Unauthorised copying of games and other programs inflicts heavy losses on software firms, we are constantly being told.

Well, yes, but let us also spare a thought for the amateur programmer, who is often less interested in some dazzling effect than the way in which it is produced. But should be try to find out, he will run up against an array of traps that violate the spirit of patent/copyright law.

When I tried to modify a two-part program for the Electron I found RAM lines stuffed with control codes to stop the program being listed; control codes hidden in the filenames; CALL commands which jumped to an RTS and straight back again, designed to wreck the program if it were altered in lenght; *FX commands to emasculate Escape or Break; and finally the main program was gibberish until it was EORed with a 256-byte decoding section in the title program.

It took me so long to struggle through all this, I forgot what I want to do in the first place.

W. E. Trevelyan
Epson Downs, Surrey