Hexediting games to bypass or neutralize copy protection helped me become a programmer (on top of copying code from magazines and books onto a Timex Sinclair an

Hexediting games to bypass or neutralize copy protection helped me become a programmer (on top of copying code from magazines and books onto a Timex Sinclair and ZX81). I remember the first game: BattleTech Crescent Hawk Inception. IIRC the copy protection involved typing words from pages in the manual, and I "defeated" it by changing every word to the same string. I actually owned the game, I just didn't want to get out the paper every time I wanted to play.