[Coco] Copy-protected software (was Raspberry Pi)

[Bill Pierce]

Art,
I know there's some "cracked" software in the archives, in fact, quite a bit. But I have also found that some "cracked" versions either don't work properly or have a feature or two disabled due to the crack. The Cercomp stuff comes to mind. Sometimes it works, sometimes it crashes. Some of this may be contributed to the use of HDBDOS. Especially in cases (like Cercomp) that a lot of rom calls are used or a rom/ram routine is used. I think most of the Sundog software has been uploaded and most of the Diecom stuff as well as others.
I don't think any of the "cracked" software is based from non-protected versions from the authors (or anyone else for that matter), for the most part, it was just hacked to bypass the protection.
I think most of the original authors/venders had disappeared by the time it became a "dead market". A lot of the software had been pawned off/bought by various distributers/venders (CocoPro, Microcom, Rick Cooper etc) and only the protected versions were licensed most of the time. The authors then went on to other domains. A lot of people throughout the past few years (myself included) have tried to contact a lot of the authors for non-protected versions and sources. Some were found, some were not. A lot of the original authors had just gotten rid of their Coco stuff and never looked back. And alas.... a lot of the older authors have left us now.
 I guess we are really lucky to have as strong a community as we do.

Bill Pierce
My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
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E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Sun, Jun 16, 2013 2:31 am
Subject: [Coco] Copy-protected software (was Raspberry Pi)


Or perhaps there's already a lot of formerly-protected stuff in the
list database that I'm unaware of?

Art