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Re: older copy protection...

From "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com>
Newsgroups comp.arch
Subject Re: older copy protection...
Date 2025-05-14 16:04 -0700
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <10037hd$2o7l0$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References <1000ik8$233o6$1@dont-email.me>

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On 5/13/2025 3:55 PM, Chris M. Thomasson wrote:
> Does anybody know the hardware used to create the copy protection in the 
> old Dungeon Master game?
> 
> http://dmweb.free.fr/community/documentation/copy-protection/copy- 
> protection/
> 
> http://dmweb.free.fr/community/documentation/copy-protection/copy- 
> protection-atari-st/
> 
> 
  Does anybody know the hardware? Here is a relevant snip from the links:
_________________
As the developer of both Dungeon Master and the software portion of its 
copy protection, I knew that eventually the copy protection would be 
broken, but that the longer it held out the less damage we would suffer 
when it was broken. We had the advantage of owning the patent on a 
floppy-disk copy protection scheme that required a $40,000 specialized 
hardware device to write the disks. It was impossible to create a disk 
image without this hardware, and the hardware itself was out of 
production. That meant that as long as there were enough layers on the 
copy protection, and these layers took long enough to crack, the only 
way to own the game was to buy it. The copy protection scheme took a 
couple of weeks to create, and while this added cost to the production 
without adding value for the customer, it was time well spent. The copy 
protection was based on many redundant, overlapping and isolated checks 
and cross checks. The copy protection was developed with the assumption 
that the cracker would be armed with a hardware emulator and developed 
with an awareness of the capabilities and limitations of the commonly 
available emulators of the time.
_________________

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Thread

older copy protection... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2025-05-13 15:55 -0700
  Re: older copy protection... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2025-05-14 16:04 -0700
    Re: older copy protection... Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> - 2025-05-14 16:37 -0700
      Re: older copy protection... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2025-05-18 01:21 -0700
        Re: older copy protection... John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2025-05-19 02:09 +0000
          Re: older copy protection... Terje Mathisen <terje.mathisen@tmsw.no> - 2025-05-19 09:08 +0200
            Re: older copy protection... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2025-05-25 21:13 -0700
              Re: older copy protection... Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> - 2025-06-05 17:09 +0100
                Re: older copy protection... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2025-06-05 14:52 -0700
                Re: older copy protection... mitchalsup@aol.com (MitchAlsup1) - 2025-06-05 22:35 +0000
                Re: older copy protection... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2025-06-06 12:33 -0700
  Re: older copy protection... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2025-06-05 14:49 -0700
    Re: older copy protection... "Chris M. Thomasson" <chris.m.thomasson.1@gmail.com> - 2025-06-06 12:34 -0700

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