Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site nicmad.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!brown From: brown@nicmad.UUCP Newsgroups: net.micro.pc Subject: Re: Lotus 1-2-3 question Message-ID: <321@nicmad.UUCP> Date: Sat, 17-Aug-85 20:36:42 EDT Article-I.D.: nicmad.321 Posted: Sat Aug 17 20:36:42 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 24-Aug-85 00:19:10 EDT References: <31300003@ISM780.UUCP> <31300005@ISM780.UUCP> Reply-To: brown@nicmad.UUCP (Mr. Video) Organization: Nicolet Instrument Corp. Madison WI Lines: 28 In article <31300005@ISM780.UUCP> patrick@ISM780.UUCP writes: >As to disassembly, and cracking the copy protection (I assume that the >sign-on message is part of the copy protection scheme), there's not >much I can say in a public forum; I'll restrict myself to a discussion >of the general principles. The 1-2-3 sign-on screen, which contains the copyright notice and to press a key to continue, is NOT part of the copy protection scheme. I am in the process of looking for the subroutine that prints/looks for the key press. It is not much fun going over code when you can't print it. But, I will find it sooner or later. It does seem that even if I did tell you what three bytes to change in the 1-2-3 code, you would probably have a hard time getting your customers to let you do it. Also, there appear to be at least two, if not three, different versions of 1-2-3. So, it would make it even harder to get them to change the code. >So, in order to protect their own investment in software development, >Lotus have implemented a copy-protection scheme which makes our product a >little less useful, and hence reduces the returns on _our_ investment in >software development. The copy protection scheme, as I said above, has nothing to do with the copyright notice, etc. -- Mr. Video {seismo!uwvax!|!decvax|!ihnp4}!nicmad!brown