Lockout chip

2024-11-17T20:46:19Z

2A04:4A43:871F:F301:DEA:29F7:EF48:510B:

{{More citations needed|date=May 2022}}
In a general sense, a '''lockout chip''' is a chip within an [[Electronics|electronic]] device to prevent other manufacturers from using a company's device to perform certain functions.

A notable example is the lockout chip found in Nintendo's [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] (called [[CIC (Nintendo)#10NES|10NES]]), designed to prevent "unlicensed" manufacturers from creating games for the [[Video game console|console]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Herkewitz |first=William |date=2020-05-03 |title=Cracking the Chip: How Hacking the NES Made It Even Better |url=https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/a32152013/nes10-chip-nintendo/ |access-date=2022-05-30 |website=[[Popular Mechanics]] |language=en-US}}</ref> The presence of the chip forced unlicensed companies to raise the price of each cartridge (due to a bypass chip having to be added to the cartridge), and allowed Nintendo a foothold for a lawsuit.

Lockout functions are commonly used in printers to prevent the use of third-party ink or toner cartridges.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-01-10 |title=Printer Cartridge Debacle Forces Canon to Tell Users How to Break DRM |url=https://gizmodo.com/printer-cartridge-debacle-forces-canon-to-tell-customer-1848332901 |access-date=2022-05-30 |website=[[Gizmodo]] |language=en-us}}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Regional lockout]]
* [[CIC (Nintendo)]]
* [[Vendor lock-in]]
* [[Software protection dongle]]
* ''[[Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc.]]'', a U.S. Sixth Circuit case rejecting copyright-related claims in lockout chips

==References==
{{Reflist}}

[[Category:Video game hardware]]
[[Category:Hardware restrictions]]

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Vero - Wikipedia - User contributions [en]

Lockout chip