LOGGED TO: EVERYMAN'S BOARD DATE : 04/04/1986 MESSAGE : UNIVERSAL POST #1 LEFT BY : Hot Rod ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ I don't know how I arrived to where I'm at now. I definitely lost control long ago and it's time to fade to black completely. First, though, I would really like to clear up a few things about this 'Hot Rod' character and answer a few questions. I've always been the silent type in the computer world. The only boards I ever called were local to me. I never put out text files preaching my opinions down your computer's throat, nor filled them with misinformation of the type you find in the awesome 'features' section of the k-rad boards. I've been the Ghost In the Machine. I never phreaked around the country to say, "What up, Dude?" to all so many faceless aliases. I don't know you and you don't know me. Well, this is my one post to offer to all the boards I never called, my one conversation to all the people who said they "just talked with me", my one defense to a few accusations and misconceptions. I'm trying to be as candid as possible, but of course this will be perceived as being arrogant and egotistical. I anticipate this reaction because that is what always happens in our computer world. All I can say is that this common misconception of people is one reason for the demise of the electronic person society we created. Another reason is that somewhere along the development of our little underground, some people got the idea that what was going on was somehow 'important' and that it should be exhaulted and worshipped and made into something only 'elite' people could participate in. This created the hierarchy we suffer through now. And this is wrong. I am constantly reminded of 'Lord of the Flies'. Step back and gain some perspective on what has happened and hopefully you'll see how ridiculous we've actually become. Pirates? No, more like politicians. I keep getting the impression that everyone is running for office. Where's the contest folks? The groups, the boards, the people. It keeps getting worse and worse as each Christmas rolls past. Well, count me out. I cracked to learn how to program, not how to win a contest. I learned to program alright, but I also learned that the more you do for people, the more they want. Everyone is always wanting more, the latest, the best. Talk about arrogant and egotistical. I can't help but laugh; and I'm not alone in doing so either. It is easy to get swept up in the excitement, I know. But I think that it's also possible to just step back and say, "Enough!" Give yourself a little test. Pass up getting 1 new ware. Try it. Maybe 2 new wares, or even more. If you can't do it, you do have problems. Well, enough of this stuff. Another area I'd like to address is my pirating history. Seems to be quite a few wrongs here. Possibly this is from my silent attitude and no board policy. Briefly, I was an independent pursuing cracking locally, so I could teach myself assembly language. I met up with Incognito and the MPG. Then I met Warezird and talked a lot with Apple Rebel (I still have not met him). A few of my cracks filtered around, I called boards like the Safehouse and the Curse and generally got introduced to the pirate world. We had real pirate parties back in those days. Trading done in person! This was back in late 1983 and into 1984. Then I joined MPG for a brief stay. I bailed out into the Racketeers before MPG died completely (I could see it coming). The Racks were founded by Apple Rebel, not me, as I've seen written before. This went on into early 1985. After Archon II, the Racks broke up, mainly due to differences between Time Lord and Apple Rebel. I joined Black Bag at that time, and I guess that's where I'm at, although I've quit cracking for public consumption. Pretty quick rise and fall, eh? But that's the way it is for us, isn't it? My next topic in this area has to do with my so-called reputation for having millions of patches and bad-cracks. Absolutley not true. And to prove it, I've compiled a list of everything I've ever cracked and added a few notes of explanation. This is accurate to within a few as far I know. I never wrote down the crack details until just recently, so if I wanted to do any again, I'd be stuck with just that. Now for the list... As an independent ----------------- Pie Man Pandora's Box Crush, Crumble, Chomp Ken Uston's Pro Black Jack Homeword Lancaster Empire of the Overmind Threshhold Pegasus II Torpedo Terror Bezare Millionare Sheila Mecc Grade Manager Vortex Micro League Baseball (old) Peeping Tom Dawn Patrol Edufun Jar Game/Chaos Robot War Shuttle Intercept Time Is Money Financial Cookbook Executive Briefing System The General Manager v2.0o Information Master Sensible Speller 4.0e Bank Street Writer (old) Bank Street Speller (old) Mecc Data Handler Softerm I ENBasic Apple Cillin Bag of Tricks Dealer Diagnostics Cross Country Rallye Crime Wave Ultima II Dragon Fire Ulysses and the Golden Fleece Apple Adventure Oldorf's Revenge Outpost Apventure to Atlantis Time Zone Kaves of Karkhan Rings of Saturn Galactic Empire Tawala's Last Redoubt Kabul Spy Jenny of the Prairie Prisoner 2 Crystal Caverns Masquerade Jigsaw S.E.U.I.S. Galactic Gladiators Crossword Magic v3.0 How About A Nice Game of Chess?