PC Floppy Copy Protection: Electronic Arts Interlock
owl writes:
https://martypc.blogspot.com/2024/09/pc-floppy-copy-protection-electronic.html
Before Electronic Arts (EA) was the publishing juggernaut that it is today, it was just one of dozens of software publishers putting out titles for various home computers, including the IBM PC. EA was founded in 1982 by Trip Hawkins, who would go on to create the ultimately unsuccessful 3DO game console. In the mid-1980's, EA was perhaps most famous for their paint program, Deluxe Paint, which became a popular graphics tool for the whole computer gaming industry.
Unlike the companies we have covered to date, EA is mostly widely known for their games, not their copy protection schemes. EA is famous enough that a long segue into their corporate history isn't really necessary - you can just read the Wikipedia entry.
EA wasn't selling their copy protection technology, so there are no flashy advertisements extolling its virtues or many articles discussing it at all. All that is left to talk about is the protection itself.
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