Seasoned readers may remember the days when Acorn Electron World was a collection of games, but one with many, many gaping holes. Some tapes just had too much copy protection built into them for their own good. (Some still do - Summer Olympiad and Superman: The Man Of Steel spring instantly to mind!) However, help was at hand in those days, now some five years ago, from the enigmatic Mr. Spock, who succeeded in 'cracking' very many of these protected tapes so that the AEW disc versions could be created.
At the time he sent me, along with the discs, his 'notes' on their disassembly, which I have been meaning to include in an EUG issue for far too long. Rather than serialise them, I am putting them all here in EUG #71. To most people I suspect they will be indiscipherable; to those 'in the know' it will perhaps allow them to crack some of the few titles which remain only available to those with an original tape and the original hardware.
16th April 2010