1st March 2000First, I must say that you have produced another great magazine and I like the way you have arranged the menu to allow all the facilities of CODE8. However, there are two small points I want to mention:
You did not include the directory L in the One Pass Print Routine so, on printing, one does not get all of the text files on paper. May I suggest that this program should include all the directories that you use and, if you do not use any at any time, simply add REM to the beginning of the lines for unused directories?
The other point is that, if you select 40 column text, the print out will also be in 40 columns which you do not really want. I altered line 400 of Print to
400IF T% VDU3 ELSE VDUN%... rest of line
This will print to screen in 40 column but 80 column to the printer.
I am sorry not to send anything specific for this issue but I am rather taken up with my PC! I have several patience games for it (including Scorpion and Beleagured Castle plus 48 others!) and, if I can write any of them for the Elk, I will try to do so when I get chance!
I noted that you were intrigued how I got past Pres' way of making up the disks. I am afraid I have forgotten much of what I did as it was some years ago now. The first thing though was to alter the access to the programs by changing the 'E' to 'WR' on the disks. This can be done using a disk editor though it can be done without - I did not have one at the time. I could then disassemble their M/code and find out how it was done and the disk addresses where the programs were. It was quite a lengthy process getting everything done! If you yourself would like to have a copy of the disk I made, I will make one for you though much of it is M/code which you are not familiar with.
I joined EUG shortly after it started - EUG #4 - and, when I told Will [The first editor - Ed] about this, he was adamant that he could not publish anything about this so I think this information had better not be published.
I must get this off to you now so that you get the two small changes needed before you publish the next disk. I will try to send something more as soon as I can.
Richard Dimond
Ingenuity versus copyright issues is a tricky struggle. Electron User always made strenuous arguments that mere games players could not rely on its pages to help them pirate software. However, it had no qualms about publishing advertisements for software designed to pirate software (Oh, sorry, I mean "back up your own original software"!) or programs to add to the front of commercial games that hacked infinite lives or time into them!
There has been a long amount of time since then and, with games themselves changing hands for a few pence, it would be foolhardy for any long wound up company to chance thousands of pounds in legal fees with an action for copyright infringment based on slight alterations to legitimately owned software! At least one guide to disk protection "hacking" has been on the Internet (at the "Retro BBC" site) for years. This area of the law is as unenforceable as that forbidding software or music from being sold second-hand. Even brand new Video Game Consoles sport gadgets to allow hacking! They aren't withdrawn from the market.
EUG will not publish commercial software on the disk without the permission of the copyright holders. But it would run to an article on how to deprotect your disks... As noted in the series of Pres Games Disk reviews, there are numerous flaws and bugs within them in need of correction. And as one of the only User Groups still around with members of the expertise required, who else is there to turn to?
Thanks for the input regarding EUG #48. I have corrected the missed directory on the disks here at HQ but your correction to line 400 of "PRINT" doesn't work at all; it just has the effect of printing the text on screen in 40-column mode.
Dave E, EUG #49
