cseaman@sequent.UUCP (Chris "The Bartman" Seaman) (12/20/90)
sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) writes: > Again, one of the best anti-pirate devices I saw was on Shadow of the > Unicorn for the Spectrum. It was a dongle with additional RAM and a > joystick port. Basically you had to have the dongle before you COULD play > the game! (It's a pity that the game was a flop... :-) An interactively used dongle may well defeat most pirates, but it will also (I suspect) defeat quite a number of sales. I decided long ago that I would never buy any piece of software, be it productivity or entertainment, which required the use of a dongle. I don't care what the relative merits of the software are, the existence of a dongle is the ultimate in inconvenience and insult to me as a user. Regards, Chris -- Chris (Insert phrase here) Seaman | /o -- -- -- cseaman@gateway.sequent.com <or> ||| -- -- - I'm Outta Here, Man! ...!uunet!sequent!cseaman |vvvv/ -- -- - The Home of the Killer Smiley |___/ -- -- --
peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (12/20/90)
In article <49025@sequent.UUCP> cseaman@sequent.UUCP (Chris "The Bartman" Seaman) writes: >sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) writes: >> Again, one of the best anti-pirate devices I saw was on Shadow of the >> Unicorn for the Spectrum. It was a dongle with additional RAM and a >> joystick port. Basically you had to have the dongle before you COULD play >> the game! (It's a pity that the game was a flop... :-) > >An interactively used dongle may well defeat most pirates, but it will >also (I suspect) defeat quite a number of sales. I agree. Look, if you only have ONE dongle protected software, then it might be ok. But what if you have, say, five? The dongle companies state "our dongles are totally transparent" (I speak about those going onto the parallel port, NOT joystick port 2). So, in theory, you stack those 5 dongles in one row to your port. Mechanically a horrible load. And software-wise? Well, the German magazine c't made a test with PC dongles for exactly this issue. And they found big differences. They actually were able to use (I think I remember correctly) up to 4 dongles, but until that worked, they had to try nearly every permutation of the order of these dongles. So, and this was on a singletasking system where you were sure that only one software at a time tries to read its very own dongle. Now imagine this on a multitasking Amiga. Pure horror! It also wouldn't be any solution to put only the dongle of the respective, just to be invoked program on. Normal port connectors are not layed out to get changed a dozen times a day. So, software companies, PLEASE avoid dongles! -- Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // E-Mail to \\ Only my personal opinions... Commodore Frankfurt, Germany \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk
pm0@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Patrick Martin) (12/21/90)
I agree. Dongles are a major pain in the butt. I have only had one program that used a dongle and while it did defeat alot of the piracy, it was a major pain for us. It fit into the joystick port 2 and it seemed like I could never find it when I needed it. Just what does a dongle do? It seemed that there was nothing to this thing. There were some of the holes which matched the prongs which were covered in metal and others which were not. Is there some kind of integrated chip in there which contains information vital to the program or is there nothing to it? Pat
sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) (12/22/90)
cseaman@sequent.UUCP (Chris "The Bartman" Seaman) writes: > > joystick port. Basically you had to have the dongle before you COULD play > > the game! (It's a pity that the game was a flop... :-) > > An interactively used dongle may well defeat most pirates, but it will > also (I suspect) defeat quite a number of sales. I decided long ago > that I would never buy any piece of software, be it productivity or > entertainment, which required the use of a dongle. I don't care what > the relative merits of the software are, the existence of a dongle is > the ultimate in inconvenience and insult to me as a user. > A dongle - sort of. But would you be prepared to play a game which came with a basic voice input device so you could shout out "Fire Missile" when chasing a Mig? A really simple device along these lines might add $10-$20 to the price of the game but could improve it a lot - and be very very hard to pirate. There are other devices you could have along these lines too. They wouldn't really be dongles in the true sense of the word, they would just be hardware enhancements to the game. And it has to be a darn sight better than blasted code wheels and disk crunching protection.... -- ** Official Signature for Sleeping Beagle (aka Thomas Farmer)! ** sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz || Disclaimers are for sick societies ** Thomas.Farmer@bbs.actrix.gen.nz || with too many lawyers.
