When pirating Apple II games, the challenge was to make it as easy to transfer the files as possible. Since 300 baud could mean a full disk transfer taking over an hour, any reduction in size would be welcomed.
One way to do this would be to take a program disk and turn the disk into a single, smaller file. Of course, most programs (especially games) would have protection schemes inside to check to see if this sort of manipulaiton had gone on. Enter the "Crackers", who would "Crack" the protection schemes so they didn't work anymore.
This battle waged and has continued to wage between Software Companies and Software Pirates.
DOCS: Advanced Demuffin Version 1.1 by The Stack and The Inspector (February 8, 1983)
An Example of Using Advanced Demuffin to Crack a Game: Castle Wolfenstein
Technical Notes for Advanced Demuffin 1.1 by The Stack (1983)
Technical notes for Advanced DeMuffin II, a cracking tool
Alien Mind Cheat - Brought to you by The Baron
A Crack and patch for Alien Mind, from Fred Gotfredson
Assorted Cracks 2: From Mike Hackett
Bard's Tale III Code Wheel crack,from Zhu Hang
Bard's Tale I and II GS character editor
All manner of cheats for various Apple II games
LARGE Collection of Apple Cheats (Break into Monitor and Modify)
How to Copy Programs, by the Three Musketeers
Copy-Protecting your own disks, by Thomas T. Brylinski
Introduction to a Talk on Software Piracy
An introduction to cracking by The Necromancer
The Basics of Basic Cracking, by Copy/Cat of the Hi-Res Hijackers
How to crack Crisis Mountain, by Doctor Who
Become Master of the Game! Breaking into The Dark Heart of Uukrul by Jeff Hurlburt
Deju Vu cracks from Computist magazine
Examining protected Applesoft programs, by the Disk Jockey
Gnarly Golf GS cheat - Britanicca by Jim Maricondo
Install HD Version 1.0 May 1991
Krakowicz' Kracking Korner: Basic Hardware Kracking Tools
The Lost Treasures of Infocom Mini Manual
Instructions for the Romswitch and the Krakrom NMI, by Krakowicz
Jack Nicklaus's Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf
High Technology's Cracking Tutorial, Part I
High Technology's Cracking Tutorial, Part II
High Technology's Cracking Tutorial, Part III
High Technology's Cracking Tutorial, Part IV
High Technology's Cracking Tutorial, Part V
Krakowicz' Kraking Corner: Cyclod, by Krakowicz
Krakowicz' Kraking Corner: Cyclod and Juggler, by Krakowicz
Krakowicz' Kraking Korner: Kameari from Ado-Soft (Japan)
Krakowicz' Kraking Korner: SSI's RDOS, by Krakowicz
Dealing with Disk Access Routines, by Krakowicz
Krakowicz' Kraking Corner IIIa: Way Out, by Krakowicz
Krakowicz' Kraking Corner: Way Out Part 2, by Krakowicz
Kracowicz' Kraking Tips from ROM Raider
The Kracowicz Basics of Cracking Series. A++
Last Ninja/IIgs Deprotect and Hard Disk Mods
The Byte's introduction to Mac Cracking
Black Bag's Introduction to Machine Language for Cracking
Macteam's thoughts on copy protection on the Macintosh
Many Cheats II, from Pirates Bay
Odyssey: The Compleat Adventure (Deprotection)
Parameters of Nibbles Away II for various software packages
Making Pirates/GS Hard Disk Bootable, by Rubywant
A Backup for Playroom, by Broderbund
Deprotect for Prince of Persia on 3.5" Floppy
Softkey Unprotections for a Variety of Commercial Programs
Old version Thexder joystick patch for IIgs
Mr. Xerox' boot tracing, volume I (badly converted)
Deprotect for the 8 bit version of Test Drive II
Copy II+ Parameters for Ultima V
Adding Write-Protect to Wizardry I boot disk image
Xenocide "key-disk" removal patch
Cheat for Ancient Land of Y's (GS) by Jim Maricondo