Re: WANTED: Information on Apple II copy protection

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Edhel Iaur, Esq. wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 12 Mar 1998 13:54:48 -0600, Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>
> wrote:
> 
> >     There are stories that one vendor actually punched a hole in their
> >diskettes so that users who tried to read the holed track would hit the
> >snag and rip the diskette and/or mess up the drive head(s).
> 
> I can't help but think that's such a cool idea >:>
> 
> Wouldn't you trash something if the last track you read before you
> turned off your puter was 35 or so?  When you boot the holey disk, the
> drive would zing 40 tracks toward track 0, and hit it for sure.  I
> guess the holey disk may have not been a boot disk...or maybe they
> told the users to hit Apple-Ctrl-Reset before booting.  Do you(s)
> remember what vendor/program this was?
>

     No; but, it seems like the guy who told the story was an Atari 800
or 1200 user. Evidently, this copy protection technique produced some
pretty strong negative reactions from users.

     On an Apple II, a way to avoid the snag would be your idea of
telling the user to start the computer and insert the diskette after the
'clatter'. On C-64, I remember it was fairly common for one of my
sisters- Lady C64- to insert boot diskettes after the drive was spinning
(and the head zeroed). Probably, the holed diskette came with directions
to follow some such procedure.


Rubywand