Re: PIRATES-GS --- codewheel protection

[johnlb@primenet.com (John Bowling)]

In article <4jpjbk$jos@lynx.unm.edu>,
stephen e buggie <buggie@callisto.unm.edu> wrote:
>
>I have had PIRATES-GS for several years, but have not used it much.  Mine 
>is the original with disk, manual, box, even the small extra folders such 
>as maps.
>
>Using it again, I realize why I never use it much ---- this is a piece of 
>software that is loaded so heavily with copy protection that the user is 
>discouraged from even using it.
>
>Needless to say, PIRATES-GS will not upload to a hard drive.   You are 
>stuck, using the original disk with no backup,  holding the manual open 
>to pages 35 and 36 to apply the codewheel.   This is a _hassle_! 
>
>It has an intricate copy-protection scheme, an 
>exclusive wierd version of 
>Prodos, _and also_ a manual codewheel scheme (You must use the manual to 
>answer the question, "In month/year, where was the silver train."
>
>Several softkeys are listed in COMPUTIST magazine, but these are more 
>complicated than the usual simple sector-edits.
>
>The upshot of this is, does anyone have a smoothly deprotected version 
>of PIRATES-GS?  Hard-drive loadable, but especially with the codewheel 
>password bypassed?
>
>I am willing to mail my original disk or some of the inserts that can 
>with the box as evidence that I am holding the original.
>

With anything like this (and I do have Pirates GS), I would suggest that the
disk be made hard-driveable with no need for the floppy to be inserted, but
that the use of the manual to answer questions be retained.

All software companies need some form of protection from fraud, and we 
all know that the there are a lot of users out there that will give it 
away to 'friends' (everyone they have ever or will ever meet) if allowed.

I also feel that ANY company that makes a disk you can't copy, either as 
a backup or to a hard drive, MUST provide for replacement of bad disks, 
and that that replacement must be available for at least 7 years from the 
time they QUIT production.  I know none of them do this, but they have a 
moral obligation to either allow you to copy for your own use, or make 
replacements easy to obtain.

The fact that they don't is saying that they are admitting that their 
product is so bad that no one would want it after the first year or two.

--
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John Bowling             |Apple II GS can whip the pants off its little
johnlb@primenet.com      |brother (Mac) any time!
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