Comments on: Crazy Video Game DRM Prism, 1980′s Style

By: Stayhigh

Stayhigh — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:25:11 +0000

@34

The game would give you a picture of zool in a certain pose, you line up that pose on your wheel and the holes underneath would reveal a code for you to key in to start the game. Its two pieces of card held together in the centre so they can rotate. The top layer has some holes cut into it. Other games had them too, see one of the monkey islands.

You might be able to find out more, they were called code wheels, and we used to call it copy protection back in the day, not DRM!

By: The Th!ng

The Th!ng — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:27:44 +0000

This article was a sad trip down memory lane for me. I had purchased a copy of Tomahawk for my beloved 48K ZX Spectrum, but I was unable to play the game due to not being able to decipher the codes with this goddamed contraption – I hope it’s inventor and anyone else who seeks to foist DRM on us die a thousand deaths, each one more awful than the last.

Apart from the above though I have always had a high regard for the 8 bit programmers and what they were able to cram into 48 Kilobytes of RAM.

By: Oh the memories...

Oh the memories... — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:04:24 +0000

That lenslok was a joke, cracked in a few minutes with the right tools. At the time I was even dissappointed how easy it was to circumvent.

By: JOn

JOn — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:07:23 +0000

Oh aye i forgot – another one i had was some coloured sheets that you had to put over some coloured blocks on the screen & would make a code appear – that at least had the advantage of getting used to the colours and being able to work it out after a few go’s

By: JOn

JOn — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:05:05 +0000

I had one of these for a speccy game – and it didnt come on part way through like the instructins say, it came on at the beginning and i have managed to play the game it was with twice i think, it was that bad (used to get it out every few months “for another go” lol)

By: yellapieman

yellapieman — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:36:01 +0000

niniff.com/?YIT

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:46:50 +0000

An old Electronic Arts Game for the
Commodore 64/128 and other platforms
of the time (mainly Atari 400/800 &
Apple II) called Demonstalkers that
came out in 1987 had a blue disc
called Arthur’s Magical Cypher.

Every five levels of this Gauntlet-
like game you had to enter a code
based on what combinations were given
by the game. Get it wrong and the
game would end, of course.

By: DeusExVerra

DeusExVerra — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:22:58 +0000

Wow, imagine lenslock Pong: Ping |. | Pong | .| Ping |. | Continue code: ||l,|.|;:|1l|' Fail | |. Too slow, try again? but seriously, what makes them think this will really work. Basically its no different from the current day serial number, only much more annoying, and even more potentially problematic (don't loose the litte piece of shit or you're screwed). All you gotta do to get around it is utilize modern day keygens to use the generated number as a code to simulate the visual aspects. Hell, I bet you could probably make a Photoshop action that decodes this or something.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:17:11 +0000

DRM (new) RIAA Style:

1. Must buy a $14.99 CD.
2. Must have obtained a “CD Unlocker” (prices may very from $250,000+ because for each person that downloads the music illegally, we lose $250,000 [obviously])
3. Plug “CD Unlocker” into headphones.
4. You get up to 30 seconds of playing time!
5. Repeat by buying the above products to listen to the next 30 seconds of the song.

By: zarathustra

zarathustra — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:42:12 +0000

Ahh the memories – JSW colour grid LMAO!

Brrrr-BEEP! Brrrr-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEadnauseam…