This was cutting edge tech… I remember the excitement of replacing floppy discs with CDRs…

  • wewbull@feddit.uk
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    4 days ago

    People in the thread are talking about limewire, but I think they are missing the bigger reference here.

    Downloading games, burning them onto CD-Rs and then using a Sharpie to make the inner tracks of the disc unreadable as they contained the copy protection.

    My only confusion is that I swear it was Playstation and not PC that worked like this.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      4 days ago

      using a Sharpie to make the inner tracks of the disc unreadable as they contained the copy protection.

      That’s something I’m too brazilian to understand. It was harder to get an unmodded playstation than a modded one that could run any burned CD

    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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      4 days ago

      For Playstation games you had to get one of the nicer-quality CD-Rs and burn it at a slower speed than usual. Also I remember I got a replacement disk drive cover for my PS2 that allowed you to pull it open with a hook. I’d boot up the console with a legit disc, then use the hook to open the drive without the console knowing and swap in a pirated disc.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      That sounds extremely imprecise, was that really a thing? I grew up with an NES, so I’m pretty sure I’m old enough to have heard of this (and my friend had a PlayStation). Pirated games already had any copy protection stripped anyway.

      That’s why I assumed the sharpie was just for writing what’s on the disc. I did that plenty.

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        3 days ago

        Calling it “tracks” probably gave the wrong impression. It was a ring around the hub that looked a bit different.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          Ah, so you colored between lines? That makes sense. I guess it would make sense for them to have a fixed unusable region to separate game content from copy protection.