************************** Signmaster 5.05 ******************

From:  Lloyd Borrett
       President, Melbourne PC User Group,
       Melbourne, Australia.

       Sysop of the "PC Connection" IBBS on +61 3 528 3750.
       CCITT V.21 type modem required.  300 baud only.

I downloaded A.S.P.'s unprotection mechanisms for 'Signmaster' 5.04 and
'Chartmaster' 6.04 on Monday 26th November 1985.

Wouldn't you know it I had versions 5.05 and 6.05 respectively.

I've retrofitted a patch that seems to be okay.


SIGNMASTER 5.05
---------------

1.  Rename SIGN.EXE SIGN

2.  DEBUG SIGN

3.  D CS:895

    You should see 75 03 E9 09

    E CS:895 90 90 EB BB

    W

    Q

4.  Rename SIGN SIGN.EXE

************************** Signmaster 5.1 ******************

How to unprotect SIGN-MASTER, version 5.1:

First, MAKE A COPY of the original SIGN-MASTER diskette. NEVERtamper with your
original disk!  Using the COPY, RENAME SIGN.EXE to SIGN.XEX

DEBUG SIGN.XEX

At locations BDD9, BE38, and BE61 is the code which checks drive A for the
presence of the signature sector.

This code typically looks like:
   MOV AL,01
   MOV AH,04
   INT 13

In the first two locations, we will patch the AL and AH registers to contain
zeros, so that SIGNMASTER thinks the disk is in the drive and all is well.
Then we'll NOP out the INT 13 that checks the disk.

In the third location, where SIGNMASTER actually checks the bad sector, we
merely NOP out the INT 13, but LEAVE THE AH REGISTER ALONE, so that SIGNMASTER
thinks it got the "correct" error return code from the "interrupt":-A BDD9

  MOV AL,00
  MOV AH,00
  NOP
  NOP
  ^C      (control-C to break out of assembly)
-A BE38
   MOV AL,00
   MOV AH,00
   NOP
   NOP
   ^C
-A BE61
   NOP
   NOP
^C-W-QRENAME SIGN.XEX SIGN.EXE

SIGNMASTER is now unprotected and can be copied to floppies, run from a hard
disk, ram disk, etc. Note that you cannot DISKCOPY the original disk due to the
bad sector, but you CAN use COPY *.* to copy all of the files to any other
media you wish.  LET THERE BE SOFTWARE!

************************** Signmaster 5.1 ******************

If you, like myself paid out your hard earned cash for
sign master only to find out it's install to hard disk
will not work on any drive but C: (contrary to what their
support staff says),  Follow the following procedure and
remove the silly copy protect altogether:

Make a copy of SIGN.EXE
rename it to SIGN.XXX
use debug
DEBUG SIGN.XXX
-d cs:BC87
    you should see the following:
75 68 ...     if not then you've got a different version than 5.10
              and this won't work.
              If you see 75 68, then
-e cs:BC87 eb 68
-w
-q
RENAME SIGN.XXX SIGN.EXE

You now have a copy of Sign Master without the copy protect.

After arguing with the Stupid freaks about the fact that some
people have a hard disk with other than a C: designation,
I finally gave up and spent about 3 hours tracing the code and
fixed the problem myself.

Happy Sign Making,
The Freebie Fixer