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Forums > CSDb Discussions > Emu-Fuxx0r

2002-04-14 00:35

Eyeth
Account closed

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 98

Emu-Fuxx0r

Hello, CSDb denizens-

I would like to bring up this subject, in a constructive fashion, however!

I recently found out that certain demo authors and groups are now using Krill's code to disable their demo offerings under c64 or 128 emulators.

I find this practive to be very shortsighted and in fact, I would vote very negatively on such behavior in CSDb or on any related votesheet.

Why go to all of this trouble in emulator detection and disabling technology. IMHO, the time *wasted* on such efforts are far better spent on NTSC fixing it so that we North American sceners can view your demo releases. (And on the real machines, I might add!) Or just add a NTSC-fixer to your demo crews and share full source code for a proper NTSC fix.

As of now, I am unable, still, to view certain demos due to no NTSC-fix and an emulator is out of the question as they are emufuxx0red! Talk about severely limiting your audience.

An c64 emulator is a brilliant piece of software engineering. The original c64 was truly inspired piece of software/hardware engineering. Are they not equal in deserving consideration and respect? The c64 audience uses both kinds, the emulation and the real thing and all of them share the common c64 computing experience.

Also, emulators are perfect for one thing; they can easily take screenshots of demo screens, even if there's interlacing effects and sprites multiplexed all over. I plan on writing newsletter articles covering the demo scene and try to bring more awareness to the North American scene regarding fine demo offerings and screenshots are invaluable.

I know that demo coders, graphicians, musicians, etc. all work together in creating inspired art on our Commodore 64's. Let's not restrict the audience any necessarily further by implementing emulator detection and shutdown. Allow any Commdore (real or emulated) user worldwide to share in the demo experience in 2002 and onwards. :)

Enjoy.
-Todd Elliott

... 96 posts hidden. Click here to view all posts....

2002-05-13 17:55

Richard

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 621

Quote: Hollowman: Very true. The promised article on Emu-Fuxx0r in Scene World was also quite disappointing already on the journalistic aspect.
Fenek: Hmm. Send me that tool.
T.M.R: True. My motiviation is not this "c64 pride" thingy. But not only the mere challenge too.
Richard: -

Well... Cat and mouse. Meanwhile, I'll sit back and light a nice joint. Aaaah.

I shall now back down....

2002-05-13 18:31

Richard

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 621

Krill: Sorry for all this silly grief I caused regarding the silly fuxx0ring thing. Things seemed to have went out of hand.

Also, (and to the rest of the scene) please don't publish any comments, slagging me off, regarding my activities, as:

1. The scene wont be interested
2. It's lame.

Rest of the Scene: Keep up the good work on the C64, and we will continue support of the scene. No matter what ;) and most important of them all ..... No Slagging off ;)

2002-05-13 18:59

Rough
Account closed

Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829

Even for 2002 standard both Arachnophobia and Scene World are terribly lame magazines. (and anyone related to them: please don't whine around for your releases being rated bad)

2002-05-13 22:25

Six

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 289

Ahh well, I guess if one isn't bright enough to get around the fuxxoring, or devoted enough to get a real machine to run something on, then they deserve to be SOL. It's just so much more convenient not to have to deal with silliness like that, tho. I really fail to understand the mentality behind anyone who would use such a thing. It restricts your audience. I'm completely about the opposite. I want anything I release to function equally on PAL OR NTSC hardware, and hopefully run on VICE as well. I'm all about expanding the scene, and it would seem to me that using something which restricts access to a release does quite the opposite, and can only discourage people.

HOWEVER, I can certainly appreciate why Krill would take the time to write such a thing, as it's always enjoyable to be able to do something that people don't think can be done.

In the long run, I can only hope that the existance of such things as emufuxxor will do minimal damage to the scene, and result in much-improved, if not perfect, emulators.

