5 ms·

I really hope the author of this great piece shares his rare copy of MacApp 1.1 with the world, so it won't end up as another piece of lost software history onl

I really hope the author of this great piece shares his rare copy of MacApp 1.1 with the world, so it won't end up as another piece of lost software history only alive in our memories. This guy was incredibly lucky in finding a mostly non-corrupted floppy available for sale. In just a few years the few remaining working floppy originals will cease working and MacApp will end up as just another lost piece of software - unless pirate copies are made. You can say and think what you want about software piracy, but it's undeniable that it has saved a lot of ancient software and games from ceasing to exist in anything other than our memories. Illegal software/ROM archives have probably done more to keep the revolutionary time of the early computing/gaming history alive than all the legal old-fashioned libraries have done combined. http://www.pcworld.com/article/248571/why_history_needs_software_piracy.html?page=0 http://www.pcworld.com/article/248571/why_history_needs_soft... Thankfully there is very little enforcement of the copyright law on ancient software - and so few developers/publishers are bothered enough by the fact that someone is illegally enjoying, archiving and sharing their 10-30 year old software that they bother issuing takedown notices - that it is effectively "legal", or at least tolerated in the same way as cannabis is in the Netherlands. The fact that it won't actually be really legal until 2040-2060 is totally absurd, and a powerful testament to how outdated and irrelevant the current copyright laws are.

yuhong 14y ago
Yea, different duration of copyright for software is probably also a good idea.
copx 14y ago
"Outdated" is not the right term I would say. Assuming you are referring to US law here, the current, extremely long copyright is the result of relatively recent corporate lobbying efforts. Copyright was extended further and further at the request of powerful interests. It used to be much shorter. Originally US copyright lasted only 14 years, with a possible extension of another 14 years if the author was still alive and requested it. Nowadays US copyright lasts until 70 years after the original author's death.
- kristofferR 14y ago
  That is inaccurate, unfortunately. Copyright has lasted way too long for over a century now. You are correct that the original US copyright law was set to the reasonable maximum of 14+14 years, however that was extended to 28+28 years already in 1909, not exactly a relatively recent development. In 1976, 35 years ago, it was further extended to 75 years after publication or 50 years after death of author. In 1998 it was extended further to an insane 120 years after creation or life + 70 years. Even if the copyright length insanity actually only was a relatively recent phenomenon from 1998, I don't see why that would exclude it from the "outdated" term.
  - jakejake 14y ago
    I had heard it was largely due to Disney. Not sure if that's true?
    - kristofferR 14y ago
      Disney lobbied heavily for the 1998 Copyright Extension Act to prevent Mickey Mouse entering the public domain, but as mentioned the copyright duration was already insanely long (70 years) by then.
WalterBright 14y ago
A friend of mine, Shal Farley, managed to save Empire for the PDP-11 from oblivion. He had a machine that was able to read the old 8" floppy disks, and they read perfectly. I had a magtape of PDP-10 games, but that sadly was lost.
- WalterBright 14y ago
  I put it on github: https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-11 https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-11 I still think that PDP-11 assembler code is a thing of beauty. Here's the 1977 version of Empire written in PDP-10 FORTRAN, which I did manage to save: https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-10 https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-10
pifflesnort 14y ago
Here here! I make an effort to buy old software on eBay when I come across it, archive it in a stable format scan the media, and then store the originals. It would be nice to see a project (would archive.org host it?) that applied standard archival rigor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivist) to preserving our computing history.
- alexsb92 14y ago
  The problem i've had sometimes though is that whenever I try using some old software (which is mostly games as I was born in the 92), I often get stuck in making the game play nice with the current set up, regardless if I run it in compatibility mode or not. I guess I should set up some VMs with older OSes, just for this purpose. And FYI the correct expression is "Hear, Hear!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear)
  - pifflesnort 14y ago
    > The problem i've had sometimes though is that whenever I try using some old software (which is mostly games as I was born in the 92), I often get stuck in making the game play nice with the current set up, regardless if I run it in compatibility mode or not. I guess I should set up some VMs with older OSes, just for this purpose. Emulators are also valuable here; the work done on bsnes is amazing, and MAME does a pretty solid job of emulating hardware (including old Mac hardware) accurately. There's also still quite a lot of retro hardware and books for sale through used markets; enough that people make it their (if not particularly lucrative) business to collect and resell 'vintage' hardware. History tends to filter out the bad ideas, such that many of the best ideas survive today. However, human's cultural filters are not perfect, and there are lots of good ideas and intellectual context that can be exceedingly valuable to understanding how things became the way they are, or demonstrating alternative paths (which may even be better than what we have today) that did not emerge for market, financial, or cultural reasons. I really find historical technology to be edifying in the same way political, musical, and broader cultural history is edifying. I think it's a shame that we don't spend as much time teaching technology/design history to software engineers as we spend training 6th graders to understand their local political/cultural history.

