jabusch@uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA (07/23/85)
Where I come from, $5 is still $5, and even though it's not worth much, I don't intend to spend it on some piece of hardware which I don't want in the first place. And why would anyone want ot bother trying to break the scheme? I would just buy a different package.... It's not the idea to break the protection, but not to have it at all. Besides, once everyone that has this desire to use a hardware protection scheme, what do you do with all of them if you have 20 or 30 of the things hanging onto or sitting in your computer? You can't claim that they don't take up space when they start collecting. John Jabusch
mikey@trsvax (07/25/85)
If you're going through all the trouble to protect your software with a dongle, a lot of people will probably go through the effort to look elsewhere. Personally, I think backup protection S*CKS! I'll admit, that the way you described your product, you do need something. Are you using any kind of custom interface? Give the customer something in hardware and put the software in ROM. Even if it is just another RS-232 or a bi-directional parallel port, do something to let you put at least a lot of the code on the board. Sure, by putting drivers and such on a ROM it's almost the same as a dongle, but it's less offensive to a customer. Besides, if you put it ALL in ROM, then the customer only needs a small program on disk and even has more room on diskettes for his DATA and programs. If you're dealing with a customer that wants a minimum system on stage, this would even be a big plus. mikey at trsvax These are definately my own personal opinions, and may even conflict with everybody else. Personally, software protection is the best adventure series since Scott Adams.