Sega programmer hides message for rippers on GD-ROM

http://xiaopang333.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/sega-programmer-hides-message-for-rippers-on-gd-rom/

Not sure if this news has been widespread, but I found this really interesting. According the source...

"Today, I found something that I would have never expected. While strolling through the data of a GD-ROM I found a message that was directed at rippers. This is no new phenomenon. In fact, incidences as such were reported as early as in the mid 80s, when the cracking group “Midwest Pirates Guild†found a message in the game “Buck Rogers - Planet of Zoom†addressing crackers to dial a certain number, which routed to the development studio of the game, so that the developers could see how long it took for crackers to finally get the game and crack it.

Now, the message I found is a little different. It is hidden on the “Sega Smashpack†GD-ROM and tells rippers how to use Sega’s Genesis emulator. I know, you’re all eager to read it, so here it is:

To whomever releases this pack..

Let me give you a few bits of info:

- I emulate a U.S. Genesis, including territory lock-out.
- “.sga†files are standard Genesis/Megadrive “.bin†files renamed.
- The emulator is looking for some parameters to be passed via Ginsu.
If you don’t know what that is, you’ll figure it out:

MDE_US.BIN ALTBEAST.SGA MODE2 SKIP0 SOUND0

MODE0 = standard, fastest video mode settings
MODE1 = slower, supports some extra features
MODE2 = slowest, includes window layers (used by some games)
MODE4 = same as MODE0 with background skewing

SKIP0 = no sprite skipping until maximum reached
SKIP1 = moderate sprite skipping, used to prevent major slowdown
SKIP2 = maximum sprites skipped

SOUND0 = standard sound emulation
SOUND1 = sound tempo increased

And don’t forget to pay your respects to Uncle Sonic.
Sony just doesn’t get it.

- Gary

The message might sound as if it was directed at any ripper out there, but the fact that the txt-file it was stored in was called ECHELON.TXT shows to whom it really was directed. When Echelon released the Smashpack on February 3rd 2001 they announced a loader for the emulator and now you know why. They also credited Uncle Sonic just as he demanded in their nfo for the Smashpack and the Romloader. As I said, developers contacting crackers is nothing new, but helping them is. This remarkable case gives an insight into the clockwork of Sega and also how developers tick.

I assume the coder of the Smashpack emulator wanted to see his work to be used for more than just the handful of games Sega bundled it with. This also shows, that Sega had no one to check the final images, or that this was done by someone high up above in the developer team’s hierarchy. The credits of the Smash Pack are pretty small and the only one who’s shown there that goes by the name of Gary is Gary Lake. He is being credited as a programmer…the only programmer by the way. That’s kind of hilarious to think about. This emu was not just written by a single guy, but that very guy also sabotaged his own company that he worked for. Talk about motivation and love for your own company… This also shows how much access he had to the overall project. Apparently Gary also compiled the image, that was shipped to the GD-ROM factory and obviously he knew that neither the Producer, nor the Senior Producer would check it out. Pretty amazing security holes for such a big company in my opinion.

“Sony just doesn’t get it.â€

This is an interesting reference, that is quite hard to understand…at least for me. What does he mean? May be that Sony just didn’t realize that it would be wise to release their old games on other platforms too? In this case he could have only been meaning the back then ongoing Bleem vs. Sony battle. Still, this line sounds as if it should justify his deed and it does make little sense when taking Bleem into account.

At around that time Lake worked on several games that were also released on PSX and PS2: Jeremy McGrath Supercross 2000, The Mummy Returns and Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. So may be this statement was in regard to the way Sony enforced its policies while he was working there. Still, it doesn’t really explain why he sabotaged Sega rather than Sony. May be, he means that Sony won’t get a full scale emulator for a beloved retro gaming console. That might have been the reason, because Homebrew started to become a valid factor when choosing between the consoles - at least when you weren’t a dumb fanboy.

