How a Laser-Shot Disk Defeats Hackers & Pirates (Coding Secrets)

I can give you an example of someone claiming there were holes in the disk, Jon Burton, but they're a goddamn liar : ▶ this video I have the original release of Leander. There are no holes in the disks. The code on the disk doesn't write anything besides hiscores. There is a protection routine exactly where he says there is, however what it does is check for a long track . It waits for the index pin, reads lots of data from the track, then looks to find two sync marks in the data it read, and they're at least a certain distance away from each other. No lasers, no holes, no writing. Standard long track protection. Here's the whole routine: link Here's a page that more accurately describes floppy disk protection methods (and also explains what a long track is): link

For those who don't know, Burton explains this in depth here: link Another one of my favorite ones describes copy protection via intentionally destroyed floppy sectors: ▶ this video

According to Jon Burton, something like this was actually done for the Amiga game Leander, although not with the intent to damage hardware: ▶ this video

I thought the two methods described in this video were both good: ▶ this video Also, the method described here, even though it didn't result in a financially successful game, was pretty clever (pirating the game meant your game company would be defeated by pirates): link