2002-05-13 22:32

Vengeance
Account closed

Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 22

Hollowman... Well you dont have to long to wait for Vandalism we are just waiting on some text at the moment from ed and joe. Also I guess we are waiting on an intro by Krill.

Gotta agree about Sceneworld&Arachnophobia, Its good to have these magazines come out for extra releases but the quality its a little ordinary.

2002-05-13 23:35

T.M.R
Account closed

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 749

Quote: Krill: Sorry for all this silly grief I caused regarding the silly fuxx0ring thing. Things seemed to have went out of hand.

Also, (and to the rest of the scene) please don't publish any comments, slagging me off, regarding my activities, as:

1. The scene wont be interested
2. It's lame.

Rest of the Scene: Keep up the good work on the C64, and we will continue support of the scene. No matter what ;) and most important of them all ..... No Slagging off ;)

Once again you're speaking for the scene in general to declare it's lack of interest without understanding the scene and without knowing enough about it's history to make that call.

The scene as a whole has always *loved* to watch people slagging each other off, check all the old "Federations Against This, That and The Other" and the anti-demos.

The scene is, in part, *built* around slagging off - that's why the whole "one scene united" thing never really gets off the ground...

2002-05-13 23:52

fade
Account closed

Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 290

TMR: thats is true, it's always amusing. I'm now watching Hurricanerlamer by Alphaflight [released with altered Beast] and it's amusing as all hell, also great music.

Just so everyone knows, i have no real issue with richard_tnd. but emufuxxoring is a novel idea, there is no need to start a big campaign against it, if anything it is a good idea to turn your 64 on. If you want to emu fuxx or not i don't care and so do a lot of people in the scene.

Thats just the way it is..

2002-05-14 01:08

Six

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 289

I think T.M.R. raises an interesting point. Some of the most inventive (if not technologicly advancing) demos I have in my collection are war demos. Take the "ESI Shit" demo for instance. Controversy itself does seem to pique people's interest, and as an example, look at the number of replies and views on different CSDb topics. You'll find that this semi-controversial topic has gotten the most traffic. The scene really does seem to thrive on controversy.

In the interest of deviating even further from the origional topic of this thread, I suggest that we should invent an imaginary lamer and have a war-demo competition to stir up interest in the demo arts. Any takers?

2002-05-14 17:58

Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2969

Okay, time to unleash everything...

I won't produce a 100% working version of Emu-Fuxx0r.

The reason is not that I don't feel like wasting my time on that but that I think this tool has fulfilled its task. I just wanted to see whether it'd be used at all and how people would react on it. In fact, I never used an emulator protection in my productions.

To be honest, this was not my only reason to make this piece of software. In the first place, I just wanted to enable all people to prevent their software from running on emulators, as I realized there are actually people intending that. I myself am not a die-hard "C64 Pride" warrior. And not against emulators at all, too. I just wanted to give people a powerful tool.

As Crossbow did a similar protection before, I were not first one coding such a protection, but the one giving also non-coders that possibility. His protection was very easy to work around, and I just wanted to make a better one. This was the challenge for me. Actually a challenge referring the encryption routines and not the check routines, which I think were never considered impossible.

Later on, I realized that I had actually done something quite foolish, not having thought about the impact on the scene I could have caused. But then I thought it might be funny to go on with it and see what would happen.

It seems like Fenek/arise has found a nice way to un-fuxx0r the files, and as I don't feel like thinking up some new protection techniques (but coding some new demo routines instead), a new version basing on the old ones would really be a waste of time in the effectivity way.

Still, the check routines work, and I already received a request to give them away, obviously this person's wish is to protect his own software. Don't blame me if he does.

Somehow, this whole situation reminds me of this short story called "The Weapon", where a certain Dr Graham (no kidding!) is about to invent the Ultimate Weapon, not caring about the results of his actions.

Okay, enough on that one.

2002-05-15 16:44

chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11352

mmmh i'd be interisted in those detection routines aswell.... not really to protect, but to detect - and show some silly message or other weirdo stuff especially for emulator users :)