Unprotecting Power-Up! Software 12/11/86

Those nice folks from Power-Up! software will gladly SELL you a backup
disk for $5 for use in the event your original disk (the one you PAID for)
should happen to fail. Well, you can save the 5 smackers by using the
following proceedure to unprotect your original disk.
In this example, we will use Grid Designer. With other packages, the file
names will be different but the general proceedure is the same.
To begin with, copy all of the files that pertain to the actual program
onto a blank formatted floppy. These files are generally those that do not
have the word INSTALL as part of their filename. For our example, copy:
GRID.EXE
GRID.INS
GRID.PRN
CUSTOM.GPM
PAPER.GPM
Now, the file with the .EXE extension is the protected executable file
which we must work on with DEBUG (which came with DOS). Since DEBUG is unable
to write .EXE files we must rename GRID.EXE to something else, say TEMP.

C>ren GRID.EXE TEMP

Now, with a DEBUG in a drive and directory where DOS can find it, type:

C>DEBUG TEMP
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After a few moments, DEBUG will respond with a hyphen prompt like:
-
To Search for the copy protection, type:
-s0 fffe e8 48 ff then DEBUG responds:
xxxx:yyyy where xxxx and yyyy are 2 hexadecimal numbers
-
To Edit out the protedtion, type:
-e yyyy , where yyyy is the value from above
DEBUG responds:
xxxx:yyyy E8. You type 90 then press spacebar and DEBUG shows

xxxx:yyyy E8.90 48. You type 90 then press spacebar and debug shows

xxxx:yyyy E8.90 48.90 FF. You type 90 . DEBUG shows

xxxx:yyyy E8.90 48.90 FF.90
-
To Write these changes to disk, type:
-W and DEBUG shows:
Writng zzzz bytes Where zzzz is some hexadecimal number.
-
To Quit to DOS, type:

-Q and you will be returned to DOS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, rename TEMP back to the original file name:

C>ren TEMP GRID.EXE

That's it, your program is now unprotected and you can make as many backups
as you deem necessary. To run the program just type GRID . In
addition to being able to backup, you will also have more space on your disk
since the install files, hidden files and bad tracks are no longer present or
needed. ENJOY !!!!!!!!!!
NOTE: If, when you typed the s0 fffe above, DEBUG didn't respond as
indicated, the file may have been shipped without protection. In this case,
type Q at the hyphen prompt to Quit to DOS. Rename it back and try to
run it. If this fails then another form of copy protection has been used on
the program you have.