User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Fri Sep 09, 2016 12:35 am

Marauder II – Amiga
Discovery Software International, Wyndmoor, PA, USA
1987 – $39.95 – 512k RAM required

Link To My Video Review Of Marauder II

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Growing up with the Amiga in the United States I have always felt my experiences with the machine differed greatly compared to our brother’s across the pond. The online adf archive is full of “cracked” games. These consisted of a non nuanced form of piracy where a group of hackers dived into the code of a game. They would remove its copy protection and distribute the game to others for free. There was extreme arrogance with all of these cracking groups in my eyes. They always had to leave their calling card, as it were. This consisted of some of the worst “Engrish” you will ever come across. Scrolling text with annoying music would instantly greet you upon inserting a disk. The text would mostly consist of patting themselves on the back and bad mouthing other cracking groups… Just a bunch of crap that makes me roll my eyes.

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^ Your typical annoying crack intro

My father had a lot of software and games for the Amiga. Quite a bit of it was purchased but there were some (although he wouldn't admit it) that he must have gotten illegally. As an American I never once came across a single crack intro. Not in all of our Amiga software or our Commodore 64 software. Most of his Commodore 64 collection was pirated, yet I've never seen an obvious example of a crack… This is ALL I ever see when downloading C64 or Amiga disks online. Contrary to popular belief, the Amiga was very much an important market with over a million units (some very expensive units) sold in America. Quite a few great games and an overwhelming majority of software came from America. With this in mind why had I never run into a single crack until my emulation days? Because American’s didn't crack games.

So how did we copy illegal (and legal) software? With a program such as Marauder II. These were programs that may have cracked the copy protection, or perhaps just had techniques for copying the entire disk with copy protection. I’m not entirely sure how Marauder II works because they have the courtesy of not shoving their accomplishments in your face like cracking groups did!

Marauder II was a legal piece of software and believe it or not, even the most anti piracy people had need for such a program. Far too many games and software had on-board disk based copy protection. This form of copy protection would not allow the disk to be copied in conventional ways like through Workbench’s duplicate tool. Imagine paying well over a hundred dollars in 1987 for a word processor and not being able to back up your disks. Floppy disks (Amiga floppy disks especially) were not the longest lasting things. Many honorable software companies told you that you should backup your original disks and only play using those copies. They said you should keep the originals in a safe place in case the copies went bad. You have every legal right to copy things you have bought for backup purposes. Companies that chose to go down the route of disk based copy protection were creating a market they probably would come to regret.

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^ Marauder II's interface/Copying a disk

The honorable way to use Marauder II was to backup your honestly purchased programs. Of course we all know that’s not the only thing it was used for… The thing about piracy in America was that here we would tend to have the full gaming experience. When a European group cracked a game and it spread you created a situation where nobody had the manual for these games. I believe this is a big reason why some fantastic big games made in America are completely overlooked by Europeans these days. Much like NES owners in America, European Amiga users seem to love their platformers. American Amiga owners loved their RPGs/Adventure/Simulation/Strategy games. These are games that could cost well over $40 and come on multiple disks. They pretty much required a manual in order to find any enjoyment out of them. But for those who found enjoyment from them, you had an experience that Zool could never touch. When American’s pirated software they were most likely borrowing the copy from someone they knew who had the real deal. They took the manual and they went to a local printing shop and they printed the whole damn thing. This meant those that did pirate software in America were not missing out on anything, unlike many Europeans.

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^ Partial list of games Marauder II could copy

Marauder II is so powerful yet so damn simple. It has a long list (for the time) of games it can copy and it simply copies them without any fuss. There’s no need to input anything or tell it what to do, it just does it. If you have more than one meg of RAM it will load the disk into memory and can copy the same disk up to 4 disk drives at the same time! I’ve never seen any program copy a disk as fast as Marauder II does. I can’t stress just how important and necessary a program like this was to legitimate users. The American magazine Amiga World praised it while making sure to disown any unethical uses. To quote them, “To make copies of software I own for legitimate backup purposes is a right given me (and you) by the U.S. congress.” Looking back in time I just can’t believe companies would crap on their honest customers like they did. They created the need for this program, they should have thought another way.

