Apple decided early on that it would be worth their while to protect the ROM of the Macintosh. Steve decided that if a company copied the Mac ROM into their computer, he would like to be able to do a demo during the trial, where he could type a few keystrokes into an unmodified infringing machine, and have a large “Stolen From Apple” icon (featuring a guy in prison bars!) appear on its screen”
Apple programmers found a clever way to compress the icon, hide it in the ROM, and then write a routine to call it up. To prove that the machine had pirated ROM - all Steve would have to do is open the debugger and type the hexadecimal address of the routine - followed by G - and hit enter. Then the lawyer for the prosecution could say dramatically “I rest my case.”
January 15th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Yes, but what IS the address?