SimAnt data encryption/copy protection #77
Description
SimAnt was merged via #48 but it was noticed that the installation program adds 256 bytes with encrypted user registration info to every game file except SIMANT.CFG. The first 188 bytes seem to contain the entered the name and organization strings in encrypted form. This then is followed by 64 bytes copied from the BIOS memory (physical RAM bytes 0x000fffc0 ~ 0x00100000). These 64 bytes generally contain 8 bytes with a BIOS date string but also various BIOS program pointers and other data which can differ from system to system. The very last 4 bytes contain whatever is at physical RAM address 0x0000000.
These last 68 bytes makes including it in this ROM management DAT file complicated because they are environment specific bytes copied during the installation which can be hard to reconstruct. Replacing these 68 bytes with zeroes does not seem to affect the game (at least not in the first few minutes of game play).
SimAnt generally doesn't seem to have copy protection (besides storing the name entered at installation encrypted in the game files) so perhaps these 68 bytes were just included in case stricter copy protection is desired later during development but then was never used.