Micom 2000
Veteran Member
Damn , it's amazing. One can only admire the effort he put into this project. I'm no fan anyways of the intellectual copyright laws which more protect the peddlars rather than the creator and usually stifle further creation or scientific progress.
It's not new, with the inception of CDs many people have been putting out software disks containing freeware, abandonware, and other apps that were simply not viable in this new age. Herb Johnson and others simply supplied a market which the big guys refused to service. Change happens and if your busines of selling copies of LP records is blown away when the originals are put out on CDs so be it. You didn't create it.
There are also many companies who survived by supplying copied manuals at vastly inflated prices.
A T.O. friend of mine copied all the DEC BBS disks and offered them to classiccmp members at cost. He was more interested in propgation than profits. Tim Olmstead's Unofficial CPM site was saved by Gaby. We have to be more concerned with losing info than ensuring that some niche markets lose their viability. I helped convince the DEC Rainbow-100 site originator to reestablish it with Jay Wests help. It exists and at least 2 cds from one of the main DEC Rainbow BBS s have been put online.
http://www.classiccmp.org/rainbow/
I would encourage all to copy and scan all the old docs and other stuff available because the big boys will abandon anything that doesn't show a profit, and if they can figure a market they'll charge the nuts off you. It's actually amazing that sites like this exist which according to the bean-counters shouldn't have the right to exist.
I can only hope that Don Maislin's wife sees how universally he was admired and realises how important it is that his HDs be preserved and copied. Obviously Tim Olmsteads heirs recognised it.
I did make a cd of one of my HDs puter archives, but with all the dross of usenet headers and useles crap. About 10 years of tips on most of the comp.sys platforms. I'll clean it up some day, recopy, and make it available. Of course I could die before then, I'm no spring chicken , but at least it's available on cd for others to edit. Have to do another one soon because IT quickly progresses (?) as do docs and info as exhibited by some of the new members who consider the 486 as vintage.
Age does have some regrets. None so painful as the realisation that you were once as vacuously hopeful and enthusiastic as the present generation.
Lawrence
It's not new, with the inception of CDs many people have been putting out software disks containing freeware, abandonware, and other apps that were simply not viable in this new age. Herb Johnson and others simply supplied a market which the big guys refused to service. Change happens and if your busines of selling copies of LP records is blown away when the originals are put out on CDs so be it. You didn't create it.
There are also many companies who survived by supplying copied manuals at vastly inflated prices.
A T.O. friend of mine copied all the DEC BBS disks and offered them to classiccmp members at cost. He was more interested in propgation than profits. Tim Olmstead's Unofficial CPM site was saved by Gaby. We have to be more concerned with losing info than ensuring that some niche markets lose their viability. I helped convince the DEC Rainbow-100 site originator to reestablish it with Jay Wests help. It exists and at least 2 cds from one of the main DEC Rainbow BBS s have been put online.
http://www.classiccmp.org/rainbow/
I would encourage all to copy and scan all the old docs and other stuff available because the big boys will abandon anything that doesn't show a profit, and if they can figure a market they'll charge the nuts off you. It's actually amazing that sites like this exist which according to the bean-counters shouldn't have the right to exist.
I can only hope that Don Maislin's wife sees how universally he was admired and realises how important it is that his HDs be preserved and copied. Obviously Tim Olmsteads heirs recognised it.
I did make a cd of one of my HDs puter archives, but with all the dross of usenet headers and useles crap. About 10 years of tips on most of the comp.sys platforms. I'll clean it up some day, recopy, and make it available. Of course I could die before then, I'm no spring chicken , but at least it's available on cd for others to edit. Have to do another one soon because IT quickly progresses (?) as do docs and info as exhibited by some of the new members who consider the 486 as vintage.
Age does have some regrets. None so painful as the realisation that you were once as vacuously hopeful and enthusiastic as the present generation.
Lawrence