Well, be that as it may. In the end we all profited from Gary’s bravery and help. Or was it even bravery at all? That’s the last thing that puzzles me. He could have created a perfectly running emu while working on the Smashpack by only making small modifications to the original code, but he didn’t. I would assume that it would have been too dangerous for him to do so, as some more experienced personal at Sega might have suspected a professional dev of the deed if some time after the Smashpack’s release a similar emu would have shown up out of nowhere with just the same performance. On the other hand he signed the text with his own name showing that he didn’t expect the situation to be dangerous at all, because he had to take into account that Echelon might as well keep the txt-file on their release, which they didn’t.
If you check out Gary’s bio, then you can see that he worked on quite a lot of games. I wonder if he also left hints for crackers there. I also wonder how many more hints are hidden in other Dreamcast games. I will certainly keep my eyes open"

 

Wow, really interesting stuff, I didn't know about this.

 

I have never heard of this before...pretty interesting!

 

AWESOme!

 

very interesting read, thanks

 

many think that old/obsolete games should be handed down and released for free... maybe he was one of them and felt sega guilty of selling almost nothing fwith an overpriced sale tag?

 

I remember in the 80's standing in a telephone box in my home town calling a telephone number that appeared at the bottom of a very long file for a C64 games title - it must have been late in the evening, however the guy who answered was mighty fed up with all the calls he was getting. Why put your home number into something and then grumble when it gets called? I don't even know why I called, presumably to find out whether someone would answer, but after he swore a bit I just laughed and hung up. If you were that developer, I apologise 20 odd years later.

Interesting thread mate!

 

Why sabotage? He know of the inebitable of the ripping, is more like a gift to the scene :thumbsup:

 

x

 

What's the big deal? Some guy at SOA spells out how to add more games. Perhaps he just wasn't happy with Sega's game choices and wanted to see his work put to better use. Perhaps the filename ECHELON.TXT and message was chosen not out of respect or charity for Echelon (or the scene) but chosen in frustration for ironic effect.

 

More infos about it here.

 

Bada$$ !

 

very interesting find. thanks for sharing.

 

Does anyone knwo if the Japanese Mega Drive emulator used along side the PC Engine Emulator in Dream Passport 3 has any relation to the Smash Packs one? Both have piss poor audio from what I remember however the PC Engine side seemed very good.

Yakumo

 

I'm pretty positive they're one in the same. Maybe this partially explains why the MD emu was released and the PC-Engine one wasn't.

 

What is strange is that hackers have released a Mega Drive emulator as part of Dream Passport 3 yet nobody EVER did the PC Engine side.

Am I the only person here who saw PC Engine games running on the Dreamcast or did anyone else here try it? You could play certain titles for a limit of 3 minutes as a trail before you paid for them to be unlocked. same with the Mega Drive side. I never bothered though because the audio emulation was pathetic to tell the truth.

Yakumo

 

I was aware of it. I own Dream Passport 3, though I didn't purchase it until long after the service was unavaliable. Which obviously means, I was never able to actually use the emulator that comes with it. Would love to have seen it in action.

In recent times, from what I recall, a couple independantly developed PC-Engine emu's have been released for DC. The better of the two, supposedly runs at around 75 percent full speed, along with support for Super CD-Rom games. This number may have been improved by now, but I'm not really to up to date on the subject.

I also always wondered why hackers left the PC-Engine emu untouched. Perhaps the luke warm popularity of the PC-Engine/Turbografx in the US played a role in not captivating any hackers interests. Of course these are just guesses. Who knows the real answer?

 

Wow! That's something that gives you satisfaction .

 

I remember a message I read in a prototype ROM that I was the first man alive to see after 15 years...

Or another one, in another prototype, that read something like 'Hello there fellow hacker'. Creepy stuff.

Edit: To add, sometimes there are even weirder messages, especially when they are encrypted or somehow obscured (i.e. not a .TXT file clearly visible on a GD), that's where the real fun is

 

Like the picture included in a Aphex Twin song that can be seen using a spectrum analyzer?