Amiga pirating...
Julius A Cisek
Lately I've been seeing a lot of writing about copying software on the
Amiga, and quite frankly I'm getting worried. I just recently sold my
Atari ST, and one of the major reasons was because of the amount of
pirating that is done on that computer. I'm part of a developers group
and we recently switched to programming for the Amiga. Is the pirating
problem bad on the Amy? I've seen the ST fizzle slowly as the pirate
BBS's added HD's. Has this recent trend snuck into the Amiga community?
One that seemed more serious than that?
If you know a little about the ST market you wouldn't wonder twice why
FTL and other software companies are heavily copy protecting their
software. Remember that FTL is coming from the ST market; why should
they think things would be different with the Amy users.
--
What about technology, computers, .------------------. J.A.Cisek
nuclear fusion? I'm terrified of |Spectral Fantasies| jac...@leah.albany.edu
radiation, I hate the television. `------------------' jac...@rachel.albany.edu
Matt Dillon
:Amiga, and quite frankly I'm getting worried. I just recently sold my
:Atari ST, and one of the major reasons was because of the amount of
:pirating that is done on that computer. I'm part of a developers group
:and we recently switched to programming for the Amiga. Is the pirating
:problem bad on the Amy? I've seen the ST fizzle slowly as the pirate
:BBS's added HD's. Has this recent trend snuck into the Amiga community?
:One that seemed more serious than that?
There is pirating on every computer. I like to think that, due to
the type of the majority of people who bought the original Amiga's and those
who are now buying Amiga's, there is more responsibility relative to other
microcomputers (IBM-PC's, Apple II's, and, sadly, the new Atari's). It is
difficult for professional pirates to gain a base in the Amiga community
when their prospective clients are more likely to turn them in. I would be
stupid to say that pirating doesn't exist on the Amiga, and I for one do not
underestimate pirates as most corporations do.
On this group, except for one poor high school student many
months ago who didn't realize who he was talking to, there are no
professional pirates in active discussion. All of the discussion on
copying disks relates to the following points:
(1) disk based copyprotection, especially when the disk gets
written to, usually destroys the disk and makes the
game unusable after a period of time.
(2) Honest people are not allowed to make backups, or are so
limited that even being allowed a single backup is useless.
(3) In many cases it is not possible to put the game on one's
HD. (This is BIG).
On a related topic, nobody likes a game which takes over the entire
machine. Most commercial games do this, which is utterly useless to many
of us who want to do other things at the same time. This is a relatively
new concept due to the multi-tasking nature of the Amiga. All of this also
pertains to commercial software (non-games) but to a lesser extent.
Fortunetly, there are many PD, Freeware, and Shareware games
out there that serve to give the professional companies notice that their
methods of protection and philosophy of machine are outdated. My favorites
are:
Larn
Asteriods
Amoeba
I have other favorites but I am thinking fast now and haven't
the time to remember them (ha). The three above are very well written,
do not take over the machine, do not crash the machine, have no copy
protection (of course, being PD/Fw/Sw), can be installed on one's
HD, and do not make tacit assumptions as to the configuration of the
machine.
So what you will have here often are a lot of flames directed towards
software companies for being idiots in their schemes.
-Matt
Leo L. Schwab
> Larn
> Asteriods
> Amoeba
>
>The three above are very well written,
>do not take over the machine, do not crash the machine, have no copy
>protection (of course, being PD/Fw/Sw), can be installed on one's
>HD, and do not make tacit assumptions as to the configuration of the
>machine.
>
remind people of a game that got everything right.
It was one of the first games ever released for the Amiga. It
worked when expansion RAM became prolific. It worked when 1.2 came out.
It works on a 68020. It doesn't take over the machine. It multitasks. You
can pause it. And it's not copy-protected. When everyone else's games were
crashing left and right due to failing to observe the Amiga programming
guidelines, this game kept plugging along.
It was Mind Walker.
An excellent example of How To Do It Right.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape INET: well!ew...@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
\_ -_ Recumbent Bikes: UUCP: pacbell > !{well,unicom}!ewhac
O----^o The Only Way To Fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack")
"Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor
Keith Doyle
One thing that you developers out there can do to help the Amiga
game software to become more useful is in the area of awareness.
If you are writing a game program for the Amiga, and it is hard-disk-
installable, allows multi-tasking, and/or is not copy protected, STATE
IT ON THE PACKAGE. If more and more games are clearly marked as having
these qualities, and users start to buy your packages more because of it,
then the other companies will have to as well to be competitive.
Keith Doyle
gryphon!keithd
Mark Vange
n writing Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair, we were sorely aware of the
need for Hard Drive support on copy protected software.
Particularely, for a game such as this which has 6 and some odd Megs
of data.
Our solution was to include hard drive support in the form of a
dedicated partition. This, however, required a great deal of time
and money to implement. In addition, because the game (as most
Amiga games) takes over the system completely, all interfacing needs
to be done at a very low level, and as such needs to be rewritten
specifically for each hard drive controller. When we contacted Hard
Drive manufacturers, only Comspec gave us the support we needed to
produce this feature for the Amiga gaming community.
So, it's not all the fault of us "big bad developers." There are
many difficulties in implementing these much sought-after features.
In addition,this support will often reduce the effectiveness of the
copy protection.
Mark Vange
Visionary Design Technologies
o
z
?
Scott Evernden
>
>n writing Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair, we were sorely aware of the
>need for Hard Drive support on copy protected software.
>Particularely, for a game such as this which has 6 and some odd Megs
>of data.
>
>Our solution was to include hard drive support in the form of a
>dedicated partition.
Gaghm, yuk, phutoey. This is so ridiculous as to be
laughable! You actually require me to backup, reformat,
and then restore my hard disk, to play a game?? Get
with the program, jack- you should win some kind of award
for this kind of horrid logic.
> This, however, required a great deal of time
>and money to implement.
A foolish waste of time and money. My Amiga already
has all the software you need to read the hard disk.
> In addition, because the game (as most
>Amiga games) takes over the system completely, all interfacing needs
>to be done at a very low level, and as such needs to be rewritten
>specifically for each hard drive controller.
Then don't take over the system completely. You
obviously haven't been reading this newsgroup lately.
> When we contacted Hard
>Drive manufacturers, only Comspec gave us the support we needed to
>produce this feature for the Amiga gaming community.
My god. You really planned to contact _every_ hard
drive maker and expect them to help you do this??!
>So, it's not all the fault of us "big bad developers." There are
>many difficulties in implementing these much sought-after features.
No there aren't. You create the difficulties. You can't
expect to program the Amiga like it's a ST.
...
>Mark Vange
>Visionary Design Technologies
Thank you for describing your CP strategy to me. I
now realize my dollars would be better spent on some
other piece of game software.
-scott