# Copy Protection on PC Games in 80s/90s
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 6, 2002, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840 "2002-12-06T02:59:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/1 "2002-12-06T02:59:51Z")
This question could have fallen in any number of fourms, but GQ’s as good as any, I would think.
How widespread was the practice of copy protection on home computer video games in the 80s and 90s? Even if you can’t provide percentages, breakdowns of games that anyone can recall as having or not having copy protection would be apreciated.
---
### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/2 "2002-12-06T03:08:35Z")
I’d be surprised to learn they weren’t pretty much ALL copyrighted. Were a significant number actually not?
---
### Author:  [@deathawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deathawk)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/3 "2002-12-06T03:42:08Z")
I think he is refering to the practice of software makers attempting to prevent un-authorized copies of their software being made.
IIRC - this was pretty widespread during the 80’s in the days of the Apple II and initial IBMs. As in most tried it at some level or other. The schemes got pretty byzantine, but were ultimately unsuccessful - after all, ultimately this was just 1s & 0s on a magnetic medium. Also the underground software used to get around these schemes pretty much kept up with, or outstripped the schemes themselves. I seem to recall this dying out by the mid 90s as CD keys came into prominence.
---
### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/4 "2002-12-06T03:48:58Z")
Doh! I misread, sorry.
---
### Author:  [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/5 "2002-12-06T03:49:53Z")
Copy protection, not copywriting. All commercial programs were copywrited, and most had methods to prevent unauthorized copying.
One method was to hide invisible or hidden files on the disk. When a hacker copied the files to a new disk manually, the key files would be left behind, and the copy wouldn’t run. This could be defeated by a bit-for-bit disk copier which ignored the file structure completely.
Another method was for the program to ask the user questions on start-up which could only be answered if the user was in possesion of the game manual. These were also pretty easy to defeat, although some game manufacturers went so far as to print key parts of the manual in odd colors that couldn’t be copied by the black-and-white copiers of the day, or build weird decoder-keys that were difficult to reproduce.
Rumor has it some manufacturers went so far as to use a special disk drive which could write a half-charge onto a part of the disk, so that when read it would randomly return a one or zero from that section. Obviously, this would make the disk impossible to reproduce exactly, and the program would refuse to run if it didn’t detect the special half-magnetic-charge region. I don’t know if this was an actual copy-protecting method, but this was one of the explanations that floated around as to why some disks were uncopyable. Similar rumors were that some disks had a small section of the disk cut out or burned so as to be unusable, and the program would test that region and refuse to run if it was functional. Now that I think about it, these explanations sound pretty unlikely.
---
### Author:  [@Donovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donovan)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/6 "2002-12-06T04:47:38Z")
as to the original post, Almost of the games I played on my C64 during the 80s were copy protected, but judging from the fact that most of my games were cracked copies back then, CP couldn’t have been that good. You could also get around CP by using specific file copiers that had seperate copy parameters for each game, IIRC.\*
> [@](#):
>
> Similar rumors were that some disks had a small section of the disk cut out or burned so as to be unusable, and the program would test that region and refuse to run if it was functional. Now that I think about it, these explanations sound pretty unlikely.
As for this part, I have recently heard that some manufacturers are now doing this with games on CD (actually, I heard they are putting a hole in the CD at a specific spot in the CD) and if the CD in the drive doesn’t have the hole, the program will refuse to run, even if you make a perfect image copy of the original CD in question. I cannot vouch for the truth of that info, though.
\*Before anyone starts lecturing me about intellectual property rights, I was about 11-16 years old during this period, and was completely unfamiliar with the concept. I do not condone illegal copying of software and do not currently own any illegally copied software…
---
### Author:  [@Donovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donovan)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/7 "2002-12-06T04:48:48Z")
err, ALMOST all…
---
### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/8 "2002-12-06T04:51:04Z")
**AndrewL** , both of those last possibilities seem pretty farfetched, as the game would actually have to be able to access the floppy drivers (I think) to be able to tell if the disk was half-charged or burned out. Without that control (and probably even with it), the game would just get a read error from that sector, which is just what you’d get when you tried to copy it.
