_The Doctor__ Posted October 27, 2016 Share Posted October 27, 2016 (edited) Here is my (Second) release of EA Super-Tracks copy protected titles. This will be my final release of these titles unless someone points out some flaws. These cracks work on the same principal by re-directing the sectors that get read during the double sector check. On the previous versions when the double sector was checked, the read was re-directed to another sector that contained the CORRECT sector image. This version still re-directs the double sector reads, but it does not use re-mapped sector images. This crack takes advantage of the fact that this copy protection checks double sectors in 2 different ways. The 1ST part of the check consists of checking if the 2 reads of the double sector match. The data itself is not important. It ONLY checks for match or no match (it will not continue if it finds a match). The 2ND part of the check consists of taking 1 byte from each sector read and storing it in memory starting at location $03C0 (32 bytes total). After ALL the double sectors have been read the data starting at memory location $03C0 gets verified. Because the copy protection is NOT reading the correct sectors during the double sector checks the data starting at memory location will be incorrect. This crack "patches" the correct data into memory BEFORE it can be verified by the copy protection, thus defeating the 2ND part of the double sector check. The advantage of using this method is a faster load time during the double sector checks. Another advantage of this method is a much smaller footprint. The previous versions relied on using empty sectors to store re-mapped double sector images. This version modifies 9-11 sectors (and does not need empty sectors) unlike the previous versions that modified 23-25 sectors in order to work correctly. Enjoy! EA Super-Tracks copy protected titles V2.zip You sir... have gained a level of respect, as most people have bungled this since the very beginning..... Thank you for giving us a decently done crack.... the old rule was it should work most of the time and no care was given to load times or how it treated the hardware. This crack more properly handles both! Edited October 27, 2016 by _The Doctor__ 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 (edited) Ignore.. wrong thread. Edited October 29, 2016 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diaperboy Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 To The Doctor, Thanks for the compliment. I always try to crack copy protection the way it SHOULD (or SHOULD HAVE) been done. I want it to look, sound, and boot as close as possible to an unaltered original copy. My NEXT project is not a crack itself, but a cracking program. I'm working on a custom version of Chipmunk (disk patcher / cracker). My custom Chipmunk will work like the original, but will also work in "backwards" mode to write (create) a patch to the Chipmunk disk. This will allow somebody who cracks copy protections to create their own Chipmunk disk without too much effort. The "package" is meant to be run on a PC using Altirra emulator. It will come with an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is used to map the (usable) sectors on the Chipmunk disk. Data is entered into the spreadsheet for each title (Name / how many sectors used / which sector #s read from Chipmunk / which sector #s written to destination disk ). The spreadsheet uses this data to generate Atari basic Data statements (which are used by Chipmunk). These Data statements can be COPY / PASTED directly into Altirra emulator. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diaperboy Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 Does anybody know where I might locate an .atx (unaltered with copy protection intact) copy of Movie Maker, Cut & Paste, and / or any other EA titles that I have not cracked? I kind of feel bad not cracking EVERY EA title possible. I want a complete series! Lol! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Eyvind Bernhardsen Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 I've tested a few of the EA cracks using U1MB's SIDE loader on my PAL XEGS. Realm of Impossibility and Super Boulder Dash work fine, One on One gets into what looks like a reboot loop on the loading screen (EOA logo comes up, a few seconds of loading, screen goes blank, then back to the logo), while Racing Destruction Set just stops on a red/brown screen after the logo. I'm not sure if you want to put any work into making these cracks work on my admittedly far from stock machine, but I thought I'd report my findings for posterity Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 (edited) Some games check load times.... if it loads to quickly or to slowly.... they fail, try loading from standard disk drive, then from modified drives, and finally high speed devices... there may be a multitude of reasons, I have stuff that works on the MIO and not on the Black Box etc. U1M and Side loader may need to be configured different ways to make it work... I am not sure if being a PAL machine could be a problem either... I no longer have a PAL machine. None of my currect flat screens/monitors/ or crt's do 50hz and the VCR that I used to convert between pal secam ntsc etc. is long dead now... Edited October 29, 2016 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 29, 2016 Share Posted October 29, 2016 I'd be fairly surprised if any of them work on U1MB/SIDE, all things considered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 Try the attached images. I found a second different version of Ballblazer and could not apply the same cracking scheme. So I decided to redo the first one as well. But it might also be because Ballblazer uses its own SIO-implementation which relies on exact disk drive status codes. That must be why they don't work with the Incognito/SIDE Loader. Archon II Adept DOES work, BTW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diaperboy Posted November 5, 2016 Share Posted November 5, 2016 My next release is complete! CHIPMUNK PLUS lives! It still requires a bit more testing...but I spent 3 straight hours TRYING my hardest to "trip it up" and get it to crash or act in unexpected ways (couldn't trip it up) To the average user of Chipmunk, there are no real improvements other than a bit of a face-lift. For more advanced users (people who crack / modify software) there are several new features. The main new feature is the ability to work in "reverse mode". This allows the creation of new patches by READING from the destination disk (cracked software) and writing to the Chipmunk disk. (normally it reads from the Chipmunk disk and writes to the destination disk). There is also a "test mode" used to verify if the patch sectors on the Chipmunk disk exist or not (hmmm... Did I copy those sectors or not) The Excel spreadsheet that comes with it (for a PC) maps the usable sectors on the Chipmunk disk and generates the Atari 8 bit (basic) DATA Statements. Using Altirra emulator, it is a simple COPY / PASTE from the spreadsheet to Chipmunk. There is a built in save feature to save Chipmunk and the newly added DATA Statements. There are several "dummy check" features included to ensure the correct disk is being read. Soon to come! 