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Scooz
Account closed
Registered: Jun 2003
Posts: 2 |
any tutorials for c64 game cracking
Are there any tutorials on how to crack c64 games or how the old cracking groups did it...
A friend and i have a discussion on how game cracking on the c64 worked...
I don't know much about cracking, but isn't it just loading the game from tape/disk and then save the game that is in memory to a file with your good old cardridge...
Or what else do i miss....
Thanx in advance.
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Graham
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 990 |
lol i guess not. cracking involves far more than you think and afaik "load and save mem" isnt considered cracking at all anyway. |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
Quote: lol i guess not. cracking involves far more than you think and afaik "load and save mem" isnt considered cracking at all anyway.
Hey, I did cracks like that in the past! Stumbled on a few of them while looking through my disks today .. To my defense, I did do a little more than that, but no real skill was involved.
Yes, Tdj the cracker .. who would have guessed? |
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1160 |
Usually it's about intercepting/reverse-engineering the game's loader system by using an ML monitor.
This is a tutorial of unprotecting Robocop:
http://members.aol.com/fyarra001/copypro/robo.htm |
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Scooz
Account closed
Registered: Jun 2003
Posts: 2 |
thanks for the info!
and yes i don't know nothing about cracking :P
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hollowman
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 474 |
bacchus wrote a rather nice article in datormagazin
about finding hidden messages in tapeloaders for games.
you learned how to examine the loader and prevent it from autostarting which is a good start.
if all it took was to dump memory you wouldnt need
much of a tutorial anyway i guess;) |
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6R6
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 245 |
Tape games can be multiloads, you cant freeze a game, save it and expect it to be 100%. You need to go deep
into the tape loader and investegate.
Now, here's where the fun starts.. Tape loaders can be
protected, and you got to break that protection.
Also, the authors of the loader often leave in hidden message which is fun to discover.
For instance when I broke the Vmax loader/protection for Rocket Ranger I found a hidden message to Mitch/ESI...
It said "Hi Mitch! Hope you are having fun!"
1) When I crack a tape loader that is new to me
I reassemble the whole loader and modifies it to save the in files from tape to disk. This way I have full control
on what is going on...
(Later on I can use the same routine for other games that
use this tape loader)
2) After that you got to install a disk loader.
(if it is a multiload game)
Scooz:
You can start with trying to transfer the initial header file from tape into c64 memory... no freezing !!
bye!
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REBEL 1
Registered: May 2023
Posts: 4 |
Quoting hollowmanbacchus wrote a rather nice article in datormagazin
about finding hidden messages in tapeloaders for games.
you learned how to examine the loader and prevent it from autostarting which is a good start.
if all it took was to dump memory you wouldnt need
much of a tutorial anyway i guess;)
Hi Hollowman, Do you have the exact issue of Datormagazine in which Bacchus' article appears?
Cheers
Michael |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 680 |
Learn 6502, read everything you can, take stuff apart. |
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hollowman
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 474 |
Quote: Quoting hollowmanbacchus wrote a rather nice article in datormagazin
about finding hidden messages in tapeloaders for games.
you learned how to examine the loader and prevent it from autostarting which is a good start.
if all it took was to dump memory you wouldnt need
much of a tutorial anyway i guess;)
Hi Hollowman, Do you have the exact issue of Datormagazine in which Bacchus' article appears?
Cheers
Michael
It's in 1990-10. There's also a short description of the technique in 1990-11. And an article on training games in 1990-7.
But I think you are better off today with watching Bacchus FairLight TV episodes on tape cracking, such as FairLight TV #14, FairLight facts: cracking C64 tape loaders |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 680 |
It really depends on what you want to do, and how far you want to take it.
Do you just want to casually crack some things for yourself? Or do you want to be in a group? Or do you want to be one of the best?
It's a self motivated hobby, like pretty much anything else on the C64 or in life.
Hollowman makes some good suggestions to get started on some easy stuff. There's plenty of tools here on csdb for cracking tapes too. However you won't really learn anything by using those, it's best to learn how to do it yourself first imo, and then you can use those tools to save time. That is why I code the ones I do, so I don't have to do the same things over and over and I can concentrate on the next thing instead.
If you do this enough, you start to build a workflow, and a style too. You'll need tools, and creativity in how you use them. If you want to stick to real hardware at first, that's a good idea. You'll learn the ropes of what we all did back in the day and that's good for you as it forces you to think outside the box. You'll want at least a monitor cartridge, many like AR/RR, TFC, Super Snapshot, Warpspeed, or even HESMON. Whatever you fancy there. You'll need an assembler too, which ever one you are attracted to. A lot of us started on Turbo Assembler and moved to 64Tass on PC, others use Kickass or CA65.
If you are serious about it, or not, you can always ask questions on methodology or whatever here. I'm always happy to share my knowledge so you can talk to me privately if you like, if you're willing to do the work yourself that is. There is no hand holding after a certain point.
I am sure others are also willing to share, but you may have to put up with the peanut gallery at times, thankfully that has subsided a lot in the past years as well get older. That said there are people around csdb with deep knowledge of programming, hardware and cracking too.
I do suggest you read as much as you can, especially No More Secrets, Mapping the C64, Toolkit Kernal, Inside Commodore DOS, the various technical papers around about coding, codebase 64, and so on. There's much to learn and no one knows it all. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11359 |
Crack and Train Like a Pro :) |
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Bansai
Registered: Feb 2023
Posts: 48 |
For disks:
https://archive.org/details/the-software-protection-handbook-fo.. ...this was the first book I ever encountered that went into the 1541 and GCR.
A lot of information is here: https://www.lyonlabs.org/commodore/onrequest/ |
