
Saving 500 Apple II Programs from Oblivion - pathompong
http://blog.archive.org/2016/03/04/saving-500-apple-ii-programs-from-oblivion/
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pdw
PoC||GTFO 0x10 had a great article on the copy protection mechanisms these
programs use.
[https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/](https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/)

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jrcii
>remove the copy protection that prevents them from being digitized

In other words, cutting that little square of plastic off of the top right
corner of the 5.25" disks? I distinctly remember learning that skill myself.

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bitwize
That's WRITE protect. Copy protection is something quite different, and will
not be thwarted by punching out a little notch. Back in the days when people
reasonably expected to be paid for software, nearly as much ingenuity went
into the copy protection as went into the software, and everything from
obfuscated or self-modifying code to invalidly formatted disks to exotic disk
speeds to writing bits of the software in tracks flagged as "bad" was done.

~~~
contingencies
Yep. In those days you could re-enable write protect with little stickers over
the notch. It's hard to imagine people putting little paper-world stickers on
their SD cards before shoving them in their shiny devices these days!

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apricot
I still have sheets of those stickers. They are perfect for putting on laptop
webcams.

