smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith) (10/22/90)
I had a conversation/argument with a guy last night who claimed he
had fried a monitor and several hard disks when he was trying to
bypass the copy protection on floppy disks at various times.
According to him, software companies PURPOSEFULLY WRITE code into
their copy protection which, if tampered with, would make your hard
drive attempt to read non-existent sectors or send abnormal frequencies
to your monitor in order to fry/lock them up. I've certainly HUNG
a computer many times while tinkering, but it has always been my fault.
Has anybody heard of such a thing? And IS there even a way to write
codes which could do either of these destructive things? (And could
one accidentally destroy hardware by tinkering with programs--even
when it's their own fault?) It sure sounds bizarre to me.
S. "Stevie" Smith \ + /
<smsmith@hpuxa. \+++++/ " #*&<-[89s]*(k#$@-_=//a2$]'+=.(2_&*%>,,@
ircc.ohio-state. \ + / {7%*@,..":27g)-=,#*:.#,/6&1*.4-,l@#9:-) "
edu> \ + /
BTW, WYSInaWYG \ + / --witty.saying.ARCekalenda@cup.portal.com (Edward John Kalenda) (10/22/90)
S. "Stevie" Smith writes: > I had a conversation/argument with a guy last night who claimed he > had fried a monitor and several hard disks when he was trying to > bypass the copy protection on floppy disks at various times. then asks if software can destroy hardware. Yes, some monitors CAN be ruined by misprogramming the Video Control chip on the video adaptor. All the technical references on the 6845 that I have indicate that the control registers MUST be setup properly in as little time as possible or you risk overloading the beam control circuitry in the monitor. I've spoken with monitor designers about this now and then and they say it can happen, not all monitors are suceptible but the cheaper they are the less overload protection they have designed into them. The main consideration seems to be the sync timing. Get it off too far and the deflection circuits saturate, leading to possible overload of the high voltage transformer. I'm not an analog engineer so this is second hand from guys who are. The gist is there, but the details may be a bit off. Ed ekalenda@cup.portal.com