Conference hydra::amiga_v1

329.0. "Marauder II - kudos and questions" by KIRK::KYZIVAT (Paul Kyzivat) Mon Feb 16 1987 12:51

Just bought Marauder II this weekend.  I am very happy with the purchase - it 
seems to have successfully copied all of my protected disks.  I'm a lot 
happier spending $40 that way than $20 just for an unprotected copy of DPAINT.

I had one problem.  Perhaps someone has an explanation.

An extra goodie with Marauder II is a program called "decoder".  It is 
targeted at an explicit list of (mostly EA) programs.  You apply it to a .DAT 
file in the C directory of target disk, and produce an output file.  Then you 
use that to replace the top level image file on the disk and delete the .DAT 
file.

The documentation is a little unclear on what this does - it is not necessary 
for a copied disk to function.  Apparently it speeds up program invocation.  
In any case, I went ahead and used it on all the specified programs which I 
owned.  It at least didn't seem to hurt - except in the case of Instant Music. 
After this treatment, IM is unable to load a new song - it just hangs when it 
would normally display the requester.

Any idea why it might be failing?  (The documentation claims it should work on 
Instant Music.)  

I would also like to hear if anyone knows what decoder is actually doing.  My 
guess is that the image file is actually a bootstrap, with the actual program 
stored in the .DAT file.  The .DAT file is then decoded and loaded by the 
bootstrap when you operate normally.  Perhaps decoder performs this function 
once, producing a directly executable image.  If so, EA certainly goes to a 
lot of trouble to inconvenience its customers.

	Paul

    What I think the decoder does, is removes the copy protection checking
    feature from the disk.  EA usually has a normally uncopyable file,
    that the copy protection reads in.  On a homemade copy of the disk,
    the file is flawed, so the copy won't run.  By running the decoder,
    it eliminates the subroutine in the copy protection that examines
    the file.  I am not sure why Instant Music didn't work, maybe it
    has a slightly different form of the copy protection.
    
    Note:  This is just a guess from my own attempts to remove the copy
    protection from EA disks.  I am not positive that this is what the
    decoder does.
    
    Derek
    

RE: -1.  A good example is Deluxe Paint.  This program
takes forever to load because as it is read in it has to
be decoded.  This feature of Marauder II decodes the
program so it will load faster.

FYI:
The Marauder II disk is not copy protected and the intro
flute solo (from Peter Gabriel's "Sledge Hammer") is seven
notes long - one note short of copyright infringement.  The
flute solo can be found in L:PanFlute and works great with
the PerfectSound sound editor on fish disk 50.


..Dan

    I've been trying to find the Dpaint II file on which to use Decoder.
    I don't see any .DAT files at all in the c/ directory. Could someone
    tell me where to find the correct file? Thanks.
    
        mitch

I didn't find it either.  I conclude that EA has decided that that particular
hack wasn't worth the trouble.

	Paul