How Long Have You Been Pirating Software

**Vargas** · 01-31-2006, 04:46 PM

whats next? Anybody1234?

**jetje** · 01-31-2006, 10:42 PM

Since i discovered the sneakers network
So actually since i started playing computers (Comodore, was it the Vic20???...) somewhere in the late 70's

**sArA** · 01-31-2006, 10:49 PM

Since my mate downloaded and gave me an asteroids simulator and I copied it and passed it on

**Guyver** · 02-01-2006, 02:39 AM

over 3 years

**Seedler** · 02-01-2006, 02:53 AM

Haha I remember when I was like 4 or so, and my dad tried to copy games from legal purchases of 3.5 floppies and it didn't work...

Apparently they wrote data on separated sectors of the floppy and if you just copy the content onto another floppy, the games won't run because the content is written in order.

Man that's gotta be the first anti-pirating technology invented...

**Virtualbody1234** · 02-01-2006, 03:22 AM

Originally Posted by Seedler

Haha I remember when I was like 4 or so, and my dad tried to copy games from legal purchases of 3.5 floppies and it didn't work...

Apparently they wrote data on separated sectors of the floppy and if you just copy the content onto another floppy, the games won't run because the content is written in order.

Man that's gotta be the first anti-pirating technology invented...

No. There were fake bad sectors on Atari 5¼" diskettes. The program would load and when run it would check that sector and if it could read that sector then the program wouldn't run. I even saw one that would check the sector, find it to be good (not supposed to be) and then format the diskette blank and then display a message: "Your pirated copy has just been formatted. Have a nice day!"

I found that writing to a sector with the speed control of the drive slowed down it would create a bad sector when trying to read it at normal speed.

Also write protecting the diskette would prevent the "unexpected" formatting.

**Seedler** · 02-01-2006, 03:36 AM

Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

Originally Posted by Seedler

Haha I remember when I was like 4 or so, and my dad tried to copy games from legal purchases of 3.5 floppies and it didn't work...

Apparently they wrote data on separated sectors of the floppy and if you just copy the content onto another floppy, the games won't run because the content is written in order.

Man that's gotta be the first anti-pirating technology invented...

No. There were fake bad sectors on Atari 5¼" diskettes. The program would load and when run it would check that sector and if it could read that sector then the program wouldn't run. I even saw one that would check the sector, find it to be good (not supposed to be) and then format the diskette blank and then display a message: "Your pirated copy has just been formatted. Have a nice day!"

I found that writing to a sector with the speed control of the drive slowed down it would create a bad sector when trying to read it at normal speed.

Also write protecting the diskette would prevent the "unexpected" formatting.

wow...5 1/4 diskettes? I was too young t remember them I guess...