Why hacking? Why hacking indeed. Let us step into the time machine, not the one in OS X. Set the controls for Los Angeles 1982. As the view comes into focus you see a 14 year old punk and a computer class teacher. "Do you like to play games on your Apple ][+?" asks the teacher. "Oh yeah! But I only have a couple..." I reply. The teacher hands me a black, "elephant" branded, 5 1/4" floppy disk. "Give this a try." the teacher says. "Thanks a lot!"
When I get home from school that day, I head straight over to my ][+, my usual ritual. But this time, I stuck the disk I got from my basic programing teacher, into the floppy drive and flipped the switch. A very simple text menu came up...
[A] CHOPLITER
[B] SNAKE BYTE
[C] SABOTAGE
[D] TAX MAN
]ENTER YOUR CHOICE
No way?! Not a game, but several! How did they do that? Usually you just get 1 game per disk, at most. This disk has 4! So I press one of the letters and a graphic screen comes up before the game, that lists the names of the "Crackers" and a "Distributed by" group name. It also has several places listed with phone numbers next to them, such as Abdul's Oasis and Pirates Cove. Who were all these people and what are these places, with phone numbers from all over the country?
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