Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994

[Ray Arachelian]

Richard wrote:
> As with copy protection in the past, activation protection will be
> reverse engineered and patched out in order to keep abandonware
> running -- assuming people care enough to do the work.  Now, what's
> really important is to keep the bits archived, even if they are
> license locked.  Eventually someone may care and by then having the
> archived bits is what will count.
>
>   
One thing I'd like to add to this, is that you'd want to copy the
installation on the machine that it is installed on.  i.e. entire hard
drive, and any relevant bits such as MAC address, kind of hardware,
etc.  You'd want to do this with at least two identically installed
systems (but different serial #'s, so not site licensed) so that way you
can diff the installs. The differences will point the future reverse
engineer to where the serial numbers or whatever else involved in the
DRM are stored and will help in stripping it away.