NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/comp/sys/atari/8bit/5593

Text File | 1992-12-15 | 1.5 KB | 30 lines

Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!news.den.mmc.com!iplmail!bugs.orl.mmc.com!richards
From: [e-mail] (Larry Richardson)
Subject: Re: Need Action! help
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (NetWork News Manager)
Organization: Martin Marietta
References: <1992Dec14.212850.8900@neb> <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 20:51:17 GMT
Lines: 18

Password protecting an 8-bit is a little hopeless, as most good programmers
will just boot up with something else (another floppy with DOS) anyway.

Something that I have done is to write a small machine language program that
forces the user to enter a correct password before continuing execution.  Then,
append the program (this only works for individual programs, not for the
entire system) that you want protected to the end of the small ML file.  The
ML file will execute first, ask the user for the password, and if the user
types the correct password, control will pass back to DOS, which will continue
loading the remaining part of the executable (the original program).

Of course, you can write a small ACTION! program to do this, compile it
to machine language, and do the same thing.  That is, if the ACTION! compiler
tells DOS to explicitly run the program after it loads (I forget the memory
address you have to load...).  I can't remember off the top of my head if
it does or not.

            Larry Richardson