🚀 go-pugleaf

Whatever happened to the Beagle Brothers (a.k.a. Bert Kersey) ?
Back in the early 80's they put out a bunch of wild'n'crazy programs,
tools, games, and other out-of-control hacks for the Apple ][.

They'd sell their software cheap, and un-copy-protected.
There was one game called Sub Search where the BASIC program listing
had a notice that "modifying the Copyright notice in this listing
will cause the program to bomb".  And sure enough, it did.  I found out
that in the token listing of the program, a certain BASIC token was
stored by code 60 at some location, say 1000.  The program would, at 
various points, issue a CALL(1000).  The opcode 60 also happens to be
a RTS (return from subroutine) in 6502.  If the length of the code
is changed at all, there will not be a 60 at 1000, so the program would
blow up real good.  The clincher:  The CALL(1000) was invisible in the
BASIC listing - it was followed by a REM'ed out sequence of backspaces,
enough to cover up the CALL(1000) and the REM keyword.  Only by listing
at SPEED=<small number> did I notice this.

There were all sorts of utilities like an UNDELETE command, and a disk
sector editor.  I wish I could remember more about their stuff - it's
been ages.  Maybe I'll go did some of those old disks out of my Dad's
attic.  Anybody else remember the Beagle Brothers feats of
hackerism, or know where Bert Kersey is now?

Steve Barash @ Martin Marietta Labs
ARPA: bar...@mmlai.uu.net
UUCP: uunet!mmlai!barash