Re: Apple II Software Preservation Project

[rdippold@qualcomm.com (Ron "Asbestos" Dippold)]

Bill North <north@spso.gsfc.nasa.gov> writes:
>This is a noble endeavor. Is it practical? Is it legal?

It's practical as long as I realize that we're not going to be able to
save _everything_.  


>I would certainly buy a CD containing a lot of old but fun stuff, but
>how do you intend to deal with copyright issues?

I hadn't intended to sell the CD-ROM generally - that would be a BIG
copyright mess indeed.  Rather, once we have it on CD-ROM it should
last "forever", and I want to distribute a few copies to a few key
places in case something happens to the original (recognizing that
we'll have occasional updates).  In this way someone who owns the
original program can get a working copy or disk image, or someone
writing Apple // emulators can have plenty of reference disks, as the
current sites operate.  And at some time in the future it should be of
interest to computer historians.

Basically, my goal, which is admittedly somewhat irrational (many
hobbies tend to be) is to preserve all possible Apple II software for
purposes known and as yet unknown.  Who would have thought 7 years ago
that it would be so hard to find the classics even in 1994?  Things
happen very fast.

-- 
The customer isn't always right, but they do get an unnatural amount of slack.