Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

Quake 共享版：一张“内容过载”的 CD-ROM

Fabien Sanglard - WEBSITE Aug 17, 2026 Fabien Sanglard - 网站 2026年8月17日

In the mid-90s the coolest thing to buy for a PC, besides the incredibly expensive Intel Pentium, was a CD-ROM drive. With their capacity of 640 MiB (three times the storage of PC HDD at the time), CDs allowed enthusiasts to step into a world of multimedia, made of high-resolution 640x480 256 colors palette-indexed photos, VOC soundtracks, and play with Video For Windows butter-smooth 12 fps 240x179 videos lasting up to several seconds. 在 90 年代中期，除了昂贵得离谱的英特尔奔腾处理器外，PC 上最酷的装备莫过于 CD-ROM 光驱。凭借 640 MiB 的容量（当时 PC 硬盘存储空间的三倍），CD 让发烧友们得以步入多媒体世界，体验高分辨率 640x480 256 色索引调色板照片、VOC 音轨，以及 Video For Windows 那“丝般顺滑”的 12 fps 240x179 分辨率、时长仅几秒的视频。

For video game developers, the CD-ROM was an odd beast. The capacity far exceeded the quantity of assets they were able to produce. A few titles, like 7th Guest (1993), Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994), or Phantasmagoria (1995) introduced Full Motion Video (in a world where only part of the screen could be animated). Some added high quality music. My most memorable take on the matter was from id Software’s lead developer, John Carmack. 对于电子游戏开发者来说，CD-ROM 是个奇怪的玩意儿。它的容量远超他们所能制作的素材量。一些游戏，如《第七访客》（1993）、《银河飞将 III：虎之心》（1994）或《幻象杀手》（1995），引入了全动态视频（Full Motion Video，在那个屏幕只能部分动画化的时代）。还有一些游戏加入了高质量音乐。关于这一点，我印象最深的是 id Software 首席开发者 John Carmack 的看法：

“People expect CD games to have tons of digitized speech and video […] The joke here is that if we ever do a CD version of DOOM, you are going to get the game and “The Making of DOOM” a one hour feature film.” — John Carmack (Jan ‘94) for “ATARI EXPLORER ONLINE” “人们期望 CD 游戏能包含海量的数字化语音和视频……这里的笑话是，如果我们真的制作了 CD 版的《毁灭战士》（DOOM），你得到的将是游戏本体，外加一部一小时长的纪录片《毁灭战士的制作过程》。”—— John Carmack（1994 年 1 月，为《ATARI EXPLORER ONLINE》撰文）

A good idea on paper but bad on CD

纸面上的好主意，CD 上的坏点子

By June 1996, after three years of hard work, id Software had completed their next title, Quake. As for their previous title, they were going to release both a shareware version and a full version of their game. Since it used a mere 22 MiB of storage, people at id Software had the idea of leveraging the remaining capacity of a CD-ROM. Why not include encrypted versions of the full id catalogue of games? Not only this would cut out the middlemen, it would give instant access to gamers with a simple phone call and a credit card. 到 1996 年 6 月，经过三年的艰苦工作，id Software 完成了他们的下一部作品《雷神之锤》（Quake）。和之前的作品一样，他们打算同时发布共享版和完整版。由于游戏仅占用 22 MiB 存储空间，id Software 的人萌生了一个想法：利用 CD-ROM 剩余的容量。为什么不把 id 旗下所有游戏的加密完整版都放进去呢？这不仅能绕过中间商，还能让玩家只需打个电话、刷张信用卡，就能立即获得游戏。

The concept was implemented. The CD was announced on July 3, 1996 and released on August 30th. The hacker group GNOMON released Quakecrk.zip only 39 days later. The archive contained QCRACK.EXE, a tool allowing to decrypt every single game on the CD-ROM. Quake’s shareware retail experiment had proved disastrous. 这个概念被付诸实施。该 CD 于 1996 年 7 月 3 日宣布，8 月 30 日正式发布。黑客组织 GNOMON 仅在 39 天后就发布了 Quakecrk.zip。该压缩包内含 QCRACK.EXE，这是一个可以解密 CD-ROM 上所有游戏的工具。《雷神之锤》的零售共享版实验被证明是一场灾难。

In theory id was going to cut out retailers by allowing gamers to buy the shareware and then call an 800 number to place an order and receive a password that would unlock the rest of the game. But gamers wasted no time hacking the shareware to unlock the full version of the game for free. Worse, all the mundane aspects of distribution and order fulfillment were spinning out of control. In a desperate measure, id tried to put the brakes on the retail shareware, but it was too late. They were stuck with almost 150,000 CDs sitting in a warehouse. — David Kushner (Masters of Doom) “理论上，id 打算通过让玩家购买共享版，然后拨打 800 免费电话下单并获取解锁完整版游戏的密码，从而绕过零售商。但玩家们毫不浪费时间，迅速破解了共享版，免费解锁了完整游戏。更糟糕的是，分销和订单履行的琐碎事务完全失控了。在绝望中，id 试图叫停零售共享版，但为时已晚。他们仓库里积压了近 15 万张卖不出去的 CD。”—— David Kushner（《毁灭战士之主》作者）

So what happened? Let’s dive in! 那么到底发生了什么？让我们深入探究一下！

Getting Quake retail shareware CD

获取《雷神之锤》零售共享版 CD

Thanks to usenet archives of rec.games.computer.quake.misc, we have detailed discussions of how it worked. A gamer could go to any of the hundreds of CompUSA/Computer City stores and buy the CD for $9.95. 多亏了 Usenet 论坛 rec.games.computer.quake.misc 的存档，我们得以了解其运作细节。玩家可以前往数百家 CompUSA 或 Computer City 门店中的任何一家，以 9.95 美元的价格购买这张 CD。

