Re: Applesoft rights

[Jonas Bevren <jbevren@burninghorizon.com>]

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Paul R. Santa-Maria wrote:

> Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 23:50:46 GMT
> From: Paul R. Santa-Maria <paulrsm@ameritech.net>
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
> Subject: Re: Applesoft rights
> 
> The Commodore 64 (and variants) also used Microsoft's 6502 BASIC. 
> Commodore actually purchased it outright, unlike Apple who licensed it.  At
> this point who owns the Commodore 6502 intellectual property is not clear. 
> I have heard that Gateway actually owns it.

That's a common misconception.  Gateway bought Amiga International, not
Commodore.  Amiga broke free shortly before Commodore went bankrupt, and was
allowed to last a whole month longer than commodore.  I can't remember who
owns commodore these days, but they're putting out a commodore 65 (NOT 64)
look-a-like powered by some modern CPU.  It's looked down upon by the scene,
needless to say.

Anyhow, the code for the commodore 64 and 128 and other 8bitters is
basically considered public domain, since the entity that purchased
Commodore only wanted the name (which is quite large in the eastern
hemisphere).  The roms are distributed freely with emulators, and unmodified
basic rom images are included in commercially sold emulators.  Schematics
for almost all known commodore equipment is available on funet, etc etc. 
Our end has come out much better than the apple2 end, despite the fact that
it was never released to "public domain" like the apple2 (correct me if I"m
wrong).

(offtopic)  Are there any schematics and/or e-text reference manuals for
apple2 hardware? I'd love to rummage about in some //gs schematics and
documentation in my spare time.


> Anyway, if anyone complains, tell them you are using the Commodore 64
> BASIC, not Applesoft.

They behave quite differently actually.  C64 basic has no graphics nor sound
commands.  In fact ctrl-g doesnt even beep =).  No wonder its one of the
fastest basics on the 6502.  Muahahah.

-Jonas