🚀 go-pugleaf

Late last week, I finally received Moebius from the campus computer store
(after recieving and returning an SE fan by Mobius...).

Excitement, excitement... Open the shrink-wrap, copy it to my hard drive,
remove the excess System Folder, and double click.  No problem, works
beautifully.  GREAT!  So, I quit the game, unmount the master disc, and
put it away for safe keeping.

Double-click the game again-- machine crashes after a good-way into the load.

Hmmm... The game works fine from the master, but won't work off the hard drive.
A fresh copy does the same thing-- won't work from hard drive.

Aw, hell...

Call the company-- they give me the number for 'tech support'.  Call that.

After a length discussion, I finally get the guy to admit that the game
is copy protected... it requires the master disk to be in the internal drive
when I run it.  BUT I HAVE TRIED THAT! It doesn't work-- "What kind of machine
do you have?"
me: "MacPlus w/2.5 megs of RAM"
him: "Let's see... looking Moebius up on the support chart, it says it works
 on a 512Ke, an SE, and a Mac II."
me: "What about a Plus?"
him: "not on the list-- not supported"
me: "It worked fine once, why isn't it working now... could it be the copy
 protection?"
him: "err, uh, maybe... i don't know much about Macintosh, you would have to
 talk to a mac guru."
me: "Is there one their to talk to?"
him: "<negative reply of some sort>"
me: "Thanks, I will see what I can figure out..."

After playing with Moebius, it does work fine a Mac Plus, but you have to
put the master disk in the EXTERNAL drive...  Note that it is not documented
(that I could find) that there is copy protection, nor does the game ever
ask for the master disk.

The ONLY reason why the game won't work on a MacPlus is the copy protection;
but a copy of the game will work fine on a Mac II (the protection doesn't
work on the II...).  How incredibly stupid!

Needless to say, the company will be receiving a call from me tomorrow...

Now, the patch:

I had a look this afternoon, and was able to remove the copy protection in
fairly short order (and have not had a single problem with the game on my
MacPlus since then)....

Use a disk editor and find:

6604 4EBA 2EA8 422D

and change to:

6604 4E71 4E71 422D

BTW: Other than the incredibly stupid and annoying copy-protection, Moebius
 is an excellent game!

BBTW: A similar patch can be applied to AutoDuel-- Find: 6604 4EBA 017A 422D
Change To: 6604 4E71 4E71 422D

BBBTW: The patch to Moebius is intended to allow people with MacPlus's to
actually play the game-- it is not meant to aid in piracy of the game
(I bought it because I though it was worth it, and would have returned it if
 I hadn't been able to remove the protection).  Autoduel for the same reasons--
though I don't think the game is worth buying, and have since deleted the
copy that I tried the patch on.
Hope this makes someone's gaming life a little more enjoyable...

b.bum
wb1j+@andrew.cmu.edu