Who/Which was your favourite Pirate/Cracker in the 'bad old days'

[ijor]

 

Seemed like he might have some kind of disorder. I also often wondered if he was a 2nd account of someone else here.I do hope he's okay, though.

 

Not that I am a specialist on the subject, but it seemed almost obvious to me that he does have some kind of disorder. He was indeed very annoying. But I thought it was a real shame when some smart people here made laugh of him. I also hope he's ok.

[Mclaneinc]

Yes indeed, I was trying to be kind re the disorder but yes he clearly did have issues but like most people I hope he's in a better way of life now, there's no need to belittle a person if you realise its not just him trying to annoy people but an 'issue' he has, but at the time it just seems like he was after to wind people up.

 

As we all have said, we hope he's ok and life is better for him..

[jhagedorn]

It has been a very long time since I was involved in the scene.. I can remember Kilroy.. And I was part of a group called "NASA" It was a small group, but released a few games/apps. I use to run an Atari BBS (MASH - Missouri Atari Software Hackers", running (Basic XE), dont even remember the name of the software. It was one of the few systems that used ANS-II cursor movements, to create games online.

 

I would love to find some more information about the old Atari Scene.. maybe even find some old friends..

 

Jeff

Edited February 15, 2017 by jhagedorn

[lotek_style]

We

 

It has been a very long time since I was involved in the scene.. I can remember Kilroy.. And I was part of a group called "NASA" It was a small group, but released a few games/apps. I use to run an Atari BBS (MASH - Missouri Atari Software Hackers", running (Basic XE), dont even remember the name of the software. It was one of the few systems that used ANS-II cursor movements, to create games online.

 

I would love to find some more information about the old Atari Scene.. maybe even find some old friends..

 

Jeff

 

Hi Jeff, we don't have your group covered on demozoo.org yet... can you tell me a little more about NASA?

[jhagedorn]

We

 

 

Hi Jeff, we don't have your group covered on demozoo.org yet... can you tell me a little more about NASA?

This was a Distro Group, not a Demo Group.. sorry

[lotek_style]

This was a Distro Group, not a Demo Group.. sorry

 

Well don't be disturbed by the name... we have those aswell.

[SteveZipp]

 

 

 

 

Did you do any more cracks/hacks other then firebirds 'extirpator' (a so-so shooter) that is the only one of yours that i've seen

 

A lot of intros were edited and changed or deleted these days by a lot of folks- and I am quite sure that my name has been erased quite a number of times. The reason that Extirpator still has my name in it, is that it is not text but it is a graphic 8 pic. Diffucult to edit when in sector mode. Dump the game on a disk and view the data in graphics 8 and you will see.

 

So, what was your contribution ?

[+Stephen]

 

A lot of intros were edited and changed or deleted these days by a lot of folks- and I am quite sure that my name has been erased quite a number of times. The reason that Extirpator still has my name in it, is that it is not text but it is a graphic 8 pic. Diffucult to edit when in sector mode. Dump the game on a disk and view the data in graphics 8 and you will see.

 

So, what was your contribution ?

Well there's a timely reply Happy 2018.

[SteveZipp]

Well there's a timely reply Happy 2018.

 

Happy 2018 !

[Mclaneinc]

Carmels job was to randomly create non facts

 

Seriously. I find myself miss remembering stuff and have to give it a second thought or someone kindly corrects it but Carmel put the whole foot in the mouth many times. I guess he wanted to be more part of the scene than he actually was which is a bit silly as although it was fun at the time being part of the scene wasn't that interesting in truth...

[+nasty niff]

what ever happened to carmel?

[+Stephen]

what ever happened to carmel?

Sadly, he just quietly disappeared.

[Mclaneinc]

Yeah, shame as he was a character and we all need characters, he was quite knowledgable but often quoted the facts for the wrong item

 

I owe him thanks for pointing me toward Altirra on its very first release (yeah blame him Avery )

 

I just hope that he's well where ever he is and maybe he will pop in just to have a look....

[Firebird]

On 7/24/2013 at 3:41 AM, Philip Price said:

 

Ahh thank-you. I mostly did defense. All my offensive work was for my own use (example: I created a labeling disassembler that would statically analyze cartridge code and tell me all the likely location of software protection, so many cartridges protection were so simple, and I did this to know what others did to protect their game and if it would be hard to break [and it would not be] so I could better protect my own games)

 

Someone told me that Glenn 5200 cracked AR City and at the time said it was the hardest thing he ever cracked. I know I had pirates tracking me down in Hawaii and calling before release saying it would be cracked (it was #2 on peoples list to get cracked after Rescue of Fractulas)[same pirate called me two months later and said he was tired waiting for the cracked version and went out and bought a copy]

 

Always wondered if the first cracked version was not really cracked (Though obviously it was and could be broken as anything can be). The publisher called me a few months after release and said (1 they messed up on writing the weak bits on the disk and instead of writing them in the middle of the area that I allowed, they wrote it on the edge, thereby aggravating any manufacturing errors they might have), and then they ask me to send a few copies with my protection defeated (Because they had a few important buyers whose Ataris could not work with the protected version), so I said sure I can do it, I disabled it and sent the publisher a copy [and I always wonder if that was the first one pirated]

 

One weakness is that at the time I only knew of Omnimon as a way for a pirate to snapshot memory, and therefore I had my realtime check for it. All other checks were done during boot or after intro, therefore AR City would be easy to crack back then if someone could snapshot memory of the game once it was running without using Omnimon (and by definitions is a peace of cake to crack with a modern emulator).

 

Anyone who cracked it using only a original Atari 8 bit(unmodified) and the tools they wrote on it, my hats are off to them. It was possible, but I do think it would have been a b_tch.

-Phil

 

P.S.

In the protected original disk, if you have omnimon banked out....and bank it in the game...my self relocating viral memory wipe will activate.

 

 

The game had Three stage boot each with separate (real simple) encryption, weak bits, and the software code folding (as well as the viral memory wipe) were some of my favorite protection techniques I used. It also used duplicate sectors (and to keep the honest people out a simple bad sector at the first boot stage). One of the flaws many protection sequences in games were TOCTOU , that is they checked it and immediately disabled the game if the check failed, I tried to be a bit more subtle back. My asynchronous overwriting of code in real-time to make a static disassembly of the code lead one astray about what protection was done was fun too.

Hello, it's nice that there is someone who describes how he did it, how he secured his games and programs I did it in a perfidious way. e.g. the game Technoid published by Stanbit from Gdańsk, Poland, I protected with weak bits + synchronous format, but the synchronous format was only from track to track, and weak bits on selected fragments of tracks. To save weak bits, you would have to have new, unused floppy disks, so when a pirate copied the game full-disk, he transferred magnetic noise to the floppy disk and creating weak bits later was impossible, another floppy disk, and another. Moreover, in this game, after passing several levels, the game asked you to unprotect the disk, checked the security if there were no weak bits, formatted the disk And that person never had a pirated copy again. Many people came to buy the original because the copy only worked for a limited time and the control was every 4 levels of the game

 

Best regards: Zbiku