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Ah yes - a piece of blu-tac and timing the swap just right. For anyone else: The lid of the PS had a small protusion which pressed down a button when the lid

by markx2 3y ago

Ah yes - a piece of blu-tac and timing the swap just right. For anyone else: The lid of the PS had a small protusion which pressed down a button when the lid closed. The game could not be started with the lid open. So a piece of blu-tac was used to depress that button. The first thing the PS did when loading a game was to check somewhere on the game disc for some code. This code confirmed the disc was genuine so the trick was to put any genuine game in the drive, use the blu-tac, start the console and at a certain point, after the code had been read but before the game loaded and at that point pull the genuine disc and insert the pirate disc you had.

inputError 3y ago
it was the wobble line on the inner circumference. that could not be reproduced by burners. problem was it checked for that, then allowed the rest of the disc to be read. that was the window in which you could put on your jolly roger hat and laugh.
whaleofatw2022 3y ago
Oddly, most folks I knew used a Bic pen cap or similar as a sort of extender for the arm...
- fdsfdsafdsafds 3y ago
  Most people I knew used the ink tube of a ballpoint pen, as it could be held in place with the lid of the console. You knew who pirated games, because the lid of their console had ink stains all over the inside..
slyn 3y ago
It’s been ages so I don’t recall the exact details but you could pull a similar trick with the PS2 version of Guitar Hero to play custom songs on an unmodded console. You would burn a copy of the game with custom songs, insert and start a legit copy of the game, and then physically pull open the DVD tray and quickly replace the legit copy with the burned DVD at a specific time between when the PS2 had authenticated the disc as legit but before the game had actually loaded. It was a little finicky but with some practice it would work like 2/3rds of the time.
- kipchak 3y ago
  You could use a similar method to play burned PS2 disks using a Datel (of Action Replay fame) "Swap Magic" disc and a card to pull the tray out. the Swap disk appeared as a genuine PS2 disk with bad sectors, which would cause the drive motor to stop and give some time for the swap to occur.
dataflow 3y ago
> pull the genuine disc and insert the pirate disc you had Confused... so you'd pull out a spinning CD? And the insert one while the spindle was still spinning? And you'd do this safely, and fast enough that the game wouldn't have time to start reading the disc contents before the swap? And you'd do this every single time you're trying to play the game? This sounds pretty impossible to pull off without hurting yourself and damaging everything... what am I missing?
- spydum 3y ago
  They didn't spin that fast and it's not as sensitive as you think. CD-ROMs are used to dealing with bumps and skips and retries.
  - glenstein 3y ago
    I distinctly remember fancy add-on features, such as my Philips CD player having ESP, electronic skip protection.
- rplnt 3y ago
  The CDs are super light and the motors are super weak. You can stop a spinning CD with a light touch of a finger.
- dtech 3y ago
  You're severely underestimating the robustness of CD systems. They were fully made with the assumption that a spinning unstable plastic disc continually handled by humans would go wrong often. Look up for example Philips SBC444A test CD for the kind of things CD players were required to handle for certification.
  - dataflow 3y ago
    This seems like the complete opposite of my experience for CDs. I've had so many CDs go bad on me without any mishandling or visible damage. DVDs were more like what you're saying.
crtasm 3y ago
I got a dongle that plugged into the back and let me enter cheats, Action Replay style. It also happened to stop the CD spinning after it'd been confirmed as legitimate - swap at your leisure then press X to continue.
ljm 3y ago
Getting your PlayStation chipped in the UK was like a working class rite of passage. You’d hand it over to some bloke and get it back a few days later, along with a printed spreadsheet of pirated games you could get. Once PCs with writable CD drives became more affordable the catalogue became less relevant and you’d just rent titles from Blockbusters and copy them instead. By the time the Xbox 360 and PS3 were out, the pre-owned market was strong enough that you could buy a game on release and trade-it in at practically no loss once you were done.

by markx2 3y ago

inputError 3y ago

it was the wobble line on the inner circumference. that could not be reproduced by burners. problem was it checked for that, then allowed the rest of the disc to be read. that was the window in which you could put on your jolly roger hat and laugh.

whaleofatw2022 3y ago

Oddly, most folks I knew used a Bic pen cap or similar as a sort of extender for the arm...

fdsfdsafdsafds 3y ago
Most people I knew used the ink tube of a ballpoint pen, as it could be held in place with the lid of the console. You knew who pirated games, because the lid of their console had ink stains all over the inside..

slyn 3y ago

It’s been ages so I don’t recall the exact details but you could pull a similar trick with the PS2 version of Guitar Hero to play custom songs on an unmodded console. You would burn a copy of the game with custom songs, insert and start a legit copy of the game, and then physically pull open the DVD tray and quickly replace the legit copy with the burned DVD at a specific time between when the PS2 had authenticated the disc as legit but before the game had actually loaded. It was a little finicky but with some practice it would work like 2/3rds of the time.

kipchak 3y ago
You could use a similar method to play burned PS2 disks using a Datel (of Action Replay fame) "Swap Magic" disc and a card to pull the tray out. the Swap disk appeared as a genuine PS2 disk with bad sectors, which would cause the drive motor to stop and give some time for the swap to occur.

dataflow 3y ago

> pull the genuine disc and insert the pirate disc you had Confused... so you'd pull out a spinning CD? And the insert one while the spindle was still spinning? And you'd do this safely, and fast enough that the game wouldn't have time to start reading the disc contents before the swap? And you'd do this every single time you're trying to play the game? This sounds pretty impossible to pull off without hurting yourself and damaging everything... what am I missing?

spydum 3y ago
They didn't spin that fast and it's not as sensitive as you think. CD-ROMs are used to dealing with bumps and skips and retries.
- glenstein 3y ago
  I distinctly remember fancy add-on features, such as my Philips CD player having ESP, electronic skip protection.
rplnt 3y ago
The CDs are super light and the motors are super weak. You can stop a spinning CD with a light touch of a finger.
dtech 3y ago
You're severely underestimating the robustness of CD systems. They were fully made with the assumption that a spinning unstable plastic disc continually handled by humans would go wrong often. Look up for example Philips SBC444A test CD for the kind of things CD players were required to handle for certification.
- dataflow 3y ago
  This seems like the complete opposite of my experience for CDs. I've had so many CDs go bad on me without any mishandling or visible damage. DVDs were more like what you're saying.

crtasm 3y ago

I got a dongle that plugged into the back and let me enter cheats, Action Replay style. It also happened to stop the CD spinning after it'd been confirmed as legitimate - swap at your leisure then press X to continue.

ljm 3y ago

Getting your PlayStation chipped in the UK was like a working class rite of passage. You’d hand it over to some bloke and get it back a few days later, along with a printed spreadsheet of pirated games you could get. Once PCs with writable CD drives became more affordable the catalogue became less relevant and you’d just rent titles from Blockbusters and copy them instead. By the time the Xbox 360 and PS3 were out, the pre-owned market was strong enough that you could buy a game on release and trade-it in at practically no loss once you were done.