[HN Gopher] Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 70 points
       Date   : 2026-02-01 21:30 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dmitrybrant.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dmitrybrant.com)
        
       | kwanbix wrote:
       | My father, an accountant, used to have a program like that, that
       | used RPG and a dongle! Good times. Horrible donle.
        
       | dehrmann wrote:
       | > I must say, this copy protection mechanism seems a bit...
       | simplistic? A hardware dongle that just passes back a constant
       | number?
       | 
       | Seems like it was an appropriate amount of engineering. Looks
       | like this took between an afternoon and a week with the help of
       | an emulator and decompiler. Imagine trying to do this back then
       | without those tools.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2026-02-01 23:00 UTC)