RoboCop 3 - Dongle Anti-Piracy that Failed

[lantus360]

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

[ Show youtube player ]

[Shoonay]

Wow, MVG is that really you? Big fan, keep up the great work, love your cracking vids, thank you!

[lantus360]

appreciated thank you

[Flimbo]

Fairlight cut scene *ominous music* .... cue laughter.

Big fan of the channel and I have to say that I was surprised how interested I was in these anti piracy stories. They are brilliant. Some of these piracy groups are as well known as the software houses in the same period.

[gimbal]

There is something about a calm, carefully articulated delivery that elevates channels like MVG above others. MVG, LGR and RetroManCave form the holy trinity for me. Truly excellent work.

[Flimbo]

Originally Posted by gimbal

There is something about a calm, carefully articulated delivery that elevates channels like MVG above others. MVG, LGR and RetroManCave form the holy trinity for me. Truly excellent work.

MVG always seems incredibly well researched too and his videos dont feel padded out. I dont subscribe to LGR and appreciate this heads up.

[lantus360]

Originally Posted by Flimbo

MVG always seems incredibly well researched too and his videos dont feel padded out. I dont subscribe to LGR and appreciate this heads up.

haha well i talked to Galahad himself and he went through every single detail with me. i didnt want to release something that was half baked

[Superman]

Good watch this I admit I did aquire a crack of this game back in the day after reading about the "uncrackable dongle" it came with.

[lmimmfn]

Great work MVG, thoroughly enjoyed that and remember it back in the day where i wanted Robocop 3 but wouldnt support the use of dongles( imagine if it took off and you the hassle of having 1 dongle per game and finding the one you needed).
Also great to have another amiga video

Just something minor but quite sure all computer versions of Robocop 1 were complete and that Data East bought the rights to the Ocean version for the arcade. Agreed that the Amiga version wasnt the greatest though.

[Shoonay]

Wow, dat pink manual... screams RoboCop, doesn't it?

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Shoonay

Wow, dat pink manual... screams RoboCop, doesn't it?

You know why it's pink don't you Shoonay?

I haven't seen the inside but if it's pink too; it's because it won't photocopy well.

[Shoonay]

Yeah, I guess, but those weren't the only colors that were hard to xero.

[solarmon]

The front cover of the manual shouldn't (really need to) be protected like it the contents, if it is to be used for manual copy protection.

[T_hairy_bootson]

I remember Leaderboard golf having a dongle well before robocop 3.

Great video, All your videos go into so much detail, its good stuff.

Fun fact: Orion the studio was going through bankruptcy so the movie sat on the shelf and the games came out first.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by T_hairy_bootson

I remember Leaderboard golf having a dongle well before robocop 3.

Great video, All your videos go into so much detail, its good stuff.

Fun fact: Orion the studio was going through bankruptcy so the movie sat on the shelf and the games came out first.

The movie was absolutely terrible

[Flimbo]

I completed Robocop II at the arcades in South Shields when I was a kid. You had to complete the end of Robocop at the beginning of the game which was very cool. I never (and still dont) have an amiga that can run Robocop 3

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

The movie was absolutely terrible

I never watched it despite being a huge fan of the first two.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Flimbo

I never watched it despite being a huge fan of the first two.

Yeah stay away from Robocop 3 and the failed reboot. PG-13 Robocop is just a dude in a robot suit walking/flying around and punching people, everything that made Robocop stand out (funny gore, political satire, decent acting) is removed from these movies.

[cynix]

Interesting video, thanks. I didn't know about that dongle protection on the Amiga version.

The ST version didn't use a dongle protection, it sounds like it used the same protection as the Amiga "Platinum" version as there was lots of trace decoding encryption on the front end, a manual word protection + a special disk format that I had to convert to a normal 11 sector format to make it copyable.

Maybe when the "Platinum" version was released on the Amiga they realised how weak the dongle protection had been so just used the same protection method they'd used earlier on the ST.

The dongle checks do seem to have been very poorly implemented, to do that stuff well you need to have a 2 way communication with the game code sending data out to the dongle and the dongle sending data back that's actually used by the game code. Just checking for preset inputs as they did made it no better than a normal disk protection type check and so it could be cracked in the same way.

[Mikerochip]

I have the Atari ST version of this. Got it only a few weeks after it came out (Well, maybe a bit longer, but not much) and it had a stick on the front that said dongle no longer required.
(And obviously, it came without one, and worked fine)

The disks and manual were exactly the same though.

[Dastardly]

Very interesting video. A lot of the techy stuff was beyond me, but it was still done in an enjoyable way.

Fascinating to hear about what went on behind the scenes back then. Could the top level crackers themselves have created an uncrackable protection system, or is it just not possible?