RoboCop - The Future of Copy Protection

[h0ffman]

In my most recent dablings with old arcade games, I've been disassembling DataEast RoboCop. In the process I found how the HuC6280 is used for bootleg protection and did a blog post about it.

https://hoffman.home.blog/2025/12/18/robocop-the-future-of-copy-protection/

This did make me wonder if there are any RoboCop boards out there with a dead HuC6280 which could be brought back to life by a rom patch?

 

[Hurray Banana]

Nice investigation and write up

 

[qjuk]

I love reading about stuff like this.

The copy protections in some games are really intriguing to see how they worked and some were very crafty.

Great write up as well

 

[FabC]

Very interesting

 

[h0ffman]

Update... If you have a RoboCop PCB with a broken HuC6280, you can now bring it back to life with a handy IPS patch.

https://hoffman.home.blog/2025/12/26/robocop-breaking-the-law/

 

[Hurray Banana]

Excellent stuff

 

[yoganuggy]

This is amazing hoffman.

Also a hat tip to the "automat" bootleggers back in the day. How did they figure this out. An inside job?

Is it the same protection on bad dudes and the other games on the hardware?

 

[Alpha1]

Update... If you have a RoboCop PCB with a broken HuC6280, you can now bring it back to life with a handy IPS patch.

https://hoffman.home.blog/2025/12/26/robocop-breaking-the-law/

Dude this is amazing work.

 

[Alpha1]

@h0ffman just saw on YouTube your WIP on Zero Wing after you mention it in your RoboCop post. I don't know if there's any nuances to the hardware configuration but Outzone runs on the same PCB.

 

[Jacmar]

Update... If you have a RoboCop PCB with a broken HuC6280, you can now bring it back to life with a handy IPS patch.

https://hoffman.home.blog/2025/12/26/robocop-breaking-the-law/

Amazing work !!!

 

[Alpha1]

I was just reading up on the HuC6280, apparently the PC Engine CPU and designed by Hudson Soft. Trying to work out the relationship between Data East and Hudson Soft here.

 

[h0ffman]

This is amazing hoffman.

Also a hat tip to the "automat" bootleggers back in the day. How did they figure this out. An inside job?

Is it the same protection on bad dudes and the other games on the hardware?

Not looked at them so not really sure but anything in the DEC01 driver in MAME is likely protected in some way.

 

[h0ffman]

@h0ffman just saw on YouTube your WIP on Zero Wing after you mention it in your RoboCop post. I don't know if there's any nuances to the hardware configuration but Outzone runs on the same PCB.

The Toaplan hardware presented some very unique challenges, mostly it's 16 levels of priority. My last dev stream dug into how that was worked around, link below. Otherwise they are very well coded and contain a super clean ROM structure, so much so that I had a working game in about 3 weeks.