Re: Nathan and the Apple Community.

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

"Stephen B. Field" <sfield1@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

>I think Nathans problem, and a portion of the apple community is they
>believe that the product still has some real retail viability left to it.

It has some viability.  At least two people who market A2 related
stuff derive most of their income through their A2 businesses.

>As a
>hobby, I have a lot of fun fooling around with this old equipment and have
>collected some of the games out there, but don't expect to spend a whole lot
>of money on new applications.

Everybody is different.  It is important for those who do not want
to spend money on classic computers to realize that there are
others who will.  The Commodore "user" who is really just a Wintel
or Muckintosh user with an emulator has to know that there are
"real" Commodore 64 users who would plunk down $300 for a
hard drive system.  Crazy?  It depends on your viewpoint.  For the
user of the C64, it is a hobby to them and outfitting their computer
with such exotic devices gives them pleasure.  Hence, places
like CMD and Alltech exists.

>He was way to zealous on his prosecution of pirates.  I agree with the
>copyright laws and not pirating software that is being sold on the retail
>market.  But some of the hundreds of classic games on Asimov will never be
>sold again.  I really wish that people would stop yelling back and forth
>about this issue.  Start striving to make it an open system.  The
>commodore/amiga and other dead systems don't nearly have this kind of
>arguing about the same issue.

Nathan was perhaps a little two black and white about the issue.
There are "hundreds of classic games" for the 8-bit A2s that
no one cares about, but there are also dozens of still marketed
A2 and IIGS software that people do.  These are still viable and
regularly sell significant copies.  This is how places like Seven
Hills manage to stay in business.  These still "living" software
should not be pirated.  Unlike Nathan, we should know how to
see beyond black and white.  We should know how to say that
ok, those 20 year old games...who cares if they are copied, but
at the same time, admit that we should not do ANYTHING to
jeapordize the remaining commercial software.  That's the only
way we will get NEW software, and we ARE getting new software
every single day...so is the Commodore...look at the NEW GEOS!

>It seems like people are split between those that own the old 8bit Apples
>(II+,IIe,IIc) and the GS.  Those with the 8bit computers seem to appreciate
>asimov and the programs on that system.  Those that own the GS still seem to
>feel that there is money to be made on that system and don't like asimov.

It goes a little beyond that...Asimov's policy of "pirate first, ask
questions later" is a little obtuse.  Perhaps it would be best to
ask first.  People tend to get upset when the A2's remaining
prized commercial software, like Proterm 3.1 or AppleWorks 5.1,
are put on the site.  Since these publishers are so clearly
available for contact, why not ask before touching?  When
something like PT3.1 is pirated this way, it makes people who
will write new things to for the GS stop.  You, as an emulator user,
may not want TCP/IP for the GS, but GS users of real hardware
do.  It is not elitism, but rather reality.  Those who use the real
hardware have more at stake.

>If people keep arguing on these newsgroups I think they will continue to
>chase away the contributions of others.  Its just amazing how petty some of
>the newsgroup messages are.  Lets start helping people out thats the only
>way to keep the community alive and well.

Helping is good, converting all the .shk files to .dsk is NOT.  Do
you know how much more difficult it would be to download software
for real Apple IIs?  Real A2 will always come first.  Emulators
second.

>My biggest compliant with the community has a whole is there refusal to
>recognize the viability of apple emulators.  Most of these programs run .DSK
>images while all the "legit" apple FTP sights refuse to format images in
>this format.

The legit Apple FTP sites have no business putting files in
.dsk format.  It wastes space for one thing and is inanely hard to
use on a real A2.  Not only that, it becomes inefficient to use for
programs that go beyond 143k...many of the files in the legit sites
go beyond this figure.

>This forces me to download .SHK images, and then dump them to the apple,
>unpack them, save them on a floppy, and then send the image back through ADT
>to the PC.   Its insane.  I still havn't entirely got the hang of this.

That's because you are doing it wrong.  There are utilities that
will copy your .shk file from your PC volume onto your hard
disk image.  You can then use shrinkit from within the emulator
to unpack the files.

>The community has a real elitest attitude that you have to own an apple in
>order to run the software.   Again, I feel that this just simply chases away
>more possible members.

Wrong.  Comp.sys.apple2 is mainly for real A2 users.
Comp.emulators.apple2 is mainly for emulator users.
Everyone should be happy.

Also, even the emulator users admit that to legally use an emulator,
you must also own the real computer.

>If it wasn't for the emulators, I wouldn't have gotten back into the apple
>again.

XGS does not cut it for me.  It can't do the things my real GS can
do.  If I were a IIe user, then maybe an emulator would cut it...

If I thought like a typical emulator user, I might as well switch to
PowerMac so I could emulate a Pentium and use Windows
warez.  ;-)