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diaperboy Posted November 17, 2016 Share Posted November 17, 2016 CHIPMUNK PLUS! 1.61D.025 HAS BEEN RELEASED! Check out the Atari 8-bit Computers forum if you have any interest. I would LOVE to see certain people who crack software release their own Chipmunk Plus! version containing their own cracks. It's pretty easy to do with my new Chipmunk Plus! release. Check it out!! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacedmonkeys Posted March 3, 2017 Share Posted March 3, 2017 Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but is this guy still re-doing cracks? Took me ages to find this thread (I remember reading it last year but couldn't find it again....now following it!) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 3, 2017 Share Posted March 3, 2017 Don't be sorry, we all want more including the original poster... he wants others to do cracks and add them too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 3, 2017 Share Posted March 3, 2017 ... THING TO NOTE: on first attempt i had the drive write protect mode switched off and once the loading screen appeared the game decided to format the disk. Presume this is something to do with the copy protection. Copied the disk again, set the write protect to on and game loaded fine. ... That's pretty extreme copy protection. "I know the real disk is write-protected, so if the disk is not write-protected, it must be a copy, so format the disk." Wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DjayBee Posted March 10, 2017 Author Share Posted March 10, 2017 Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but is this guy still re-doing cracks? Took me ages to find this thread (I remember reading it last year but couldn't find it again....now following it!) Stay tuned. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.Cade Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 (edited) That's pretty extreme copy protection. "I know the real disk is write-protected, so if the disk is not write-protected, it must be a copy, so format the disk." Wow. There are several of those in the C64 world also. The disks came in jackets with no notch ever cut in them, so there was little chance of it affecting a legitimate user. Edited March 10, 2017 by R.Cade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddtmw Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 Except in the Atari world, there were third-party disk drives that came out where you could turn write-protect on or off. If you put the disk in one of those drives, it would format the original disk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 The disks came in jackets with no notch ever cut in them, so there was little chance of it affecting a legitimate user. I always considered that approach very unprofessional. There is a risk that the write protect is not working for some reason, and you end damaging the original disk of a poor, innocent user. Might be even worse. Some Broderbund releases format the disk when they detect a drive with "The Chip/Archiver" firmware. I don't remember if they came all without the notch or not. Some Broderbund disks surely had the notch and were write enabled then. But not every Broderbund release has that format protection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R.Cade Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 (edited) At least in a Commodore drive, the write protect is not only a software thing- you cannot (electrically, physically, literally) write to a disk unless the barrier is open, and it fails closed. At least, I've never heard of an optical sensor failing in a way that it detects the signal always. Edited March 10, 2017 by R.Cade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 At least in a Commodore drive, the write protect is not only a software thing- you cannot (electrically, physically, literally) write to a disk unless the barrier is open, and it fails closed. It is the same thing in Atari drives, and PC 5.25 drives for that matter. But the optical sensor ultimately drives electronics. And that's besides what was already mentioned, that some users installed a switch to write enable bypassing the optical sensor. And besides, it is a rather silly protection that is so easy to defeat. So even when the risk to damage an original disk is small, the gain is even smaller. Guess most publishers and developers agree, because it wasn't a very popular protection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Has anyone ever cracked EA's Cut and Paste word processor? ATX attached (zipped). ea_c_n_p.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari Nut Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 Are the latest cracks in this thread all in that torrent that was linked? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 Has anyone ever cracked EA's Cut and Paste word processor? ATX attached (zipped). Note that the ATX image is bad: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/256683-altirra-280-released/page-21?do=findComment&comment=3726463 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 Note that the ATX image is bad: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/256683-altirra-280-released/page-21?do=findComment&comment=3726463 It loads in altirra... I'll check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 It loads in altirra... I'll check it out. I know, it depends on your Altirra config. See my comment on the other thread. Btw, this title should have a second disk, although I understand the second disk is only a data disk, no code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 You make the second disk on the first page of that disk,,, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.