From: jarnis@mits.mdata.fi (Jarno Kokko)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Subject: Re: Any MGH Owners Out There?
Date: 6 Jan 93 10:42:43 GMT
Organization: Microdata Oy, Helsinki, Finland

In article <skelly.0mvx@amiganet.chi.il.us> skelly@amiganet.chi.il.us (Sean Kelly) writes:
> 
> 
>      There are an awful lot of messages here regarding the game copying
>systems and it seems nobody has any idea what they are or how they work etc...
>Couple of things to consider when buying them.  1) These are sold as ARCHIVING
>systems ONLY!  While it is not illegal to own one, it is illegal to have in
>your possession, a copy of a game that you do not own.  This also includes
>selling the cartridge and keeping the backup.  2) They are available plenty of
>places, but for the most part seem to be sold by computer BBS sysops.  3) For
>those of you that are wanting to run out and buy one and then go to your local
>video store and rent evey game in sight and copy them - most new games have 
>copy-protection now and your copy will not work.

HAHAHAHAHA.. What kind of shit is this? Theres EXACTLY TWO games for
SNES that are not copyable (Pilotwings and Mario Kart) and maybe 10-20
for Genesis (Which are just because the copier is lame - file versions
which are readed from cart using own hack systems float around) 

This ofcourse IF you have 16Mbit RAM. 8Mbit machines can't run/copy 
almost 15 games on SNES, and about 20 on Genesis.

> 
>     The way they work is it generally plugs into the cartridge port on your
>system.  On the back of the copier there is a port for the cable that goes to
>the disk drive (which is included with the Super Magic Drive (SMD) and the SMC
>- not sure about the Multi-Game Hunter).  When you turn your system on, whether
>you have a cartridge inserted or not, you are shown a menu which asks you,
>basically, if you want to play a cartridge (if one is inserted) or if you want
>to load a game from disk or save a game to disk (again, with a cartridge
>inserted).  While playing a cartridge the archival system is completely
>transparent.  To back-up a cartridge you selct "save game" and it reads all the
>data from the cartridge and stores it on the floppy from you you can then play
>the game without the cartridge inserted.
> 

Little bug: SNES copiers (Except MGD2, but that's a long story) don't
even THINK about booting up without a cart in the port, because SNES requires
the protection chip - so you need ONE original (Pilotwings is good one,
cause you can't copy it...)

>     As I said above, owning copies of games for which you do not own the
>cartridge is highly illegal and I have even hear that Nintendo has offered a
>"bounty" of sorts to a few people to turn in others that are illegally copying
>games.  HOWEVER, for my 50-75 bucks you bet your ass I am gonna have a backup
>of the cartridges I own.  Before buying my SMD I had three separate cartridges
>"die" on me for no apparant reason and I was out of luck and had to replace
>them!!
> 

Nintendo/Sega is just trying to kill it - but it won't succeed. There's 
MILLIONS of consoles sold, and only few thousand of these copier systems,
and piracy is ZERO problem in consoles. When in amiga, it's possible
that each copy they sell, there's 10 pirate copies. Not so on consoles.
ratio is more like 20 originals vs 1 floppy copy.

>     The bottom line - if you are looking for one in the hopes that you can run
>out to Blockbuster Video and rent every game they have and copy it - sorry, it
>won't happen.  Most of the new games have copy-protection and won't copy.  But
>if you are looking to protect what can be a VERY expensive investment with some
>of these games running 75 bucks a crack, it's worth it...
>

As I said before. about 99% of the games out are copyable. It is true
that it's not hard to protect games from copying, but it's like the arms race:
company invests for new cart scheme that is 'uncopyable' and after it's used
in reasonably high number of games, a copier system is updated to copy 'em
all... and it's questionable are sega/nintendo willing to spend 100$K 
in design/manufacturing line modifications and all this just
because there's few thousand illegal copies - and the owner of those
would not buy the originals anyway. 

CD ROM will solve the problem for them. Only real way to pirate those
is the same way they pirate music CDs in the far east - they have
own factory doing them just like the original publisher, and they
sell them for a quarter of the price of the original..