Paleotronic

Regarding the copy protection process itself, there's an interesting interview at one of the links:

> The most common protection schemes were the ones that were productized and resold to hundreds of publishers. This was coordinated through the disk duplication houses, who offered copy protection as a “value add” on top of mastering the disks themselves. Publishers got the benefit of the latest and greatest copy protection without needing to play the cat-and-mouse game themselves.

> The E7 bitstream, a.k.a. “generic bit slip protection,” was the most common. It was a sequence of 1s and 0s, specially crafted so the first half could be read “in phase,” then the code would intentionally skip half a byte and read the second half “out of phase.” Bit copiers would drop bits due to hardware limitations, and the out-of-phase values would be wrong. It was brilliant.

https://paleotronic.com/2018/06/15/confessions-of-a-disk-cracker-the-secrets-of-4am/

I recall circa 1985 I really wanted to sign up for QuantumLink, aka Q-Link, which I had seen advertised on the back of a C64 video game package (maybe M.U.L.E.?). The idea of chatting with other people through my computer was fascinating. I was six. I asked my mother about it and with splendid foresight of the modern world, she said no, that I would probably get molested or something.

"Quantum Link users could send electronic mail, use on-line chat rooms, download files, read the news, send instant messages to other users, and play a number of multiplayer games, including classic board games and games inspired by contemporary TV game shows. In late 1986, Q-Link expanded, adding casino games, a database dedicated to rock music, an on-line auction service and the ability for users to have customised avatars digitised from photos they sent in to the service."

https://paleotronic.com/2018/07/01/a-1980s-quantum-link-to-a-modern-day-mutiny/

Clickbait. This is not quite the same as teaching Apple II LOGO turtlegraphics, which was taught to me in private elementary (primary) school around grade 2 (7-8 years old). It teaches sequences and repetition, but neither paradigm nor pair of concepts are Turing complete so I wouldn't call them "programming." Perhaps if they built on foundation concepts in subsequent grades, then that would be respectable. Btw, here's a SpaceWars game in Apple II LOGO using the full language. [0]

PS: Once upon a time, Finland turned around their education system from being one of the worst to being one of the best, by among many other changes, eliminating many multiple choice tests and homework that weren't adding value to overall education quality. Michael Moore showcased this in one of his documentaries, Where to Invade Next?

0. https://paleotronic.com/2018/09/27/ancient-tongues-logo-spacewar/

4am has cracked loads of apple ii games, and after doing several hundred manually, automated it as a set of python scripts, https://github.com/a2-4am/passport an article with interview here, https://paleotronic.com/2018/06/15/confessions-of-a-disk-cracker-the-secrets-of-4am/

These lab notebooks of the cracking process are shared for titles that could not automatically be cracked.

These are the only public records of reverse engineering these titles, though many did this in the 80’s the techniques and findings were never shared beyond the cracks themselves, and 4am is so practiced and proficient I think he definitely wins the title of the best apple ii cracker in history!

Steve Wozniak's story of making the Apple ][ floppy disk is an absolute must read, if you have not yet enjoyed it.

https://paleotronic.com/2018/05/19/steve-wozniak-talks-disk/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17101830

The story was included with many other Woz tales in jl's book "Founders at Work"

http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html