wrbull@aluxe.UUCP (bullman) (07/29/85)
I think that instead of wasting their(software companies) money on some doo-dad the family Rover will inevitably chew up, they should have put their money into developing a small (2 inch maybe) removable optical disc(YES a CD ROM!) Transfer rates at winnie rates, cheap(look at your local record store), not reproducible(at least not yet!) and relatively immune to environmental factors(dogs excluded!). This is so-o-o-o-o obvious that there must be something against really bad about it. High price maybe?! Well, CD players are cheap and getting cheaper. You can buy discontinued models for <$200. Sell a CD player for micros for that price and sell the software at some reasonable price(they now have no excuse about 10 pirated copies to justify jacking up the price - we're talking 1-2-3 at $50 range - visions of TURBO Pascal). It soon makes good economic sense to buy one of those expensive($200!) peripherals. Maybe the doo-dad or dongle(!?) is just another horse designed by a committee. William R. Bullman AT&T Bell Laboratories Allentown, PA USA ...!aluxe!wrbull /*************************************************************************** DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed above are entirely and exclusively those of the author. Affiliation given for identification purposes only. ***************************************************************************/
rsellens@watdcsu.UUCP (Rick Sellens - Mech. Eng.) (07/29/85)
In article <785@aluxe.UUCP> wrbull@aluxe.UUCP (bullman) writes: >I think that instead of wasting their(software companies) money on some >doo-dad the family Rover will inevitably chew up, they should have put their >money into developing a small (2 inch maybe) removable optical disc(YES a CD >ROM!) Transfer rates at winnie rates, cheap(look at your local record store), >not reproducible(at least not yet!) and relatively immune to environmental >factors(dogs excluded!). This is so-o-o-o-o obvious that there must be >something against really bad about it. > > William R. Bullman > AT&T Bell Laboratories > Allentown, PA USA > > ...!aluxe!wrbull One major flaw....... a) What is to prevent you from copying the program from the CD to something else and subsequently executing it on another machine? b) If you solve (a) through some kludge similar to the usual floppy copy protection schemes you have something that: - is much more durable than a floppy - costs about 10 times as much (My local supplier can sell me ten floppies for C$13.99; a CD is substantially more even if you discount the royalties to performers.) - requires that I puchase a special drive to read it - still requires that I shuffle disks in and out of the drive when I want to use a different piece of software With these considerations, this scheme strikes me as not worth the effort. If you want to follow this tack (I don't particularly), you might consider a ROM cartridge scheme. All of the newer processors have humongous addressable memory spaces (68020, 32032, etc.) It should not be difficult (or as expensive as a CD drive) to include about half a dozen ROM cartridge slots in a PC. ( I'm sure I don't use more than six software packages on a *regular* basis. ) You could then execute your software directly from ROM. Anything bigger than the cartridge capacity could be provided with only part of the program in ROM (some critical routine). The program could verify itself by testing that the program counter was pointing into the ROM area during execution. This scheme would provide a rugged, easily transferable medium that cannot be copied nearly as easily as a floppy. You also have something that is really just a glorified dongle, incorporating the program into the key. Rick Sellens UUCP: watmath!watdcsu!rsellens CSNET: rsellens%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet ARPA: rsellens%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
grayson@uiucuxc.Uiuc.ARPA (07/30/85)
But, of course, any software on a CD could be copied onto a floppy and run from the floppy.
slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner) (07/31/85)
> I think that instead of wasting their(software companies) money on some > doo-dad the family Rover will inevitably chew up, they should have put their > money into developing a small (2 inch maybe) removable optical disc(YES a CD > ROM!) Transfer rates at winnie rates, cheap(look at your local record store), > not reproducible(at least not yet!) and relatively immune to environmental > factors(dogs excluded!). I have a few problems with this. First, a key ring (the equivilant of the CD player) will cost <$25 in bulk. Some vendors may give them away so that people will be able to run their protected software. I don't see many PC's with CD players yet, and a vendor sure as #$&^ won't be able to give those away. Therefore, the cost becomes prohibitive until CDs become common in the marketplace... A more serious problem, at least in terms of technical corectness: The software _theif_ doesn't need to copy the CD onto another CD, he can just copy the software onto a floppy. (Don't say that we could encrypt the CD to avoid this, you get into the same jamb that you have now. How do you multi-task if you spend all your time switching CDs?) -- Opinions expressed are public domain, and do not belong to Lotus Development Corp. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!slerner {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!slerner slerner%sesame@harvard.ARPA
pavlov@hscfvax.UUCP (840033@G.Pavlov) (07/31/85)
The cd players you are referring to are pretty complex devices. Among other things, most will extrapolate "frames" to compensate for dropouts, using the information in the bracketing "good" frames. This is necessary because dropouts/misreads/etc are relatively frequent. It works fine, too, because your eyes or your ears won't be miffed by occasional inconsistencies. But this won't do for object files and databases. Eventually, what you are proposing will likely come to pass, albeit in more expensive form; there are a lot of people working in this area. A few compa- nies have pre-announced cd drives for pc's - all substantially more expensive (and with a fraction of the capacity) of their audio/video brethren - where write capabilities are included. Storage Technology aside. greg pavlov hscfvax!pavlov FSTRF, Amherst, N.Y.
jmsellens@watmath.UUCP (John M Sellens) (08/01/85)
In article <21900063@uiucuxc> grayson@uiucuxc.Uiuc.ARPA writes: >But, of course, any software on a CD could be copied onto a floppy and >run from the floppy. Perhaps it would be possible to query what kind of device we were reading from. Then the program could refuse to run if it wasn't running on a CD player. (Of course someone would sell a gizmo to make your floppy drive look like a CD player ... John
slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner) (08/02/85)
>........... > If you want to follow this tack (I don't particularly), you might > consider a ROM cartridge scheme. All of the newer processors have > humongous addressable memory spaces (68020, 32032, etc.) It should > not be difficult (or as expensive as a CD drive) to include about > half a dozen ROM cartridge slots in a PC. ( I'm sure I don't use > more than six software packages on a *regular* basis. ) >... > This scheme would provide a rugged, easily transferable medium that > cannot be copied nearly as easily as a floppy. You also have something > that is really just a glorified dongle, incorporating the program into > the key. > > > Rick Sellens The same type of problem with ROMs as with CDs: you still can copy the code onto other media. The solution is not to limit copying, but to limit executing! -- Opinions expressed are public domain, and do not belong to Lotus Development Corp. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!slerner {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!slerner slerner%sesame@harvard.ARPA
maciag@spar.UUCP (Chris Maciag) (08/02/85)
In article <785@aluxe.UUCP> wrbull@aluxe.UUCP (bullman) writes: >not reproducible(at least not yet!) Don't forget that they can be dumped to disk, thoguh. There are now once-write CD machines for the IBM, but blank disks are $60 each and only hold 1MB. The machine has its own format, hence cannot read music CD's. From what I understand, CD production is still extremely difficult and needs a clean room environment. Sony and Hitachi have CD ROM machines that are also compatable with music disks, but you can't write. It costs $6 per disk to have a disk made in quantities of 10,000. Compared to the cost of making your own floppies and dongle, still too expensive. -Chris
jbn@wdl1.UUCP (08/05/85)
There's no problem preventing people from copying the CD ROM; it's huge. Imagine the help facility being based on raster images of the manual (probably in color) stored on the CD ROM. Who wants all that stuff on their mag disk? It won't fit on a floppy, even any floppies being talked about. And few people have tape cartridges on their micros. John Nagle