These were expensive pieces of kit (I paid £15,000 for mine!) and it was not until around 1990 that I could afford to buy one, and a cut-down one at that! The host machine was always used to write the software, unlike the actual format of the floppy disk that was created on a Trace machine (the same hardware used by the floppy duplication companies). I used ideas and techniques drawn from earlier experiences. It's difficult to give a time scale, because the protection system 'evolved'. I suppose the first Copylock System was for the Atari ST in 1987, prior to that I had protected most of Acornsoft's floppy games, but the system used then was quite primitive in comparison and not known under the Copylock name. When did you write the first copy protection system and how long did it take? Which systems was it developed on? It was around this time I setup Copylock Software.įor the next 2 years or so (1985-1986), I wrote a number of BBC ROM products, including Advanced Disk Toolkit (similar to Disk Doctor, but far better!) and Advanced Disk Investigator, which had a number of features including a protected disk copier!Īs for my favourite computer, the answer has to be the one that I work on at the time! I love 'em all! This is what I did and I sold it to Acorn. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to write a new version of the DFS for the 1770. The only trouble was the ADFS was incompatible with the older DFS and all its floppy games! And Acorn had no plans to support DFS any longer. The replacement of the disk controller was to coincide with the launch of Acorn's new Advanced Disk Filing System. Either way, the 8271 was out and the 1770 was in. I think either Intel was going to scrap the 8271 or Acorn was able to get the 1770 cheaper. Around the same time Acorn had decided to ditch the Intel 8271 floppy disk controller used in all BBC machines until then in favour of the newer Western Digital 1770 disk controller. I left Acornsoft after six months (1985) to work part-time for them, still protecting their disc games. I remember them being very protective of their code in Elite, particularly the math routines. This used a primitive, but effective form of self-modifying code at the start of the program to hide the clever bits written by David and Ian. One of the earlier titles using my protection was in the game Elite by David Braben and Ian Bell. Jez had used illegal 6502 opcodes, which were not going to be supported by the newer 65C02 that would replace the 6502 and be used in the BBC machines. This was to replace their existing disc protection that was written for them by Jez San of Argonaut. During my short stay there I wrote a protection system for them. Soon after leaving South Bank (1984) I worked for Acornsoft, the software arm of Acorn Computers who made the BBC Micro. I remember working for hours/days trying to optimise the 6502 code and squeeze out every spare byte possible. This taught me a lot about writing tight efficient code - I had very little rom space to work with and every single byte of memory was precious. I wrote some printer drivers and a 68000 menu driven assembler for the Apple ][ for Simon Computers, Croydon. My first paid computer work was whilst studying at the South Bank (1981-1983). Which computers have you been involved with over the years? Which is/was your favourite? Of course, once I had their password it was quickly saved to file, the exec program terminated and returned to the proper login script - it fooled quite a few people! Interestingly, one of the first programs I wrote for myself there was a script that faked the login screen that prompted users to enter their passwords. After being let loose on their IBM main-frames and writing short programs using IBM's exec programming language it became clear early on what I wanted to do. I was really only interested in programming but I had to cover other subjects like maths, accounts and AI.Īfter leaving school at 18 I had no idea what subject I wanted to study, so I took a year out and went to work as a technical clerk for British Aerospace in Weybridge, Surrey. As I opened my first PC, connected the cables and switched it on, I was enraptured! At that time I was in my first year studying Computer Science at the South Bank University of London (in those days it was a Polytechnic). I remember the day the courier delivered it. It was an Apple ][ Europlus and cost me £475 - an excellent price in those days. I was 20 when I bought my first computer. How old were you when you got your first computer and what was it? I was lucky enough to locate Rob Northen on the internet who very kindly agreed to answer a few (which turned into a lot!) of questions relating mostly to the Amiga and his copy protection systems.
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