[arcade ambience]
[typing]
[pew-pew sounds]
A while back, I did a video on the history of copy protection in computer games,
covering everything from code wheels to always-online DRM.
Well, with it being Arcade August here on LGR
and Geek Week on YouTube,
I figured it's time for a look at even more anti-piracy schemes,
this time featuring the methods used on various coin-op arcade cabinets throughout the years.
Now, you might be thinking,
Who's really going to copy a game from a freakin' arcade machine?
Well, there were a few people that might:
those who wanted to upgrade an existing machine for cheaper,
those that wanted to make their own game using existing hardware,
and those that wanted to copy the game outright and make their own bootleg versions
to sell to arcade operators for a lower cost.
Now, near the start of the video arcade boom of the late '70s and early '80s,
copying an arcade game was really as simple as just copying the ROM chips inside.
All you needed was an EEPROM burner,
a spare ROM chip or two and some knowhow,
and you can make a bootleg version of a new game
to be placed in another game cabinet with compatible hardware.
Obviously, this was detrimental to the bottom line of companies like Namco and Atari,
so various copy protection methods were devised
to attempt to curb the efforts of arcade game bootleggers.
One such method of protecting the precious ROM chips was to encrypt them somehow.
Usually, there would be some special chips on the board
that decrypted the data as it was being read from the ROM chips.
Unless you knew the encryption key and the details of how the encryption was accomplished,
there was no way of copying the ROM chips as simply as before.
If you did try to copy them, you'd either get a game that was crippled in some way,
like missing graphics or sound,
or a game that just didn't start up at all.
Of course, the most persistent of hardware and software crackers
eventually found out the algorithm used
or found out a way to bypass it entirely,
so some companies opted for an even more involved method.
One of these was known as "Slapstic,"
used by Atari on many of their machines.
When you booted up the game, it would check for a very specific set of security instructions
found on a chip somewhere on the motherboard.
If this wasn't detected, the game would simply refuse to work properly, if at all.
And there were over 15 types of chips it could be, too,
and none of them were easy to crack,
so this method actually remained effective for decades before it was finally broken.
Something similar, but yet even slightly more involved,
was the MCU, or microcontroller unit.
This was a custom chip which contained its own processor,
and sometimes even its own internal ROM holding essential game code.
The arcade game would periodically look to this specially designed IC
for vital game information, or even various functions,
like collision detection and DMA transfers.
As you might expect, if it failed checking all this stuff,
the game would crash or just become unplayable.
And at least one company decided to forgo the standard ROM chip setup entirely,
and instead went with a cassette tape,
like the Deco Cassette System by Data East.
Instead of the game burned onto chips already,
you had a cassette tape that you'd insert into a special reader
which would then copy the game to the appropriate chips.
The tapes were of a custom size
and the specialized reader would only read the correct tapes,
so you couldn't just go and copy the cassettes with a normal tape deck or anything.
The big problem here was that sometimes the cassette transfers were really slow, they wouldn't work,
or the tapes would just go bad over time,
leading to some aggravation with arcade owners.
And then there was an even more insidious method of protection
that is known as the "suicide battery,"
used in a number of boards from Capcom and Sega.
What went on here is that the game data was stored in battery-backed RAM instead of ROM.
That would be random-access memory instead of read-only memory.
Now, RAM forgets any information stored in it once it loses power,
whereas ROM remembers it for good.
So if you tried to disconnect the battery or alter the board in some way
to get to the game data stored in RAM,
the data would be lost instantly and the entire board would become useless as a result.
Of course, this also meant that if the battery just happened to die, or go bad after a few years,
then you're also screwed, even if you bought the game legit,
which didn't exactly make arcade owners very happy.
And lastly, there are a couple even more effective methods
of limiting unauthorized copying and distribution,
and those are dongles and Internet connections.
Much like what you find on certain computer software,
dongles are specialized plug-in devices
that contain some proprietary hardware and code
that the game looks for in order to play.
These work similarly to the earlier encryption chips,
but they're actually even more involved and are now often USB-based,
since the machines they're used on are essentially PCs in custom cabinets.
And the last method we're gonna touch on is the required Internet connection,
which is only used in some of the newest machines.
This checks the machines location and license against a server somewhere
and makes sure everything checks out,
or it will refuse to run the game.
Now there were a few other copy protection schemes out there,
but as usual with these kind of videos,
I'm just kind of covering some of the more interesting ones to me.
And if you're interested in further arcade stuff
and odd hardware and software,
why don't you check out the rest of my videos, because there's a lot.
But regardless of whatever you decide to do next on the Interwebs, thanks for watching.
[upbeat MIDI music]
Be sure to come back next week for more arcade games on Arcade August,
here on LGR!
Ha-ha-ha!