Weak bits floppy disc protection: an alternate origins story on 8-bit • Hacker News Board

Re: Weak bits floppy disc protection: an alternate origins story on 8-bit

#11

Post by LeoPanthera » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

mrlonglong wrote: post #3

Fabulous explanation of how they did copy protection in the old days. I remember the 8271 well. I'm not sure why they used such an old chip with the BBC B, as it was quite expensive. The WD1770 was better and cheaper.

1770 upgrades were extremely common for the BBC Micro. (They are, astonishingly, still made.) The B+ and the BBC Master came with a 1770 by default.

Re: Weak bits floppy disc protection: an alternate origins story on 8-bit

#12

Post by lokedhs » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 7:18 AM UTC

lanerobertlane wrote: post #5

I remember Dungeon Master on the Atari ST having fuzzy bits. There was also another game, I can't remember which that instead of locking up or not loading on detecting that the fuzzy bits were not fuzzy (and hence it was a copy) changed the gameplay so that the end boss was unbeatable.

Doesn't Dungeon Master put you in a room without exits if you use a copy? I think it did this one level in or something like that?

Re: Weak bits floppy disc protection: an alternate origins story on 8-bit

#13

Post by someguyorother » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 12:50 PM UTC

lanerobertlane wrote: post #5

I remember Dungeon Master on the Atari ST having fuzzy bits. There was also another game, I can't remember which that instead of locking up or not loading on detecting that the fuzzy bits were not fuzzy (and hence it was a copy) changed the gameplay so that the end boss was unbeatable.

The Atari had a lot of copy protection approaches[1]. No wonder, with the floppy controller being so flexible.

[1] http://dmweb.free.fr/files/Atari-Copy-Protection-V1.4.pdf