I vividly remember the SuperBASIC compiler written by a guy called Freddy Vacha (I met him at a computer fair). It came with a software protection device called a "Lenslok". This was a kind of eyepiece with a row of vertical plastic prisms. Before the compiler would start, a random code was displayed on the screen, which was scrambled. If you looked through the Lenslok you could see the code and type it in, allowing access. I believe a number of games of that era on various platforms used it too. My friend and I were developing a circuit simulator (like SPICE) for the QL (well, he had written it for the ZX Spectrum and I ws rewriting it in QL SuperBASIC). We could only afford one copy of the compiler so therefore only had one Lenslok between us. I soon found that by squinting at the screen I could decipher the code without the Lenslok. I told Freddy this and he said he had decided to dump it as it was useless.