--this one lead into MPG. I also fixed a bug that the company had in it. Called the company on a conference and told them. Meteor Multiplication Demolition Division Minus Mission Alien Addition Fraction Factory/Piece of Cake Early Games/Music For Children Explorer Metros Sticky Bear Basket Bounce Sticky Bear Numbers Sticky Bear ABC Quizagon Sticky Bear Bop Kindercomp Visi-Calc Expand Master-Type SAT English Moptown Parade Gertrude's Secrets Rocky's Boots Locksmith 5.0f Copy II+ 4.4c While in MPG ------------ From now on, a 'p' denotes that the crack was done over the phone, meaning that I got the data I worked with from someone who had either a bit copy or usually an original. It's a wonder anything worked at all, really. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Skyfox Murder on the Zinderneuf-p Championship LodeRunner--while I did not crack this one, I did introduce the pirate world to 'scrolling' title pages, something I've learned to regret in light of all the subsequent occurances of it. Bleh. It was fun for awhile though, you must admit...(I not trying to sound stuffy here, I'm just telling the truth). Archon--ok, this one had a patch. But I wrote the patch for the Burglar's crack. I cracked it myself to see what he missed, and then rather than put out a whole new version of it, I wrote a program to fix it. To my knowledge, this is the first time a patch was done this way. While in MPG I also wrote a program to create the scrolling routines. I never gave it out, because it was kinda tricky to use and I never completely finished it. But I would still use mine over any of the others out now. While in Racketeers ------------------- (again, p=phone) Fishies-p Run For It-p Short Circuit-p (I didn't crack this, it was NOT protected. I did the strange title page movement, which for some reason a lot of people copied) Nato Commander-p Archon II-p (I didn't even see it until it was all done) Rescue Raiders-p Ok, this one had two releases. The first we got from a beta tester and should never have been released, since it wasn't finished. The real version (v1.2) had a bug in it from Sir-Tech because of leftover Mockingboard code, which they did not intend to leave in. I put out a patch to correct this. Sir-Tech put out a new version to correct it. Take your pick. I don't own a Mockingboard, so how the heck was I supposed to know? I also changed the cheat password. It used to be POPPY, but for fun, I made it ZIPPY. I remember someone writing into HardCore Computist saying it was ZIPPY... Dawn Treader-p Micro League Baseball (new, but beta version) Micro Logic System Billboard 2 (well, I wrote this) Queen of Phobos Farenheit 451-p Earthly Delights-p Tracer Sanction-p Shadowkeep--Well, this one had a legitimate problem with the crack, but it easily could never have happened if the program did not have a small bug in it. I know that's a weak excuse, but it's true. The main loop for the program starts at $860. Everything comes back to that spot except one place where it comes back to $85D. The only reason the original didn't bomb is because the code leftover at $85D (from the BOOT!) was harmless code. I had a JSR to $FC58, which clears the text page and wipes out RWTS. This bug took me 10 hours to TRACE down. The Dallas Quest-p This is a story of phone cracking. There was no patch to this one, but a whole new release. The first attempt was over the phone. I got the data from The Ace's demuffin job. I cracked it exactly the same way the second time, but we had an original the second time. There were 30 differences in sectors on the back side. But, sigh, our original had a bad track $10, sector $06 on the back side. So, it hangs at one spot still. Know what? I DON'T CARE!!!! Phantasie-p Mask of the Sun 7 Cities of Gold-p (Mine works. Period. Read about it in Hardcore.) Lucifer's Realm-p Computer Bismarck Computer Ambush II Computer Ambush Sideways Archon Shape Editor (Serendipity) While in Black Bag (Active) --------------------------- AD Toolkit (part author) Evelyn Woods' Dynamic Reader-p Up and Add 'Em-p Reach For The Stars v2.0 L.A. Land Monopoly Kampfgruppe Critical Mass Turtle Trax-p The Hobbit-p There was a patch for this one, but