Hardware Lock Gurus - Old Software question

Factual Questions
1

I used to work with proprietary engineering software which had the usual hardware locks - like a lock that fitted into the serial port or printer port (Audocad old versions, B-JAC etc.).

One of the most unusual of locks used to be a floppy lock. It used to be a 51/2 " floppy with a pattern on it. The floppy could’nt be read - there was nothing to copied from it. Yet it served as the hardware lock. I have always wondered how it worked ?

Thanks for all replies.

2

Well, there was a number of floppy copy-protection schemes from the early days.

  1. was to us a non-standard floppy formatting so DOS couldn’t read/copy it but your application could. Like writing information between the standard tracks or using a different number of sectors per track.
  2. physical mod of the disk. I once saw a floppy that had a hole punched in it. This would make it impossible to copy a floppy image and the software would check to verify that that particular track/sector was unreadable.
3

This floppy did have a hole punched through it !! But would’nt the floppy drive itself not reject it ?

4

You can usually override any of that type of stuff, particularly if you can program in a low level language like assembly (or probably even C/Pascal)

5

So why has this kind of floppy locks not become popular with Microsoft or other software ? It will be much much secure to make a Software install only when the accompanying floppy is in the drive.

Am I missing something here ?

6

I have never seen a “floppy lock,” only things like dongles. Floppy protection, OTOH, was once popular. Fortunately it died a swift death.

The reason why it sucks is because it caused no end of problems for legit users but could never stop any pirates.

7

Big companies and many smaller companies do not install software off of floppies or really even off of CDs. When I install software on my computer at work I almost always install it off of the network. For many programs there is a license server that keeps track of who is running the software at a certain time and the company or a group within the company will have licenses for x number of people to be using the program at one time.

Secondly I am almost always running more than one program and if more than one wanted a special floppy that is a real pain in the ass for me.

8

In the early days of personal computers, people like Commodore were making fairly intelligent I/O devices in order to ease the processing load on the main CPU. IBM, who didn’t seem to be very skilled in the art of computer design if you ask me, completely ignored this and went for a fairly un-intelligent floppy drive. The floppy drive itself isn’t smart enough to reject it, no matter how messed up the floppy disk is.