey wrote:
On Jan 13, 8:11 pm, "Randall Flagg" <rfs_no_spa...@apple2.com> wrote:
Is there any software out which has not been already cracked??
Seems to be more easy to deprotect a software than to recreate the EDD hard-
and software.
The trouble is that deprotection is often "lossy". It is not
preservation in a true sense. For instance the Moon Patrol cracks that
were around omitted the moon base graphic in the game start (included
on the NIB I posted to asmiov). Other cracks omit or deface the intro
or title screen. Some games inadvertently left source code on the
disk, or intentionally left hidden messages which would be omitted
from most cracks.
Besides these points, disk protection is part of Apple II history. I
would argue that it's worth preserving that as much as it is the games
themselves.
I understand and appreciate your point.
However, from a practical point of view, it may make more sense to
preserve the programs in both forms--a (faithfully) deprotected form
and a protected form for good exemplars of each type of protection
(which would be many fewer than the number of programs).
My reasoning is that for the vast majority of interested parties,
the program itself, in runnable form, is the object of interest.
A much smaller "audience" of protection devotees would value the
fully protected versions.
For some, the systematic deprotection of programs was much more
entertaining and educational than the programs themselves could
ever be, but this was, and is, a minority view. ;-)
Further, the only way to appreciate the protection schemes was
to engage in deprotection, and once a particular type of protection
was defeated, all others of that type became exercises in tedium
rather than interesting explorations.
Your point about deleted source files left on distribution disks
is a good one, but a "faithful" deprotection would preserve such
goodies. It is unfortunate that so many of the deprotections done
"in the day" were slash and burn, with nothing but the core function
of the program preserved, but modern deprotections need not take this
course.
I further point out that extracting all the needed information from
a protected disk for a robust image is most easily accomplished by
reverse-engineering the protection. Only then does one know just
which bits on the disk are worth preserving.
-michael
NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."