yuhong 14y ago

Yea, different duration of copyright for software is probably also a good idea.

copx 14y ago

"Outdated" is not the right term I would say. Assuming you are referring to US law here, the current, extremely long copyright is the result of relatively recent corporate lobbying efforts. Copyright was extended further and further at the request of powerful interests. It used to be much shorter. Originally US copyright lasted only 14 years, with a possible extension of another 14 years if the author was still alive and requested it. Nowadays US copyright lasts until 70 years after the original author's death.

kristofferR 14y ago
That is inaccurate, unfortunately. Copyright has lasted way too long for over a century now. You are correct that the original US copyright law was set to the reasonable maximum of 14+14 years, however that was extended to 28+28 years already in 1909, not exactly a relatively recent development. In 1976, 35 years ago, it was further extended to 75 years after publication or 50 years after death of author. In 1998 it was extended further to an insane 120 years after creation or life + 70 years. Even if the copyright length insanity actually only was a relatively recent phenomenon from 1998, I don't see why that would exclude it from the "outdated" term.
- jakejake 14y ago
  I had heard it was largely due to Disney. Not sure if that's true?
  - kristofferR 14y ago
    Disney lobbied heavily for the 1998 Copyright Extension Act to prevent Mickey Mouse entering the public domain, but as mentioned the copyright duration was already insanely long (70 years) by then.

WalterBright 14y ago

A friend of mine, Shal Farley, managed to save Empire for the PDP-11 from oblivion. He had a machine that was able to read the old 8" floppy disks, and they read perfectly. I had a magtape of PDP-10 games, but that sadly was lost.

WalterBright 14y ago
I put it on github: https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-11 https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-11 I still think that PDP-11 assembler code is a thing of beauty. Here's the 1977 version of Empire written in PDP-10 FORTRAN, which I did manage to save: https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-10 https://github.com/DigitalMars/Empire-for-PDP-10

pifflesnort 14y ago

Here here! I make an effort to buy old software on eBay when I come across it, archive it in a stable format scan the media, and then store the originals. It would be nice to see a project (would archive.org host it?) that applied standard archival rigor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivist) to preserving our computing history.

alexsb92 14y ago
The problem i've had sometimes though is that whenever I try using some old software (which is mostly games as I was born in the 92), I often get stuck in making the game play nice with the current set up, regardless if I run it in compatibility mode or not. I guess I should set up some VMs with older OSes, just for this purpose. And FYI the correct expression is "Hear, Hear!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear)
- pifflesnort 14y ago
  > The problem i've had sometimes though is that whenever I try using some old software (which is mostly games as I was born in the 92), I often get stuck in making the game play nice with the current set up, regardless if I run it in compatibility mode or not. I guess I should set up some VMs with older OSes, just for this purpose. Emulators are also valuable here; the work done on bsnes is amazing, and MAME does a pretty solid job of emulating hardware (including old Mac hardware) accurately. There's also still quite a lot of retro hardware and books for sale through used markets; enough that people make it their (if not particularly lucrative) business to collect and resell 'vintage' hardware. History tends to filter out the bad ideas, such that many of the best ideas survive today. However, human's cultural filters are not perfect, and there are lots of good ideas and intellectual context that can be exceedingly valuable to understanding how things became the way they are, or demonstrating alternative paths (which may even be better than what we have today) that did not emerge for market, financial, or cultural reasons. I really find historical technology to be edifying in the same way political, musical, and broader cultural history is edifying. I think it's a shame that we don't spend as much time teaching technology/design history to software engineers as we spend training 6th graders to understand their local political/cultural history.