The only copy protection schemes I remember were the ones that required you to have the manual. As a result, the pirate games of that time cost a couple bucks more… you had to get yourself a photocopy of the manual too. These were certainly the most widespread, but I’m sure there were others.
---
### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/9 "2002-12-06T04:56:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by AndrewL \*
> \*\*Similar rumors were that some disks had a small section of the disk cut out or burned so as to be unusable, and the program would test that region and refuse to run if it was functional. Now that I think about it, these explanations sound pretty unlikely. \*\*
[Strange, but true:](http://www.oldskool.org/shrines/lbd/)
> [@](#):
>
> The most expensive method of copy protection was also the most effective: Physically damage the disk. Using a laser, it was possible to burn a small hole in the disk surface, and then all the program had to do was check to see if there was a read error in that particular sector, and if so, continue running the program. If you turned the disk surface manually by grabbing the inside ring, \*\*you could actually see a tiny hole in the disk surface! \*\*
Other methods discussed on the same site:
> [@](#):
>
> **Simple trickery.** Format a diskette as single-sided, but then store the secret copy-protection information on a track formatted on the second side. DISKCOPY would read the boot sector, determine that the disk was single-sided, and only bother copying the first side.
>
> **User stupidity.** The program would simply try writing a dummy file to the disk. Since most commercial software came on write-protected disks, the write would fail, and the program would continue. But if you’d just made a copy, chances were high that you’d forget to write-protect the disk when you were finished, and the write would succeed, which then aborted the program.
>
> **Secret hardware information.** Most disk drives could actually seek beyond track 40; usually to 41. Some software companies formatted that extra track (DISKCOPY didn’t go that high) and stored secret info in it for the program to check.
>
> **Wacko disk formats.** This is when you go slightly beyond the obvious, like formatting a normal 9-sector track with 10 or 11 sectors (or less, like 4 or 5), or by writing an incorrect track ID (track 20 says its track 30, etc.), or something similar. DISKCOPY didn’t know how to handle stuff outside the norm like this, so you usually needed a special program like CopyIIPC or CopyWrite to analyze the diskette thoroughly, then attempt to duplicate the format. This was about 66% successful; the other 33% you had to do yourself, usually (I personally used the Ultra Utilities). Electronic Arts had one of the best schemes in the early 80’s; I couldn’t figure it out until about 1985. They formatted track 15 with over 90 sectors! 😃
>
> **Weak Bits.** Some bits on the disk were recorded as halfway between 1 and 0, which made the disk difficult to copy. This wasn’t used too often because it was unreliable, even on the original disk!
---
### Author:  [@moes\_lotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moes_lotion)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/10 "2002-12-06T05:05:26Z")
Actually, one copy protection scheme that was used involved formatting the distribution diskette in a non-standard way that MS-DOS could not copy. The game software, of course, knew where on the disk the formatting changed and how to deal with it to run/install the game. There was even a commercial program, CopyRite, that was designed to defeat these sort of schemes. Their rational was that as the legitimate owner of such a disk, one had the right to make a back-up copy. The purposeful damaging of a sector on the diskette was also used - early versions of LodeRunner for example. In this case the copy protection was that the program would try to access the damaged sector and if no error resulted the game wouldn’t run. This scheme was also easily defeated by installing a TSR that would intercept any read to the supposedly damaged sector and return a false error.
---
### Author:  [@moes\_lotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moes_lotion)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/11 "2002-12-06T05:07:20Z")
Arrgh! While I was carefully previewing my reply, **Fear Itself** beat me to it!
---
### Author:  [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/12 "2002-12-06T05:10:20Z")
No, actually as someone who used to defeat this stuff in the old days(used to…mispent youth dont you know), it was comon to burn a part of the disk, to where it would no longer hold data. Then, the software would try to write to that sector, then would get an error. If the disk held data at that location, it would know it was a copy. If the program couldnt write to non-burned sectors, it knows its just copy protected. (were talking dos days back then, you could get to the hardware). To defeat it, it often was as simple as changing a jump if equal to to a jump if not equal to. Turbo Debugger was a wonderful thing.
