Fast Hack'em

Fast Hack'em was a Commodore 64 nibbler written by Mike J. Henry and released in 1985. It was distributed in the U.S. via Henry's "Basement Boys Software", and in the U.K. via Datel Electronics. [1] In the U.S., it retailed for $29.95.

Features

The most popular feature of Fast Hack'em was its ability to produce copies of copy-protected commercial software. When using the nibbler, disk copying was done on a very low level, bit-by-bit rather than using standard Commodore DOS commands. This effectively nullified the efficacy of deliberate disk errors, nonstandard track layouts, and related forms of copy prevention. Copying a protected disk took approximately 60 seconds if being copied directly to another disk drive, or 3 minutes (plus several disk swaps) if performed using a single disk drive.

Fast Hack'em also included a superfast disk copier that could copy unprotected disks at even higher speeds. Only 35 seconds were required for a direct drive-to-drive copy, or 2 minutes plus swapping time for a single-drive copy.

For all forms of copying, Fast Hack'em could verify the resulting disk copies to ensure that they were valid.