Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!emory!hubcap!ncrcae!ncr-sd!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hplsla!tomb
From: tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Dongles to defeat piracy
Message-ID: <5160108@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 26 Dec 90 17:17:38 GMT
References: <49025@sequent.UUCP>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 23

sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) writes:

>A dongle - sort of.

>But would you be prepared to play a game which came with a basic voice
>input device so you could shout out "Fire Missile" when chasing a Mig?

>A really simple device along these lines might add $10-$20 to the price
>of the game but could improve it a lot - and be very very hard to pirate.

>There are other devices you could have along these lines too. They
>wouldn't really be dongles in the true sense of the word, they would just
>be hardware enhancements to the game.

I can see it now!  "This game comes complete with its own custom
joy stick for responsiveness like you've never seen before!"  Talk
about turning lemons to lemonade.  I fairly quickly paid the extra
$10 to get the un-dongled Superplan, because though XCad claimed to
have a non-dongled version, I could never find out about it, and
like another poster, I couldn't stand having to swap dongles.  
Swapping dongle and joystick is bad enough; at least XCad uses
enough of my paltry 512k chip ram that I'm not tempted to play
games while XCadding.  :-(