My CAD software called home, and no-one answered, so it shut down

Re:My CAD software called home, and no-one answered, so it s... by mod on Monday February 20, 2017 @01:39AM (#13684916)

Does anyone have any idea how this might have "called home" in the early '80s?

I mean, that doesn't seem possible.

My best guess is that some later version of the software was updated to include phoning home.

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Re:My CAD software called home, and no-one answered, so it s... by subinsebastien on Monday February 20, 2017 @02:08AM (#13685074)

The OP explains in a later comment that, he used a floppy-disk based licensing system in the early days of this software.

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Re:My CAD software called home, and no-one answered, so it s... by stevoski on Monday February 20, 2017 @02:53AM (#13685315)

I worked on a team in 1993 that made point of sale software that "phoned home" and required customers to purchase a modem with the software. We were no cutting edge software company, so I can easily imagine others doing this a few years earlier.

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Re:My CAD software called home, and no-one answered, so it s... by kbouck on Monday February 20, 2017 @01:53AM (#13684995)

Maybe it literally phoned home... over a 300 baud modem.

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Re:My CAD software called home, and no-one answered, so it s... by greenyoda on Monday February 20, 2017 @01:56AM (#13685010)

I suppose it could have literally "called home" by using a modem to dial a phone number and connect to a dial-up modem on the authorization server. Since it only does this "every few months", that wouldn't be a prohibitively expensive form of communication.

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