Interestingly NeXTStep (which became Apple) did it back in the 1991. http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/SWCatalogs/page274/page274.html http://www.kevra.org/The

Interestingly NeXTStep (which became Apple) did it back in the 1991. http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/SWCatalogs/page274/page274.html http://www.kevra.org/TheBestOfNext/SWCatalogs/page274/page27... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_AppWrapper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_AppWrapper Also, I remember back in 1996 when quake came out you could buy the shareware CD which came with all of IDs games locked. You called up a number and paid to get an unlock code. Very, very quickly a serial generator started floating around.