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^ An ad for Marauder II. Note comparisons against The Mirror

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^ Partial Amiga World review

Marauder II also features copy protection, the more traditional look up this word from the manual. The manual is actually quite nice about it because it lists the line numbers for you. I was quite shocked at first when it asked me to enter a word from line 36 until I saw that line 36 was easily found. Their own advertisements make note that you are allowed to copy Marauder II when certain other copying programs don’t allow you to copy themselves. I guess they even included a utility on disk to copy The Mirror, their chief rival at the time, which did not allow their own disk to be copied. Ha! I find stuff like that hilarious to no end! Amiga World noted how easy it was to use for such an extensive program and its bargain price.

Indeed, while of little use to us these days, this is a prime example of an important piece of software that is in danger of being lost to time. If you have memories of the forgotten and left behind software of old, sit down at your computer and start typing my friends. The Amiga world is in desperate need of you! To see me keep the memories alive, please check out my video review of Marauder II.

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^ Front page of the manual. I call it "The Floppy Dance" and it's making a comeback!

User avatar
rjd

Posted Sat Sep 10, 2016 5:58 am

Cracks were all I saw when I used the Amiga. It was regular to see people trading copied disks for 50p.

Nice show.

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Mon Feb 06, 2017 12:26 pm

I don't remember using Marauder II, thanks for the detailed look. I guess in the SF bay area in the 1980's and early 1990's I had a different experience as most of the games I had included intros. I actually agree with you that the crackers were pretty arrogant which is why I rarely read the scrolls. But I did quite enjoy their coding/grfx/music skills and liked to see what they came up with as an art form. I am a huge demo fan too and always have been since I saw my first intro and demo on the C64 in 1983 or 1984.

I mostly used X-Copy at home but when I went to friends houses to copy disks a lot of the time they had made backups for me already and just gave them to me so a I didn't know what they were using. Commercial stuff, they may well have used something like Marauder.

I still use X-Copy today to not only copy but to check disks for error as it has a scanner for that.

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Mon Feb 06, 2017 8:40 pm

I can't remember the name of the one my dad used the most... I'd know it if I ever saw it though. I think it was Marauder II until the 90's, when he started to use this other program. I should look up copy programs to see if I can find it, it's not X-Copy though. Though I should probably get that one too cause it looks to be everyone's favorite.

I never saw a cracked game until emulation. I've never even ran across one in his immense pirated C64 collection. But I'll forever remember trips to the local print store... Trying to get him to give me change to put in the gumball machine as he copied manuals.

Never came across a demo until YouTube. To me demo meant nerfed and unplayable 1st level of PC game. hahha. But now I love them. I have a dedicated floppy bin just for demos.

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NetCreature

Posted Fri Apr 06, 2018 3:35 pm

I used Marauder II all the time and it saved me many times when something happened to a disk that was thankfully a back-up.

I still have the original disk and manual in my Amiga collection.

I still have a few cracked games and remember the intros well. My impression is that the Amiga experience in North America began in 1985 as mine did, while in the UK & Europe it began much later. My original Amiga is a 1000 and my friends in the UK all had 500+ and 1200 systems as their first machines.

User avatar
McTrinsic

Posted Sun Apr 15, 2018 12:56 am

As a rule of thumb, it was X-Copy in Europe and certain other programs that effectively were clones.
X-Copy was made by the people behind the Kryoflux, by the way.
X-Copy had a small dongle that effectively re-routed the read-signal to the second floppy as write-signal. Almost everything was possible to be copied with this approach.
Only: why would you do it back then? Usually, a cracked version was available that was much more conveniently copied with simpler programs without dongle.
As usually the intros were easily clicked away I don't remember to bother. And where necessary, the manual were around. I loved the GoldBoxRPGs though I admittedly purchased only very few of them. ;) .
I did buy the Ultimas, though.
It has a certain absurd quality to it that the Kryoflux people now also are behind the SPS society to preserve originals of disks in an untouched state, still trying to 'copy originals' so to say. I admire them for their efforts.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Apr 18, 2018 4:45 pm

Check it out, yo. Ever since you posted about this, Shot, I've been looking around for the real deal.

I finally picked this up, for almost nothing.
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Kind of a weird acquisition. It's in what looks like original shrinkwrap but has an old "used" sticker on it.

I have a feeling it was a store return at some stage. Probably got opened then sent back for whatever reason. Either way I'm stoked to get it.

I'm going to be installing it on all of my machines here in a bit.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Apr 18, 2018 4:52 pm

It's got one kickass looking floppy disk sticker, too. Nice!
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