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The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

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The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by Harvey » Sun Mar 18, 2012 4:49 pm

No one usually speaks about 'piracy' as such - but ever since computer and videogames software were expensive - there was the need for copying games... as such. If you're on a very limited budget - you had no choice - either you'll be 100% moral and don't play any copied games - in which case you would only be playing a handful of games per year at best? Or you go the piracy route and then play 400+% more games than usual.
And with games on cassette - you did not need any special method or equipment to do it with... Mainly because you have twin stereo-cassette decks/hifi -
which could do the copying for you - if you had such a gizmo available? There is the problem - of getting hold of the game on tape, in the first place - usually,
a hire library would be the obvious source.
There has appeared special programs - which will do the copying for you - then software games companies set about protecting their software - by making theirs
multi-stage loading - which renders a copying program useless, because it cannot handle a multi-stage loading game. Disk versions had special disk protection
on them, so that they cannot be copied/read from disk - but then special hardware appears which gets around this. For the Atari 800, there was the Happy Drive,
an enhancement that enables the disk drive to read and also write bad sectors - which was a standard disk protection method used.

Along came the hackers who would remove the disk protection - and make it a normal game on a normal disk. And they might even add a trainer possible,
integrated with the game. Giving you extra lives, so that you had more of a chance to complete the game.

When games came on ROM cartridges - that seemed a sure fire way, to prevent game piracy.
However, in Hong Kong - there appeared disk copiers - which added a 3.5" disk drive to mount on a videogames console (say the SNES or Megadrive) -
that could copy a cartridge plugged in, onto a floppy disk, and run that game from disk.
I had such a unit - and there were many different units available. It did have limited memory - and I did arrange for it to be upgraded with more memory. But alas the OS did not know how to run such large programs, it was not designed for... A programmer friend did write a utility program that could convert it such that it did run after all - but boy, were there so many parts to load - for just the one game. ie. 24 mbit and 32mbit games... Consoles use the mbit terminology.
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by WelshWizard » Sun Mar 18, 2012 7:39 pm

Harvey wrote:
Along came the hackers who would remove the disk protection.

back in the 70's hacker refered to some one who made things after a visit to the surplus store, first home computers were made that way till people like C=, BBC, Acorn, Dragon, Sinclair, Apple , Atari brought you the firstready built home systems, we still refered to hacking the computer in the early days when we gave it extra RAM or built an interface etc for them, and Pirates were Pirates.
only in the last few years has it been really easy to get programs for the old systems as most are now out there on the interenet for down loading and many of the original copyright holders happy that they are in the PD, yes you had things like the Happy drive , Laser etc but when you paid $100plus for a game which was copy protected, you wanted a copy to use rather than the original get screwed up, in fact in the USA its is still legal to have a working copy and the original as long as you don't lend it, sell it or give it away while keeping the original.
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by lizardb0y » Sun Mar 18, 2012 8:14 pm

You may find this talk about the Apple II cracker scene by Jason Scott interesting.

http://vimeo.com/15400820
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by tezza » Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:05 pm

As this discussion is mostly about the subject in context of vintage computing, I've shifted it to the general forum.
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by SpidersWeb » Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:48 am

It's interesting how open and accepted piracy was back then, for the common folk anyway.
Many a weekend (as a kid, so it's not like I HAD money to give) spent with a serial cable, often home made.

I remember one of my schools could only afford two copies of Maxis SimCity - now their copy protection was that you needed to enter a code from the original sheet which was black ink on red paper - but my teacher worked out how to use the photocopier and adjust the contrast just right so that it could be copied - allowing 30 students to play at once - and there was no hiding of this - it was seen as 'smart' rather than 'you are funding terrorism'.

You can see it on many 'disk collections' on trademe on 5.25, most of the programs are on copied disks and there are no originals.

Now I have more money, I buy anything that is still available for purchase (from the copyright holder, second hand doesn't really get any more money to the original owner), but computers could've been VERY drab when I was younger if it wasn't for piracy and computer clubs that let you hire software (no doubt unlicensed for such). These days the parents credit card on steam probably suffices for most youngsters :D

Edit: I do miss the artistic nature of hacker additions to software, the last one I ever saw like that had a pirate and an awesome theme song, now they're just literally hacks (with the occasional malware).
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by matsondawson » Mon Mar 19, 2012 3:22 pm

Man, what a subject, I could spit tacks for weeks on this.
The biggest thing about this whole modern day piracy thing that irks me is that governments believe that I shouldn't have any privacy because some people are pirating the garbage that comes out of the U.S.
A warrant is required to snoop on my phone conversations so how could what I'm doing on the internet be any different.
And don't get me start on the child porn "what about the children" line that the MPAA fires at us.
I watched shotgun with a Hobo last month, and it had babies and their mothers being burnt to death with molotov coctails, they make child smut daily.
It's such a steaming pile of lies.

Although I do remember copying games in the 80's with my friends, but none of us had any money to buy games and actually there were no game stores in our town.
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by tezza » Mon Mar 19, 2012 3:44 pm

matsondawson wrote:Man, what a subject, I could spit tacks for weeks on this.


