PC Floppy Copy Protection: Vault Prolok
2 days ago
- #floppy-disk
- #retro-computing
- #copy-protection
- Vault Corporation introduced Prolok in 1983 as a unique floppy disk copy protection method.
- Prolok used deliberate damage to the disk surface, called a 'fingerprint', instead of non-standard disk formats.
- The protection was applied by software publishers using pre-damaged diskettes and a utility called PROLOK.EXE.
- Vault claimed Prolok would end software piracy, but it was eventually bypassed by utilities like NOGUARD and RAMKEY.
- Vault sued Quaid Software for creating RAMKEY, but lost, setting a legal precedent for software backup rights.
- Vault's reputation was damaged by the announcement of Prolok Plus, which threatened to erase hard drives, leading to loss of major clients like Ashton-Tate.
- Emulating Prolok requires special disk image formats that can represent damaged areas, with some success achieved in tools like DosBox-TC and MartyPC.