Things are a bit more sophisticated now, and I am not about to go into how to defeat current protection.
---
### Author:  [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/13 "2002-12-06T05:14:03Z")
Damnit…Me too.
---
### Author:  [@mblackwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mblackwell)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/14 "2002-12-06T08:02:24Z")
Currently, I Believe, there is one technology that is impossible to defeat in a way to make a working 1:1 copy of a CD ROM. I think it is the newest version of secureRom. They acually make the edge of one of the tracks on the cd wavy, and this cannot be reproduced by a CD writer. Of course, game pirates can still use copied versions using special software, but the honest users who want a backup are screwed. And maybe, a user who has been screwed is more likely to become a pirate?
[/hijack]
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/15 "2002-12-06T09:15:09Z")
Back in the day, I worked on a system that kept an encoded text file on the disk; when decoded, it contained the volume serial number (not the volume label) of the install disk, which is not something that the average user can edit easily. If you tried to install it from a disk other than the original, it just wouldn’t.
---
### Author:  [@ShadowWarrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowWarrior)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/16 "2002-12-06T09:23:49Z")
The most prevalent copy-protection that I ever noticed is one that has mostly disappearred now: requiring you to enter word 7 from paragraph 2 of page 36 of the manual - or use some other decoding device to enter a code at random points in the game.
---
### Author:  [@SC\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SC_Wolf)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/17 "2002-12-06T09:25:44Z")
Those are certainly the methods used for copy protection.
What I’m looking for was how widespread the practice was. Was it used on a majority of the games of the time? Was there any point in the history of the PC game industry when copy protection was not used to some extent?
---
### Author:  [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/18 "2002-12-06T11:20:58Z")
Back in my own C-64 days, more than a few games I owned either manual word checks, or odd code devices, as others have mentioned. Remember the code wheels used for the first couple of Forgotten Realms AD&D games?
(For the curious: there were three paper discs, bound together in the middle, with english letters around the outside edge of one disk, elven characters on the middle one, and dwarvish runes on the smallest disk. That third disk also had a series on holes punched in it, which revealed letters printed on the second disk. The game would call for you to line up three specific characters, then input the code word you got from all that. Annoying as hell when you used a smaller TV as a monitor, because the elvish runes in particular were a bitch to make out on a small screen.)
**Elite** (I think it was) used this wonky little magnifying glass/prism device you had to place against the screen, to read the code word the game would give you on startup, which you then typed in at the copy check. After ten or eleven times, you started recognizing the two letter code without using the “magic viewer.”
**Wasteland** came with a manual and a “paragraphs book”, which was referenced heavily during the game. I seem to think there was an in game check (though about halfway through the game, not right at startup) that called for you to act on some information only presented in the book. **Space Rogue** used a similar gag, I think, though the info it wanted came directly from the game manual.
I’d WAG that better then 75% of the games I owned had some form of copy protection, if that means anything to you. Backing up your original disks (or needing to play on a copy of the original disks) was necessary for certain games ( **Wasteland** is the only one I’m positive about, but I know there were quite a few), and all of these used a ‘manual check’ form of protection.
[sub]Pirated games? How foolish! How would you get your hands on them cool ass little feelies that came with the games?[/sub]
---
### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/19 "2002-12-06T11:43:34Z")
From my ZX Spectrum days I remember little cassette inlay cards with grids of coloured squares; the program would ask you to enter the colour at a certain grid ref.
---
### Author:  [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2002, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840/20 "2002-12-06T11:49:31Z")
One of my favorite copy protections was in _Space Quest IV_ (1991). You only had to enter it once, about 20% of the way into the game, and it was only one page of the instruction manual you’d have to photocopy. Not even any tricky colors or anything. Even though it was inserted into the story of the game (you had to enter an access code to start a vehicle), when the screen came up it said, “Okay, here’s the stupid copy protection.”
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/copy-protection-on-pc-games-in-80s-90s/140840.md?page=2)