NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/comp/sys/acorn/9642

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 2.8 KB | 58 lines

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Path: sparky!uunet!think.com!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!student.tc.umn.edu!alla0008
From: [e-mail] (Graham Allan)
Subject: Re: Computer Concepts
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Usenet News Administration)
Nntp-Posting-Host: student.tc.umn.edu
Organization: University of Minnesota
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 16:11:21 GMT
Lines: 45

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ian Palmer) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Simon Burrows) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Ian Palmer) writes:
>>>The only thing that really annoys me about CC is their insistence on
>>>finding the worst possible protection method for their products (ie.
>>>dongles and crappy printer cables).
>>
>>I agree about the printer cable, but not about dongles. What other
>>technique do you suggest that they use to protect their investment?
>> [...]
>Yes but dongles are a very short sighted method of protection. Imagine
>if every company started using them, how usable would your desktop be
>then? Suppose you were producing a book (or similar) using Impression
>(say) and Artworks (say) and importing data from a database (let's say
>this uses a dongle too) and a spredsheet (yet another dongle) and
>perhapse a graph drawing package.
>
>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

I always assumed you could daisy-chain them together - am I wrong?

>But this doesn't address the real problem with them. CC's Impression
>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 !).

If you use a short piece of cable between the computer and the dongle, it
makes life a lot easier. I resisted spending money on this for a long
time, but was glad I got it in the end - everything is much more stable.

>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).

Presumably what the 'unique ID' in the A5000 etc is supposed to address...
unfortunately doesn't help those of us with old machines much!

Graham                        [e-mail]
                        [e-mail]