The packaging was actually pretty high quality for a shareware product. On my copy, a sticker on the front clarifies this is the “Shareware version” with instructions to call 1-800-669-9342 (or 1-800-ID-GAMES) to unlock the full game. The phone number is still active today. However you don’t reach the unlock center since CompUSA went out of business. The Superstore chain closed between 2007 and 2008. Instead of an unlock operator we get an automated message to sell us elderly stuff. 对于一款共享软件产品来说，其包装质量相当高。我手头的那份包装正面贴着一张标签，明确说明这是“共享版”，并附有拨打 1-800-669-9342（或 1-800-ID-GAMES）解锁完整游戏的说明。这个电话号码至今仍在使用，但你已经无法联系到解锁中心了，因为 CompUSA 已经倒闭。这家大型连锁店在 2007 年至 2008 年间关闭。现在拨打过去，听到的不是解锁专员的声音，而是推销过时商品的自动语音。

Upon contacting the operator, users were to also communicate a “SOURCE CODE”. It played no part in generating the Unlock code. It may have been a way for the distributors to claim a transaction fee. Browsing eBay, I found many with names indicative of past/present retailers. 12-BSTBY BestBuy, 24-CCITY Computer City, 22-CUSA CompUSA, 88, 11-1111, 38-EB Electronic Boutique, 44-FTRSP Future Shop (Canada), 34-EGGH Egghead Software, and 56-MCTR Media Play/ Musicland. 联系接线员时，用户还需要提供一个“来源代码”（SOURCE CODE）。它在生成解锁码的过程中并不起作用，这可能只是分销商用来结算交易费用的方式。在 eBay 上浏览时，我发现许多代码对应着过去或现在的零售商：12-BSTBY 代表 BestBuy，24-CCITY 代表 Computer City，22-CUSA 代表 CompUSA，等等。

How it was intended to work

原本的运作方式

The first contact was sleek. The GUI was well done. Users could jump directly into Quake Shareware but they could also click on QUAKE UNLOCK. The CD-ROM also features an ID STUFF section, allowing to browse the catalogue of id games and unlock any of them. Several versions of DOOM are there, along with HEXEN, and HERETIC. 初次接触的体验很流畅。图形界面（GUI）做得很好。用户可以直接进入《雷神之锤》共享版，也可以点击“QUAKE UNLOCK”。CD-ROM 还包含一个“ID STUFF”部分，允许浏览 id 游戏目录并解锁其中任何一款。那里有多个版本的《毁灭战士》，以及《毁灭巫师》（HEXEN）和《异教徒》（HERETIC）。

Once the unlock process was started, the GUI generated a CODE NUMBER (which I call CHALLENGE) that was to be communicated to a Service Agent over the phone. Upon paying the fees, an UNLOCK CODE NUMBER (which I call SERIAL) would be received. Checksums on both numbers mitigated issues related to this primitive landline mode of communication. To avoid replay attacks, the CHALLENGE changes every time the program is run and rotates every 5 min while the GUI is active. 一旦解锁流程启动，GUI 会生成一个代码（我称之为“挑战码”），用户需要通过电话告知服务专员。支付费用后，用户会收到一个解锁码（我称之为“序列号”）。这两个数字上的校验和（Checksum）缓解了这种原始固定电话通信方式可能带来的问题。为了防止重放攻击，挑战码在程序每次运行时都会改变，并且在 GUI 运行期间每 5 分钟轮换一次。

The screen even had the signature provocative tone of the early days of id Software (“those who are too cheap”). Note that there was also a warning that users should back up the game once unlocked. Since the CHALLENGE included some randomness, there was no way to reuse a SERIAL. At first sight, the process looked solid. Users had to call an unlock service to obtain a password. And only with that password could the final unlock be completed. So what went wrong? 屏幕上甚至带有 id Software 早期标志性的挑衅口吻（“那些太抠门的人”）。值得注意的是，还有一个警告提醒用户在解锁后备份游戏。由于挑战码包含随机性，序列号无法重复使用。乍一看，这个流程很稳固：用户必须致电解锁服务获取密码，只有凭此密码才能完成最终解锁。那么，究竟哪里出了问题？

TestDrive, under the hood

TestDrive 的内部机制

The tool powering the lock/unlock was provided by TestDrive Corp’s. The idea was to give players a way to “try-before-you-buy” and allow them to immediately purchase the full version of a program. Their encrypter was capable of “denaturing” an .EXE executable. It replaced the first 32 KiB with a custom header (attempting to run a denatured executable displayed “This application has been disabled”), renamed the file to .MJ3, encrypted the original header as a .ST3, and issued a seed. 负责加解密的工具由 TestDrive 公司提供。其理念是为玩家提供一种“先试后买”的方式，让他们能立即购买程序的完整版。他们的加密器能够对 .EXE 可执行文件进行“变性”（denaturing）处理。它用自定义头部替换了文件的前 32 KiB（尝试运行此类文件会显示“此应用程序已被禁用”），将文件重命名为 .MJ3，将原始头部加密为 .ST3，并生成一个种子（seed）。

Let’s peek inside the Quake shareware CD with a filemap I generated… 让我们通过我生成的映射图，一窥《雷神之锤》共享版 CD 的内部……