Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!rutgers!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!mcnc!rti!bcw
From: bcw@rti.rti.org (Bruce Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Wild claims about copy protection--true?
Summary: Software that fries computers
Message-ID: <4166@rtifs1.UUCP>
Date: 3 Nov 90 21:20:10 GMT
References: <5946@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 37

In article <5946@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu>, smsmith@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Steve Smith) writes:
> 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.

It's certainly possible on some machines for software to damage the
video card/monitor or the hard disk by doing this sort of thing (as
one other poster noted, it's not uncommon with video cards -
especially Hercules cards, where you are often having to reprogram
the video hardware yourself since the BIOS provides no support for
the Hercules graphics modes).  It can also happen with some
combinations of hard disk controllers/drives.

But I find it difficult to believe that any reasonable company would 
risk doing this _intentionally_ as a way to provide "punishment" for
violating the copy protection.  It's a good way to invite a lawsuit,
and most companies tend to view copy protection (if they use it at
all) as a way to stop the peons from copying the software, and to 
slow down the knowledgeable tinkerers. Maybe the copy protection will
make it not worth the tinkerer's time, though of course some will 
always take that sort of thing as a challange.

It is however quite _easy_ for unintelligent tinkering to fry the
hardware if the software is doing things like twiddling the video
hardware or disk drive (possibly to use the Hercules graphics modes,
for example, or to write a copy-protect marker on the hard disk drive),
and if the hardware happens to be susceptible to that sort of thing.

I suspect that that's what happened to your friend ...

						Bruce C. Wright