Collaborate Disseminate
When we think of retrocomputing, it’s very often the computers themselves that get all the glory. There’s nothing wrong with this of course- the computers of the late 70’s and …read more Continue reading The Ultimate Commodore 1541 Drive Talk: A Deep Dive Into Disks, Controllers, And Much More
The original PlayStation might be pushing 30 years old now, but that doesn’t mean hackers have given up on chipping away at it. A new exploit released by [Marcos Del …read more Continue reading PlayStation Unlocked with New Software Hack
When floppy disks were the data storage medium of choice, software companies and in particular game developers came up with ever more inventive ways to make them difficult to copy. Tinkering at the edges of the disc format standards didn’t come cheap though, and for example the Dungeon Master game …read more
Continue reading A Lowly 8-Bit Micro Busts Copy Protection From The 16-Bit Era
Making a copy of a purchased game used to be as simple as copying a disk. As the game industry grew, so did fear of revenue loss which drove investment in countermeasures. These mainly consisted of preventing the easy duplication of magnetic diskettes, or having users jump through tiresome hoops …read more
Continue reading Copy Protection in the 80s, Showcased by Classic Game Dungeon Master
Oh, for the old days when sailing the seas of piracy was as simple as hooking a couple of VCRs together with a dubbing cable. Sure, the video quality degraded with each generation, but it was so bad to start out with that not paying $25 for a copy of “Ghostbusters” was a value proposition. But then came The Man with all his “rules” and “laws” about not stealing, and suddenly tapes weren’t so easy to copy.
If you’ve ever wondered how copy protection worked in pre-digital media, wonder no more. [Technology Connections] has done a nice primer on one …read more
Continue reading Rolling Old School with Copy Protection from the 1980s