bart@asgard.pub.uu.oz.au (John Butcher) (12/23/90)
In article <26039@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>, Patrick Martin writes: > I agree. Dongles are a major pain in the butt. I have only had one > program that used a dongle and while it did defeat alot of the piracy, I ended up making a box with 2 joystick ports and a switch, 1 for a dongle, and 1 for a joystick :) - Silly really, the ONE dongle protected prg I [ had ] was a comms package which came with the modem I got, and was configured specifically for that modem, and even then I didnt use it, as the PD software around was better ( but didnt support the Auto-dial of the modem ) Talk about overkill : dongle protecting SW which I have now literally thrown into the bin ( oh, Im using the disk for something else now tho ;) +---------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+ | John Butcher : bart@asgard.pub.uu.oz.au | Black Bart's seen it, | | ...!uunet!asgard.pub.uu.oz.au!bart | Black Bart knows. ;) | +---------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
paul@wa1omm.UUCP (Paul MacDonald) (12/24/90)
>In article <26039@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> pm0@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Patrick Martin) writes: > >I agree. Dongles are a major pain in the butt. I have only had one >program that used a dongle and while it did defeat alot of the piracy, >it was a major pain for us. It fit into the joystick port 2 and it >seemed like I could never find it when I needed it. > >Just what does a dongle do? It seemed that there was nothing to this >thing. There were some of the holes which matched the prongs which were >covered in metal and others which were not. Is there some kind of >integrated chip in there which contains information vital to the program >or is there nothing to it? I always looked at the dongle as a method for ensuring that users registered their software. Precision is a popular manufacturer of software that uses dongles. However, they will provide a "non-dongle" version of their products for about $10 (Superbase products). Of course for the $10, your name and address are encrypted into the code and appear everytime you start the application. I think companies that go to that effort must assume the additional responsibilities of license transfers, and so on. I wonder how effective those policies are at preventing piracy. -- /\ /\ //\\//\\ +---------^^^^------------------^^^^---------+ | From the shack of WA1OMM -- Paul MacDonald | | Using the power of the multitasking Amiga! | | | | Compuserve: 70411,626 PLink: UPPERCRUST | | Amateur Packet Radio: WA1OMM@KB4N.NH.USA | | Usenet: ...virgin!ubbs-nh!wa1omm!paul | +--------------------------------------------+ /\ / /\ (~ / / / / /\ /\ / / / / V /~~\ _) /~/ /_/ /~~\ , / V /~/
tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) (12/27/90)
sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) writes: >A dongle - sort of. >But would you be prepared to play a game which came with a basic voice >input device so you could shout out "Fire Missile" when chasing a Mig? >A really simple device along these lines might add $10-$20 to the price >of the game but could improve it a lot - and be very very hard to pirate. >There are other devices you could have along these lines too. They >wouldn't really be dongles in the true sense of the word, they would just >be hardware enhancements to the game. I can see it now! "This game comes complete with its own custom joy stick for responsiveness like you've never seen before!" Talk about turning lemons to lemonade. I fairly quickly paid the extra $10 to get the un-dongled Superplan, because though XCad claimed to have a non-dongled version, I could never find out about it, and like another poster, I couldn't stand having to swap dongles. Swapping dongle and joystick is bad enough; at least XCad uses enough of my paltry 512k chip ram that I'm not tempted to play games while XCadding. :-(
pm0@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Patrick Martin) (12/27/90)
In article <paul.5014@wa1omm.UUCP> paul@wa1omm.UUCP (Paul MacDonald) writes: >I think companies that go to that effort must assume the additional >responsibilities of license transfers, and so on. I wonder how effective >those policies are at preventing piracy. Well back in my C=128 days, it was a very effective method of piracy pre- vention. Most of the pirates are too lazy to get around something like that. I guess when I start writing software commercially then my view- point will change on the matter. The companies deserve to take any measures they want. I mean we don't have to purchase the product if it is not worth the hassle. The only thing that makes me mad is when I purchased a game one time and the stupid thing gave me a message claiming I was a pirate and therefore the game would not run. I got another copy and it did the same thing. It was only a 10 dollar game so I gave it up at this point... Companies should be somewhat more responsible in their methods of copy protection. I personally feel the best method is to make the software virtually useless without the documentation. I hate code wheels or the "Turn to page N in the documentation and type in the Mth word..." Take care all... Pat
sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) (12/28/90)
tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) writes: > sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) writes: > >But would you be prepared to play a game which came with a basic voice > >input device so you could shout out "Fire Missile" when chasing a Mig? > I can see it now! "This game comes complete with its own custom > joy stick for responsiveness like you've never seen before!" Talk > about turning lemons to lemonade. I fairly quickly paid the extra > $10 to get the un-dongled Superplan, because though XCad claimed to > have a non-dongled version, I could never find out about it, and > like another poster, I couldn't stand having to swap dongles. > Swapping dongle and joystick is bad enough; at least XCad uses > enough of my paltry 512k chip ram that I'm not tempted to play > games while XCadding. :-( Dongles are really best suited to single application machines. THen there's no worry about switching dongles and so on - and it seems as if many PC clones are single application machines.... Of course, us people with Amigas are so brilliant that we use lots of different applications and the like.... :-) P.S. THe ultimate in pirate protection has now been revealed to me. I received a copy of Indy 500 for my Amiga (I love the PC version!) for Christmas - and it's impossible to pirate. Basically, the shop I got it from forgot to put the disk in the box.. :-( -- ** Official Signature for Sleeping Beagle (aka Thomas Farmer)! ** sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz || Disclaimers are for sick societies ** Thomas.Farmer@bbs.actrix.gen.nz || with too many lawyers.
IMS103@psuvm.psu.edu (Ian Matthew Smith) (01/03/91)
I think ASDG's Scanlab software hat the most complicated dongle I have seen. Basicly, the software will not run without the Sharp JX-100 plugged in and turned on. :-) Ian "My dongle can digitize in full color!" Smith <ims103@psuvm.bitnet>