From: ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Computer Concepts
Date: 18 Nov 92 13:05:39 GMT
Organization: Department of Computing, Imperial College, University of London, UK.
NNTP-Posting-Host: oak48.doc.ic.ac.uk

In article <1992Nov18.111052.10914@cs.nott.ac.uk> rsxdp@unicorn.nott.ac.uk (D.Pead) writes:
>In article <1eag79INNp27@oak49.doc.ic.ac.uk> ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) writes:
>>If all these required their own incompatable dongles you'd be stuffed.
>>The short answer is you can only really have one dongle at a time, and
>
>Sorry, but BULL****!!! My machine has both Artworks and Impression
>dongles on the back and works fine (although strange things happen if you
>get them in the wrong order).  There is no reason why dongles could
>not be daisy chained.  Since Impression is a well-established product,
>any firm producing a program with a non-compatible dongle only has itself
>to blame.

And CC are really going to tell all-and-sundry the internals of their
dongles to anyone who wished to produce a dongle for their product
arn't they? Oh Yes of course they will, and what's that pig doing over
there?

The fact that Impression and Artworks dongles work together isn't
really surprising. But notice, as you said yourself, they have to be
in the right order. Now imagine if many companies used dongles, each
one would have to be tested with every single possible permutation of
all available dongles in the entire Arc world. Get above 4 and you're
stuffed. Add to this the total length of dongle tree involved and
you'd need an extra desk just for dongles (with or without
dongle-dangles).

>
>>CCs dongle is badly made and doesn't have correct fittings on it, the
>>consequence of which is that the one on the back of my computer
>>doesn't hold my printer cable fully. Plus it adds extra strain on the
>>connections, and makes the back of my computer need twice the
>>clearence it would otherwise need (about half a foot !).
>>
>Ever considered blaming your printer cable?  I've not had this problem.
>A bit of ribbon cable with two D-connectors (available from CC and most
>suppliers as a "dongle dangle" ) solves the strain problem.

Nope! And yes I've heard of dongle dangles. Just think the connection
from computer to printer would then have to go through (if 2 dongles
and a dongle dangle) 5 connections, whoopeee do (I don't think). Just
think what that does to the signal, given the added bonus of a bit of
ribbon cable (yuck!). Now add the dongles you're going to get with
every other RiscOs application who's creator thinks dongles are a good
idea, what fun.

>>
>>What would be more useful would be if a large number of software
>>manufacturers (and Acorn) got together and produced a univerasal, non
>>retsrictive but yet usable method of protection (and yes it can be
>>done, it's just nobody want's to put the effort in).
>>
>I suggest that you do it yourself and license it out - you could make a
>killing if you can find something that's "non-restrictive" but
>actually prevents people from copying the program ( a contradiction,
>surely?)
>

The reason I said that a group of manufacturers got together was that
they could share the developement costs. Plus you assume that I meant
some software method, well I didn't. I was actually refering to a
hardware method, but which did not involve scrambling the entire
output of every conceivable output on the back of your computer, or
having massive trees of badly made dongles.

But it won't happen because it's a lot easier to produce some half
heated non-solution (like dongles or mixed up cables) than it is to
come up with a real solution.

Ian

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