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Or an even better use case- you have emulators on PC (which are banned on the XBox Store)

Then how is Haunted: Halloween '86 for Xbox on Microsoft Store? It's almost certainly an NES emulator, seeing as the exact same game is also for sale on cartridge. I'm under the impression that it slides by rule 10.13.10 on grounds that it's self-contained and won't run ROMs other than the packaged one.

But your "even better use case" is valid: You're playing a game for another platform, be it Windows or something a Windows PC can emulate, whose publisher hasn't rereleased it on Xbox.

So instead of copying a ROM let's just copy the idea of the ROM. Create new games that play like Mario or Donkey Kong but don't use the copyrighted (copywritten?) characters. Let's build an "app store" for old 8 & 16 bit style games that aren't custom written.

We already have one: Itch Direct. There's already a platformer inspired by Mario and Kirby titled Nova the Squirrel by Joshua Hoffman, distributed by its author as an NES ROM that runs in an emulator or on a PowerPak or EverDrive. If you like it, you may also like The Curse of Possum Hollow by Retrotainment Games (also on Steam) or Lizard by Brad Smith.

And if Nintendo or some other company tries to say their "idea" was stolen, simply point to Facebook and FarmVille that was copied.

Until the victim of this "copying" lawyers up in earnest. Then you get things like Tetris v. Xio (2012).

The NES Classic Edition isn't getting any new games (officially). It has no (Nintendo approved) update mechanism.

But the original Nintendo Entertainment System is getting plenty of new indie games. If you haven't heard of them, then perhaps the developers of platformers like Twin Dragons and The Curse of Possum Hollow and Lizard need to step up their advertising.

So you are saying my PDP11 ML knowledge isn't obsolete?

Different people define "obsolete" in different ways. I might feel justified in calling my 6502 assembly language knowledge not obsolete because just last year I found work as lead programmer for a project using it.

it is a warning to avoid languages controlled by a single corporate entity.

Which non-retro ISA isn't controlled by one company or a small handful thereof? ARM is controlled by ARM Ltd., and x86-64 is controlled by the Intel/AMD cartel. This leaves what? An older version of MIPS that Loongson processor adopted?

http://phatpugs.3dcartstores.c...

and nobody can stop them

Like you said, "I don't know Approach...". You should find a way to look at it from who the TARGET audience is. Home users of a database don't want nor NEED to become developers. Lotus Approach took me about 2 weeks to get really comfortable. Access, never, for me. Filemaker, ehh. It was too developer-aimed, IMO.

Lotus Approach IS used by some serious development types of work, mainly as a front end to Oracle, MySQL, mssql, and some 10 or 15 other db back ends. The data and forms are separate, and have always been, unlike what, Access, which took YEARS for ms to "get it".

Approach is WYSIWYG, so right from the word GO no one NEED be a developer.

NO ONE should be using spreadsheets to do non-statistical storage of data. This happened because for years either the tools didn't exist to appease the desk-side data analyst-- they had to rely on IT. The other part is some developers were lazy or territorial, and LOTS of companies and IT staff are mixed on hoard the data (not just from protection of data, but for IT job security), or share the data (so IT can concentrate on OTHER more important tasks than to risk backlash of "THAT'S not the report I ASKED FOR...".

The other problem is that ms popularized excel, and businesses did, too. LOTS of bad habits grew up around the kludge excel is. It is an abominable excuse for a database wannabe.

Approach lets people GET WORK DONE. People who need databases and never before saw one get sample database tables and applications in Approach. They can reverse engineer these and customize them.

The biggest drawbacks of Approach:

-- no runtime executable (royalty free, or otherwise)
-- not a big enough widget set (compared to FMP, Access, et al...
-- poor or non-existent ERD
-- only runs on windoze
-- not separable from Lotus SmartSuite (except the Japanese version IS separate...)
-- only in maintenance/patch mode, since IBM is SITTING on Lotus SmartSuite, letting it die a slow, worthless death, as if even IBM's OWN want it to die, despite their "10 million S/S users..."
-- not built-in way to record and reuse queries; but users created this and sell solutions

Pluses:

- I use it as a front end to my Linux & win98-based MySQL engine
- I am writing a screenplay dialog and script tracking database
- I can build in minutes or hours what would take me and MOST non-developers days or WEEKS to do in access
- It's GREAT for an ad hoc WYSIWYG prototyping tool

You admit you don't know Approach, yet you could almost single-handedly dissuade most readers here from even considering it. Approach -- if IBM opened up its code-- could almost single-handedly kill Rekall, Kexi, and a slew of others that still retain the giant framework, geek-appeal that most END USERS will run from. Approach is good enough that user- and developer-based solutions are sold all the time.

C'mon man, check out Approach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_SmartSuite

http://xpertss.com/

http://orderdeskxpert.3dcartstores.com/Order-Center_c_1.html

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Office_Productivity/Office_Suites/Lotus_SmartSuite/Lotus_Approach/Q_22816555.html

http://jabrown.customer.netspace.net.au/approach/index.htm

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Lotus_Approach

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/smartsuite/approachfeatures.html

What COULD happen but isn't is that IBM could:

-- partner with Sun/OpenOffice.org
-- open the code to Kexi, t