reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (08/08/85)
I just got delivery on a program called "MacDraft" from Innovative Data Design of Concord, California. This is a very nice drafting program, but I strongly recommend that people not buy it because its protection behavior is so %$^&$^$#* obnoxious. Here's why: - The main use of a program like this is with the LaserWriter. Although it can output to the Imagewriter, many of its more subtle features are lost on the Imagewriter. - The distributed version of the program cannot be copied with CopyII Mac. (I suspect that they are diddling around with the speed control of the disk drive motor) - The distributed version of the program comes with Imagewriter support. To use it with the LaserWriter you have to run the "Install Printer" program to install a LaserWriter driver on the disk. - Therefore, if you want to use this program with the LaserWriter you must do one of these two things: * Write over top of your 1 and only copy of the distribution disk to get the LaserWriter installed on it or * Live with the copy, using the "signature disk" scheme. BUT: here's the kicker. The copy protection scheme asks you to put in the signature disk EACH TIME THE APPLICATION IS LAUNCHED!!!!! Yesterday I was ready to strangle somebody as I was switching back and forth between MacTerminal and MacDraft. Every time I fired up MacDraft it said "Please insert the Master Disk". Grrrr! This is inexcusable behavior in a $250 piece of software, no matter how good it is. Don't buy it. Boycott these $#^$&^%$&*%. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA