• Updated 2023-07-12: Hello, Guest! Welcome back, and be sure to check out this follow-up post about our outage a week or so ago.

SimCity 1.1 DRM

Iesca

Well-known member
I recently acquired the North American 1.1 release of SimCity as published by Brøderbund (with "Godzilla" on the cover). The disks mount and read beautifully and I was able to image them without a hitch.

However, the copy protection scheme is such that it wants you to insert the "original" SimCity diskette in order to authorize the installation, even if the disk is already inserted. In other words, it doesn't see the original disk as being "official", and I end up in a loop of requesting, and subsequently ejecting, the SimCity diskette. Even attempting to play straight from disk, including on a Mac Plus (as opposed to my LC III) results in the same problem.

Any suggestions?

SimCity1.1Godzilla.png

 
Last edited by a moderator:

MrFahrenheit

Well-known member
Now that you own the software, I would recommend downloading a copy from a site like Mac Garden and writing it to a new blank disk and using that. 
 

I had a copy of SimCity back in the day and I never had the copy protection issue. Of course it was also already a copy so perhaps it was cracked.

 

Iesca

Well-known member
While the earliest version of SimCity on the Garden is certainly an option, I would like to figure out a way to get this original copy to work, if possible. Of note is that the copy protection scheme used by my copy (1.1) and by the version on the garden (1.11) are very different (disk verification, versus a randomized code and key).

I believe that by 1.2 they had removed all forms of copy protection, so maybe that's what you had been given? That was my experience growing up as well (no copy protection), and we had had a boxed copy, though I haven't been able to figure out the version as most of the materials are gone now.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

jamie marchant

Well-known member
Often the DRM scheme on these games used some weird quirk of the floppie. try using a different floppy drive if you have one. 

 

LaPorta

Well-known member
This is likely what happened: floppy got corrupted at some point. Someone initialized it. Copied SimCity back on. Didn't realize that wouldn't work by wiping out the copy protection. They either forgot or didn't care...and it wound up in your hands.

 

BacioiuC

Well-known member
This is likely what happened: floppy got corrupted at some point. Someone initialized it. Copied SimCity back on. Didn't realize that wouldn't work by wiping out the copy protection. They either forgot or didn't care...and it wound up in your hands.
I can attest to the fact that this is the behavior indeed as I did the exact same thing to my copy after mistakenly initializing the wrong disk!

IMG_1366.JPG

 

olePigeon

Well-known member
@LaPorta @Challenger 1983  Found out it was a bad flux dump when I submitted the image.  I made a new one.  Should be good now.  Could've been a bad sync sensor or sticky motor.  It was 1 track off the entire disk for some reason.

 
Top