11 ms·
Wow, an icon of my childhood gone. If you're an affected developer, shoot me an email & I'll be happy to put you in our pipeline.
by calcsam 12y ago
Wow, an icon of my childhood gone.
If you're an affected developer, shoot me an email & I'll be happy to put you in our pipeline.
- saganus 12y agoIcon is the correct term. SimCity had one of the earliest form of DRM I remember. The almost-impossible to Xerox manual (highly reflective paper so photocopies would come black) was used to answer a question the game asked you, about the population of a specific city on a certain page of the manual. Loosing the manual was not an option. Farewell Maxis.
- prewett 12y agoI remember hand-copying the numbers from a black on dark dark grey crinkled photocopy acquired from a friend of a friend in my spare time during classes in high school. Boy was I glad to finish that... Then I discovered that the PC version didn't look anywhere near as good as the B&W Mac version :( Definitely iconic. Fond memories!
- swang 12y agoDRM is _digital_ though, it was just called copyright protection back then. And the Sierra adventure games had this form of copyright protection way before SimCity.
- saganus 12y agoYou are quite right! never thought about it but yeah, it's more copy protection. Thanks.
- mmastrac 12y agoWasn't it a black on dark maroon list of city populations? It's been a while, but that's what I remember.
- saganus 12y agoPrecisely. A purple-ish brown and very glossy background.
- mmastrac 12y agoGotcha. I didn't recall it being extra glossy, but that makes sense now!
- saganus 12y agoIronically, one day later there's a post in HN that links to old copy protection schemes. And there's a pic of the manual of course: http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/copyprotection/simcity_large.jpg http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/copyprotec...
- jwalton 12y agoThis is not DRM, it's copy protection. DRM is about stopping you from using a product you paid money for - as Wikipedia puts it "[controling] the use of digital content and devices after sale." No matter how many years in the future you travel, no matter what happens to Maxis, the original Sim City will still work (assuming you still have the manual, and hardware capable of playing it.)
- rancur 12y agoI'm glad there has sometime, somewhere, been a literal, physical-realm use for the term "Copy Protection"
- devrelm 12y agoI remember this style of copy-protection in another game released the same year (1989). Indianapolis 500: The game would ask a question that would be answerable from the manual.[1] [1] http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/897/Indianapolis+500+-+The+Simulation.html http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/897/Indianapolis+500+-+The...