only to give it a faster boot. I got so I couldn't stand the company's slow one, so I fixed mine and decided to share. Adventure Construction Set-p Ultima IV-p (my last official crack) Beneath the Pyramids Racter Holy Grail-p Inca-p Sword of Kadash Micro-Dynamo Cranston Manor Mission Asteroid Mind Prober (I redid this after discovering that Incog's had problems) Bank Street Writer //c Bank Street Writer //e Enhanced Pinball Construction Set Summer Games II-p Zaxxon 128k Maxi-Golf-p Halley Project-p (I also put out a patch for someone else's crack) Sabotage II (everyone's favorite, right? Author) Captain Goodnight-p Now, this one I feel was my worst job ever. I got called and pleaded with to do this before everybody else got it out. So I basically rushed through it. I missed the high score save problem completely in my rush to get done. It will only save it if the disk is not write protected, and while I work on anything I always write protect it, hence I missed it. But, in addition to quickly fixing it that weekend, I also created a nice little cheat pre-boot for it. So, does that let me off the hook? But Noooooo.... Crime Stopper (2?)-p Narnia-p Gammon Gambler Ballblazer-p Keyboard Cadet-p Last Gladiator Wizard and the Princess While in Black Bag (retired?) ----------------------------- Europe Ablaze Apple Logo // The Goonies Catalyst 3.0 Tumble Bugs Swordthrust #1 PFS: Prodos Graph PFS: Prodos Write PFS: Prodos Report PFS: Prodos File Creative Writer Bookends v2.0.4 Super Scribe II Super Text Pro Magic Words Magic Mailer Magic Window Magic Memory Screenwriter 2.0 Creative Filer Troll & Tribulations Forecast-p Creative Calc Dollars + Sense III.14 Boulderdash II-p (I put this into a file from the full disk crack and fixed a bug in the program) Luscher Profile-p (I fixed someone else's) Railroad Works Silent Service Mousedesk Flight Simulator II v2.0 (almost done) These were in no particular order or anything. Pie Man was the first thing I ever did. So, you see I have not had the oodles and oodles of bad cracks, etc. that I am reputed too have had. In fact, I think it is quite clear that I have a pretty good track record. Phone cracks will only cause you trouble, but they can be accomplished. I would rate Shadowkeep as the most difficult I have done, with Fight Simulator II as second. It seems like I'm always asked that, so there's your answer. And that's roughly 170 cracks, to answer another common question. Of course, my versions are not always the standard ones that everyone has, but a few are I guess. The thing is, I don't care. I've always tried to maintain that undoing a protection scheme is far more interesting than the program it's protecting. (This is the case more than you'd think). And I tried to remember that what was going on was not important in any way. I look upon cracking as much the same as working crossword puzzles. It's all mind exercise. And I wanted to learn programming. Now that I feel confident in that respect, I can gain more satisfaction from creating my own programs instead of destroying someone else's. Pirating has had both positive and negative effects on the Apple computer, but I don't want to lecture on those. Pirating is dead. The 'rock star/group' (pirates/groups) attitude is what finished it off. My 'Hot Rod' character has been attacked in a few text files that I've seen across my screen in the past. I considered taking aim at my accusors in this file, but that does not solve anything. I remembered thinking how ludicrous I thought they were behaving but realized that any sensible person could see that as well. So I'll settle for just presenting the facts as they are and leaving it at that. I was going to also include comments on various people I've been in contact with throughout this mess, but that really serves no purpose that I can see. I don't like giving personality evaluations as much as some people seem to like reading or hearing them. If you've read this far, thanks for hearing me out. I was going to include in this file my notes and tips on cracking, but I decided that would make this way too long, so they will appear in another file (or more). Anyone wishing to contact me may leave mail on either of the boards listed at the end of this message. So, there you have it. Commence ragging. Sincerely, Hot Rod ----------------------------------------- Proving Grounds (612) 645-7132 user #2 Blackwater 100 (612) 544-3980 user #5 -a quick note- The origin of 'K' is Apple Bandit. He used to say, "Ok, bye" so fast, it came out as "K-bye". We started picking on him on the boards here, like Safehouse and Curse. It seems to have gotten quite a bit out of control since then, but I thought perhaps someone would be interested in this. Maybe not.