Re: Nathan and the Apple Community.

[godot22@earthlink.net (PJ Killian)]

As a person who is primarily (though not totally) an emulator user these
days, I feel I should speak.

In article <1998072305033100.BAA10800@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) wrote:

> "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.

There is a difference between "viability" and "existance". There is a
market for spare parts for obsolete machines, that doesn't mean that the
machines themselves are "commercially viable". The Apple II is an obsolete
computer. That doesn't mean "bad" or "worthless", it just means that the
mainstream of computer technology has passed it by. If it is useful to you,
by all means, go ahead and use it. But obsolesence comes a long time before
the last Apple II user on earth gives it up.

> >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.

I don't see what one group has to do with another. Say someone is nostalgic
for their old Apple IIe and wants to see if years of accumulated wisdom has
taught them the secret to beating that damn bird in Karateka. The chances
of them going to the trouble and expense of going out to track down an old
A2 system and find a legit working copy of the software are terribly slim.
People can quibble about exact numbers, but I would be willing to bet a
tidy sum that the vast majority of people using disk images from Asimov are
people who just downloaded an emulator and want to either play an old game
they have fond memories of or try out a game they slobbered over back in
the day when it was $45 and they only had $5 to their name. Even if these
people ARE using software which can be purchased, they wouldn't. They
can't. Oftentimes, they don't own the computer anymore, and wouldn't buy it
if they could. If there's any shortsightedness in the Apple II community,
it's the fact that people have deluded themselves into believing that were
emulators not available generally, Joe Emulator User above would buy an old
Apple II system and legit copies of the software, assuming he can find
them.

At least, that's the only rational reason that I can determine for Nathan's
attitude.

> >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.

Perhaps? Saying Nathan was "a little too black and white" about Asimov is
like saying that Senator McCarthy was "a bit miffed" about Communists in
the State Department. He was paranoid about it. He was obsessive about it.
And insofar as the hundreds of classic games that Mr. Field refers to are
concerned, his zealotry was utterly misplaced. The Apple II software
industry, such as it is, will not collapse even if every man, woman and
child on the planet downloaded a bootleg copy of Legacy of the Aincents
from Asimov. In fact, the grand total loss to said industry is likely to be
zero.

> There are "hundreds of classic games" for the 8-bit A2s that
> no one cares about,

Wrong. Nathan cared very deeply. Check dejanews, in c.e.a2, about a year or
two ago, if you don't believe me. I'm inclined to think that his passion
for this cause had as much to do with his fire-and-brimstone vendetta
against emulator users and other sinners as it did with any affection for
copyright law, but the fact remains that he made his position very clear,
whether it was the latest AppleWorks or a 20-year-old game.

 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.

And anyone who cares about the future of such a marginal computer system as
the Apple II should feel the same way. Piracy may well have had a hand in
the death of the Apple II as a mass-market computer, but what's done is
done, and there's no sense in shutting the barn door after the horse has
run away.

>  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!

But if (as I suspect) your average emulator user is primarily interested in
the 20 (or 10) year old games, no harm, no foul. Meanwhile, if you were to
(in the name of doing EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to protect supported software)
make Asimov suddenly magically disappear, you wouldn't actually stop those
who really WANT to pirate current software. You might not make it
appreciably harder. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people in the A2
community (who aren't thieves) accrue no benefit, and Joe Emulator User who
wants to finally get through Harkyn's Castle in Bard's Tale is SOL.

This line of thinking follows the pattern "if we destroy a visible symptom
of the problem, we have destroyed the problem." This fallacious
(Mateseque?) reasoning has left a cultural legacy of flag-burning
amendments, Norman Vincent Peale, and the Vietnam War.

[snip]
 
> >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?

Agreed. It's hard for real Apple II owners to download from Asimov? Fine.
Let Asimov be the resource that it is for the emulator user. Real A2 users
have FTP sites with plenty of .shk software to use. You don't mess with Joe
Emulator User, he won't mess with you. He's probably not terribly
interested in ProTerm anyway, whatever the hell that is. Asimov is
obviously geared towards the emulation crowd, otherwise the files would be
in a more convenient format. Why change this fact?

>  Real A2 will always come first.  Emulators
> second.

Says who, why and how do you propose to enforce this dictum?

[snip]

> >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.

Theoretically, yes. But when csa2 people plot out how best to destroy the
FTP site that is (for better or for worse) the primary resource for
emulator users, the goings-on in this newsgroup become the business of
emulator users. That's just one example. If the average csa2 reader shed
their apparent belief that emulator users are this parasitic bunch of
freeloaders with no stake in the future of the platform, you might find
that they have something to offer.

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

Yes. And yet many don't. The shock. The horror. Never IMAGINED that that
would be the case, did you?

> >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...

Well, Bernie for Mac is a pretty good product, or so I've been told. I
wouldn't know since despite the fact that I have used an emulator and disk
images from Asimov (and am therefore ipso facto a villanous pirate out to
destroy the community of software developers), I prefer to not use
shareware I haven't paid for. Since I can't afford to register Bernie, I
don't use it. Life's little ironies...

Emulation of IIe is very good. For those who only occasionally want or need
to use A2 software, an emulator is a very practical alternative to a
physical IIe.