[net.micro.cbm] C64 public domain answer

pjm@pyuxll.UUCP (PJ Maioriello) (08/05/83)

Sorry for posting this but I cant seem to get through to
the person who originally requested this info, besides it may be
of general interest to CBM users.
Jim,




Info to pass on to your C-64 owner brother:

There is in fact a huge amount of public domain software around.
To give you an idea of the magnitude, 2 numbers that I have read
are over 600 educational programs that Commodore has contributed
to the public domain.  Apparently there was a deal available
that schools could take advantage of to get cheap PETS.  Many
did and much software was written.  In addition, I am an
associate member of the Toronto Pet Users Group (they pretty
much support the entire commodore line not just the pet).
They claim to have something like several thousand (yes thats THOUSAND)
programs in their library.  The vast majority of these are PET programs
that will run under the emulator on the 64.

There are three methods that come to mind to get some of this legally
free software.

1. Join the Toronto Pet group.  The associate membership fee is
   $20 per year (includes magazine).  They will send you a catolog
   of disks.  You can get a copy of any disk for $10 each.  That covers
   the cost of a disk, postage etc.  The disks are usually chock full
   and you will generally end up with in excess of 20 programs.

2. I have read that an authorized Commodore dealer can let you have
   copies of the 600 programs mentioned above for $6.95 per disk (to
   cover media cost, time etc.).  I think that since they got the
   software for free from Commodore they are not supposed to make any
   money off it.

3. TRADE! TRADE! TRADE!  Remember this is LEGALLY free stuff.
   I have traded with several different people.  Generally,
   you can mail sombody a disk with some programs on it, and
   it will come back with new programs.  If your brother could
   find an authorized CBM dealer get a disk of programs for
   $6.95, he could probably start trading and parlay it into
   hundreds of programs.

It seems as if this mass distribution of public domain software
is encouraged by commodore.  In fact I was sorry to hear that
your brother purchased the PET emulator, since I believe that
Commodore has even placed that in the public domain and he
could have gotten it for free.

I hope some of this helps.


Regards,
Paul Maioriello
pyuxll!pjm