RoboCop 3 - Dongle Anti-Piracy that Failed

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by roondar

The Robocop 3 dongle to me seems to show a fundamental problem with physical protection like this. Basically, the only way to make this work would be to have the dongle be an integral part of the game (so that it's impossible to run the game without the dongle as parts of it are missing).

A 'smart' dongle doing some calculations or offloading game logic would be tougher to work around I guess, but would cost a lot more to produce. There's a cost/benefit thing to consider.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Rygar could have implemented lots of neat stuff, it being a multiloader, lots of things you could do.

I did actually think about it, but just not for very long given I had to hit Amiga 34 and still fucked it up with the whole 2nd fire button to jump.

I suspect many protections suffered from the issue of poor implementation due to time constraints squeezed between launch dates and actual development time.

I did go to some lengths though to ensure every single byte was used on the disk and part of the game so to make it difficult (not impossible) for a Flashtro / trainer to be stuck on to it.

Would love to chew the fat on how I could have stuck on a wicked protection though if were done back in the day.

[Pernas]

Hi!

Apologies if this is long overdue by now but I wanted a (small) challenge while awaiting my recently ordered big box of Robocop3/Ocean (with missing dongle)..
So meanwhile I decided to build a physical dongle for the Robocop 3 (0805 dump).

The circuit is partly based on the findings in this thread: https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...1&postcount=12
but mostly the code part of Win-UAE dongle section but couldn't make it work (fully anyway):
https://github.com/tonioni/WinUAE/bl...ter/dongle.cpp

RoboCop 3
- set firebutton as output
- read JOY1DAT
- pulse firebutton (high->low)
- read JOY1DAT
- JOY1DAT bit 8 must toggle

For the circuit I used a negative edge triggered D flip-flop and clocked that with pin 6 (/fire) and took the Q-output (f/2) to pin 3 (left/VQ) like this:

It "kind of" works and passes the first checks until the gameplay is going to start and after the last (in-game) TV-news the game freezes.

I keep track of the input and outputs to this dongle via a scope and the circuit is stable and trigs properly as it seems but I fail to see where it goes wrong..
Any hints? The game works perfectly in all emulators supporting the RC3 dongle btw.

Regards,
Per

[gimbal]

Epic, we're getting into cracking by hardware now.

[Pernas]

Well yes, and on top of that, when the box-set of RC3 finally arrived, it was the Ocean EU-version with a leaflet mentioning the dongle but also a manual with the codes so no need for the dongle after all but still, It would have been nice to know why it didn't work. Only thing I didn't try was to use pin 1 instead of 3 but that shouldn't matter since bit 8 should behave the same...

[Megalomaniac]

Didn't the dongle mean you couldn't play Robocop 3 on an A600 (as well as it not working on the A1200 - looks like the budget release fixed those issues). Sadly it was a classic case of inconveniencing the legitimate buyers far more than the crackers or the players of pirated software.

I known some cracks of Rainbow Islands have a bad World 4 Level 1 (level 13, perhaps deliberately) which you automatically get through without being able to play - I think the Quartex one is fine (and, perhaps coincidentally, works on an A1200 when the other one doesn't)

[Captain_ Kal]

Originally Posted by lantus360

Big thanks to Galahad for helping out with this episode. Please Enjoy

[ Show youtube player ]

Same here. Love your videos!! Especially those about Xbox Series Dev Mode!!

[Picard]

Anybody know if "The Hit Squad" release of Robocop 3 for amiga, comes with or needs a dongle ?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Picard

Anybody know if "The Hit Squad" release of Robocop 3 for amiga, comes with or needs a dongle ?

No, just a document check.

[Calabazam]

That dongle used to piss me off. When it was forgotten in place, it could disturb other games when playing. I don't remember the game but my mouse was going up like if there was a joystick stuck on up.

[PatmanQC]

Sorry if this is been asked but did you Brits have to use a dongle to play 10th frame bowling on the 64? Here the states the game was only released on disk and it came with a dongle

[BarryB]

I have both NTSC and PAL versions of 10th Frame on the 64 and they both need a dongle, or you could use a Datasette with the PLAY button pressed!!

[PatmanQC]

Originally Posted by BarryB

I have both NTSC and PAL versions of 10th Frame on the 64 and they both need a dongle, or you could use a Datasette with the PLAY button pressed!!

That is hilarious! I never knew that. A friend of mine had the disk version without the dongle but there was an instruction included with it on how to use alligator clips to bypass it. He ended up frying his 64. He sure was mad at me LOL

[RichL]

Originally Posted by PatmanQC

Sorry if this is been asked but did you Brits have to use a dongle to play 10th frame bowling on the 64? Here the states the game was only released on disk and it came with a dongle

Not that I remember no.

[CCCP alert]

Nah, I had 10th frame in the full price release, because it was developed by the talent that brought us Leaderboard 1, and no dongle or anything.

[BarryB]

I have C64 disk versions of 10th Frame and both need a dongle!

Possibly the cassette releases didn't use dongles as the instructions say to keep PLAY, FAST FORWARD or REWIND pressed while playing:

[Megalomaniac]

With hindsight, the need for the cassette player to be kept active on the cassette version of 10th Frame should probably have been seen as a clue of how to override the protection on the disk version? Presumably the anti-piracy system was designed by people unaware that Europe would need a cassette version too?

[BarryB]

A datasette can be used with the Disk version to pass the dongle check, I tried it years ago on real hardware and it works!

But now WinVICE is what I use for emulation the datasette trick also works for the Disk version!

[CCCP alert]

You know what the best Anti-piracy dongle in the history of video games ever was?

It was the sound expansion cartridge bundled with B.A.T. for the ST for a measly £9.99 extra that allowed the ST to play the Amiga 4 channel DAC based audio. That is the only sort of 'dongle' that will kill piracy, it's not like Fairlight/Crystal/Melon are going to be sending you a free PCB in the post to play the game lol so if you pirate it you will only get the YM sound like some sort of plebeian

There was some sort of cartridge that plugged onto the Amiga video port and gave you a chunky 8bit mode IIRC, stuff like that as a 'dongle' would have worked because it's required. Making 512kb mapped ROM C64/64GS cartridge games is another, if the game engine is over 64kb it's not going to get cracked and put on disk images for BBS download or postal based disk swapping.

Everything else will just annoy actual paying customers AND do nothing to stop piracy. Unless every alternate line of ASM in the game engine is doing something with this 'dongle' it is going to be days not months before such games are up on the BBS servers of the sceners back then.

[redblade]

I guess for a game like Robocop you could make a chunky gfx output dongle like the grafiti which might get you a few extra FPS on output. But I guess Galahad/Stingray/Phantasm would just patch a c2p routine in the release. This has the advantage of working on all Amigas.

I don't know if the hardware would have been chunky 4 bitplanes out dc.w $0123 each nibble being 1 16 bit colour, or if they would have went for the full 12 bit for each move.w being one 12 bit colour.