[net.micro] _Scheme_to foil_pirates

bryan@ihuxm.UUCP (10/25/83)

What happens if you have a smart disk drive that,
retries to read a sector when a "soft error"
has occured , and only after several attempts reports 
that a "hard error was found"?  

Imagine a business man hurry to get his final report ready
for a meeting with the president  only to find that 
a polite message appears on the screen that says

		THIS IS THE 1000 TIME THE PROGRAM
		HAS BEEN USED.
		
		PLEASE RETURN DISK BACK TO PLACE OF
		PURCHASE SO THAT WE CAN RE-PROGRAM 
		THE DISK. THANK YOU  
		
		cow dung software inc.  
		
Also the "pirate" could remove or modify the code that looks
for the soft error.

The answer is not more copy protection but reasonable prices 
for software (ie 10.00 for home use programs).

I am very tired of spending big bucks for a program 
which, after a few hours of use, I found did not meet my
needs and was stuck with it because "YOU CAN NOT RETURN SOFTWARE
FOR YOUR MONEY BACK"

p.s. Don't try to feed me a bunch a greif of how the programmer
     spend 300 years developing the program and is just trying
     get payed for it ( more likely they don't see the cash just
     the middle men).   What about the guys who spend years 
     developing the 6502 or other micro only to have it sell
     for 6 to 10 dollars? Do they get a royalty payment?
     
     
					ihuxf!bryan
					Bryan DeLaney

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