lew@ihlpa.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (10/28/85)
I bought BEACHEAD II by ACCESS at Toys R Us for 29.95 yesterday. When I tried to load it the first time, I got a standard blue screen READY prompt and a dead keyboard. As I started looking at the brochure which warned me that I would probably have to try about six different drives before I could load it ( well ... ) , I tried twice more and got load errors. Finally, a screen started to scroll upward. Oh, I thought, just like STAR WARS. This turned out to be a short essay on the relation of copyright laws to the history of home computers followed by the declaration that this was a pirated copy. Boy was I mad. I called (collect) the number of ACCESS and told them what happened and that I was just going to take it back and get a refund and that it wasn't worth it for a lousy game and so on. That was satisfying. The smart little essay I mentioned ended with the remark. "Welcome to the wonderful world of piracy." Well, so be it. By the way, I feel certain that this was a legitimate copy since I bought it a large distributor and it was hermetically sealed with crisp literature and labelling. I haven't been reading the net for a while so I'm sorry if I'm reviving some interminable discussion (seems likely) but this is a new one on me. Lew Mammel, Jr. ATT BL