Perhaps we need a Rant forum like some other sites do :)

Getting back to software piracy in the 1980s though. Yes, copying was illegal and yes, everyone copied anyway. Computer clubs were often about swapping software.

I think there also was a kind of "collector" mentality about aquiring software too. People often seem to want to get as much software for bragging rights whether they used it or not! Especially when BBS because popular. I wonder how many of those games which were swapped or downloaded people actually regularly played?
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by Harvey » Sat Mar 24, 2012 6:51 pm

Of course - this not only applies to copying software - but also 'copying' in general.

A general rule of thumb is - that when you copy something - you are not buying the original - merchanise - and so the 'author' misses out on a sale. This applies to books, any kind of media, photocopying, etc. That is why we have patents, etc - so that people are not cheated out of their possible earnings by those who 'copy' instead.

But the whole of society - the world, etc etc benefits if there was no copyright, etc etc - and ideas, etc etc are freely copied. Sure the originator/creator/inventor should be duly noted, and praised, etc etc for making breakthrough contributions available.
In reality - we know that we learn from copying - to mimic those you admire. This applies to everything naturally - like, we copy what our parents do, as little kids. But when in their teenage years - children wake up to the fact their parents are not perfect, and have various imperfections, etc etc. But already they have copied some attributes of their parents already. And it would be very hard to undo this.
We learn from our teachers by copying. And this applies to everything else.

So in effect - this fully comments on the current world situation - that it is fact un-natural - to have restrictions against piracy (copying) as such. That a desired goal is to have the situation - where everyone has free and open access to everything in society - that is of benefit to them. Some things should have restricted access - such as firearms, etc etc and explosives, etc etc things of that nature - which in the wrong hands, are a danger to the people themselves, and others in society.
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by WelshWizard » Sat Mar 24, 2012 9:57 pm

You still and have always had PD and Shareware with computers stuff from the early days, some still subscribe to these formats even now, ZIP being the classic if you want all the bells and wistles you pay, other wise you use the basic version same with PDF's though now you can get PD programs and share ware programs that will make files into PDF's
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by SpidersWeb » Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:21 pm

Harvey wrote:So in effect - this fully comments on the current world situation - that it is fact un-natural - to have restrictions against piracy (copying) as such. That a desired goal is to have the situation - where everyone has free and open access to everything in society - that is of benefit to them. Some things should have restricted access - such as firearms, etc etc and explosives, etc etc things of that nature - which in the wrong hands, are a danger to the people themselves, and others in society.

If a few large multi-million dollar American companies accidently loose a few bucks from a software title - I'm not too fussed. A man only needs so many Ferarri's.

But you can't just give out every piece of software for free. Open source is great, but there is only so much spare time developers will give for little or no money. Usually when I end up using an open source tool over a commercial tool I often find it's less refined (not always, but often).

There needs to be pressure on society to fund the software industry, while at the same time turning a blind eye to those who can't always afford it. But then we can't even claim it as a 'need' - because you don't 'need' those high end tools. A Linux system bundled with OpenOffice is all you really need. Beyond that is luxury.

The RIANZ thing with the Rhiana track was a bit of a laugh.
Some teenager is going to be grounded now!
(maybe Rhinna needed another Mercedes?)
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by recycled » Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:46 pm

The RIANZ thing with the Rhiana track was a bit of a laugh.

Recording Industry Association of New Zealand. When did they sign up Rhiana?
Wasn't the 'three strikes law' introduced 'primarily' to protect New Zealand artists/creators?
Yep, we're protecting our own real well.
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by SpidersWeb » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:47 pm

haha yeah, in reality the most common pirated material is from the US.
Small time local bands don't usually find their MP3's on the big international circuit.

Guessing it was a political move (Hollywood buddies) rather than ethical.
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by Harvey » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:26 pm

I actually prefer using Wordpad or even Notepad - over any of those sophisicated word processors, etc etc... any day.

I'm still waiting for an ulitmate writers tool - ideally that is portable and lightweight...
Maybe there's an android tablet around - for that? Though it needs to be usuable with a normal proper keyboard, and have USB drive storage available...
Something which the ipad people never even considered? Make the tablet usuable with a proper keyboard, with USB flash drive - so that writers can do their
work anywhere... also to do it on a black screen, and not a headachy white screen...

Otherwise - I'll have to go for a netbook ...

Laptops are not ideal because of their high battery drainage - although that has changed from 2-3 hours to around 8 hours now?

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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by matsondawson » Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:47 pm

Sounds like Harvey needs a Z88 Cambridge
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Re: The "Piracy" word and all it entailed... etc

by SpidersWeb » Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:38 am

blah wish I could remember the model, I have a broken one at home.

They stopped making them, it's an HP tablet which runs Windows XP, thicker than an iPad but same footprint.
The keyboard is detachable (I think?), can be folded behind the screen for use as a tablet, or can be setup on a desk like a normal laptop.

Has USB, hard drive, proper CPU etc. Marketing Manager at work LOVES them and hasn't found anything to compare, closest is the iPad or Android tablets but they are mobile devices rather than a computers.

Edit: HP TC1100
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