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Computer, Arise From Your Grave
Davy Mitchell writes "Interesting article on emulation on the BBC's site
Good interview with Paul Burgin - author of several Dragon 32/64 emulators. This makes his views on copyright quite surprising!" It's a good article on emulation, and the revival of the old style computers. Good nostalgia.
...you're busy playing these classic old games, not buying their new-and-improved shite. Time has long since discarded the videogame chaff and left the classics in bold relief, whereas many, many publishers today are still pushing their new chaff, waiting for you to spend your hard-earned cash on their non-refundable crap.
-I
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Why all we had was blocks of wood on a string... Worlds first computer my arse... the mathematics you could do by directly manipulating those blocks of wood was amazing... none of this panzy-ass "command-line" or "electric typewriter"... Hell, we would've killed for "patchcords". And the GUI wasnt even thought of yet, hell the world was still in black and white!
But boy oh boy, let me tell you how much you learned by being able to directly manipulate the abacus... Now THERES real power
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... hi bingo
It's when you see quotes like this:
"This makes his views on copyright quite surprising!"
The fact that someone wrote an emulator doesn't make them automatically against copyrights that still exist for the old machine.
The idea that these things should be free to anyone who wants them even though people spent weeks, months or years writing them shouldn't be as prevalent as it is these days.
Just because the current gaming market isn't full of these games, people presume that they're free for the taking. Such short attention spans.
It's entirely possible that within the next couple of years the actual copyright holders could release a CD to stores with an emulator and a couple dozen of their old games. It'd be a revenue stream on old copyrights and old games which are still valued -- Williams has done this with a lot of their old arcade games, releasing new packages for the PSX and the PC... But still, people continue to claim them as free and post them wherever they want to....
This is completely on topic...
.78 MHz or so - but with the high speed poke - well).
For those of you who don't know, the Dragon 32/64 systems were licenced compatible systems of the TRS-80/Tandy Color Computer 1/2 (IOW, think of the Dragon as a PAL CoCo - for the most part). IIRC, there were some other differences, but for the most part, they were one and the same.
I am all for emulation of these systems, and others like them. In the case of the CoCo (and I imagine the Dragon as well), it is becoming nigh impossible to even obtain the service manuals and such for these machines, to keep an old one running. Even with this in hand, the parts won't be available forever.
As an individual who started programming with Color Computer Extended BASIC (a ROM'd M$ BASIC variant), and as someone who still owns two CoCos (a CoCo 2 and 3 - both which I cherish), it saddens me that someday these machines will die (though they are going on 15 years now, and still running strong, at all of 1 MHz - actually, the 2 only runs at a fraction of that -
About 6 months ago I got my CoCo's back from my parents, and after getting a "new" floppy drive (my old one died), I started going through my disk collection, to see what I had (it had been a while)...
Most of the floppies worked fine - a few were bad. I am in the process of moving the data over to my PC, to run on an emulator (a goal of mine is to make a "super" CoCo using an emulator on an old P90 or something, running fullscreen with output piped to the TV). I own the software, I want to run what I own. There shouldn't be any issue...
Even so, some of this software is effectively abandoned - no one is going to ressurect a classic game of Canyon Climber on any machine in the future (though I would love to see a resurection of Reactoid). This software needs to be preserved, and allowed to be used on emulators.
One of the games I had that went bad, you couldn't back up to another floppy (old copy protection scheme), except with something on a PC of the era called a CopyBoard (IIRC - some kind of super copy cracking system using a special ISA card or something). So, I never made a backup - and of course, the floppy fails on bootup (it gets partway, then dies).
That game is called "Gates of Delerium", by a company called Diecom Software, Ltd. It was a Canadian company, so I set out to find someone who might be able to get me a backup (hey, I have a valid license, and now I can't use it!). I eventually found out where the founder of Diecom worked at (heh, a games company for the handhelds) - third one down, Dave Dies. I sent an email, no response.
Hey, I would just like permission to try to recreate the thing (emulate it) on the PC - unless he is planning on releasing it for the GameBoy.
But here is a case of a game, that is unsupported, abandoned, with VERY few original owners (AFAIK, I am the only one on this planet with an original copy - I have not found a disk image of it yet). I would love to run this on an emulator or something, just to play it one more time...
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Ok Why is this Andlow being listened to? (Ok I know why - he has a fancy title in front of his name)
Excuse me? This man doesn't even know that the issue is copyright and NOT trademark? Does he possibly have ANY clue what he is talking about? Or perhaps is this yet another attempt to use words interchangably as to confuse people to the REAL meaning and thus push forward the purposterous idea of "Intellectual Property"? (I supose I shouldn't attribute it to malice, it can adequetly be explained by stupidity)
I think this whole article is an interesting example of "imprecise language" being used. Like programmers "Allowing the use" of games. No...Use is already allowed - its covered under "fair use" doctrine. Its distribution that is the issue, and the ONLY issue.
I emphatically disagree. This seems to imply that all crimes are created equal. Is shoplifting no different from murder? Should we give jay-walkers the death penalty?
More to the point, Copying is completely non-violent, and has no direct victem. The "Damages" are arguable at best. This makes it VERY different from other crimes.
The real crime is the length of copyright. There is NO reason for copyright to last as long as it does. When the author is no longer profiting from the copyright - then their "limited monopoly on distribution" should end. It is given to them, not because they "deserve it" or "its their right" but to encourage production and to encourage distribution. As such, when they use copyright to stop distribution and DO NOT distribute - they are subverting the trust of the system.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
At one point GCC was sued by Atari for trademark infringment over some of these games, so I'm not sure who actually owns the rights to them now. GCC no longer does games. We now make laser printers. As far as I know, GCC has no plans to do anything with the old games.
If you really want to know, let me know and I can ask the CEO about it all next time I see him.
I mean c'mon.
Once the hardware platform's gone, you can't possibly sell anymore copies of the game. Fuggedaboudid. Its over Jack. Go ByeBye.
Trying to enforce copyright is pure greed.
If they want to enforce the copyright, pull all the copyright holder's games off the site. Leave a nice black-eye for the greedy huckster and screw 'em. Consign 'em to oblivion.
What now?
You can write a new game, based on the old game, and release it, without copyright. If you're not willing to do that, you deserve the same fate.
- OR - (And this is better IMHO.)
Charge a micro-payment to download and let it get deposited to the programmer who originated the game.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.