tenney@well.UUCP (04/19/86)
What is a line eater?
A company has developed some software and a cartridge for the
Atari ST computer that allows Apple Macintosh roms to run on the
Atari ST. They take official Apple roms and plug them into their
cartridge and then their software lets the ST run Macintosh software.
I spoke with the developer who wonders if Apple will/can stop them
from doing this. It seems that when people have their dealers upgrade
the roms, the dealers keep the old roms. You can (or could until
this situation developed) then buy these older roms.
I hope that net.legal is the proper place for this discussion (it has
been on net.micro.atari16). Some of the questions are:
1. Is there any copyright infringement? I believe there is none, but
the developer thought Apple might so claim.
2. Can Apple suddenly claim the roms as proprietary? The roms are
evidently availble (officially) for somthing like US$195.
3. If Apple tries to restrict this product wouldn't they expose
themselves to restraint of trade claims?
I am not in any way involved with this product and only find the situation
exceedinly interesting. I think the idea is great and that Apple shouldn't
be able to stop it (but then with our legal system the way it is, they might
force the developer to stop by consuming mass quantities of money fighting
Apple's lawyers).
-- Glenn Tenney
UUCP: {hplabs,glacier,lll-crg,ihnp4!ptsfa}!well!tenney
ARPA: well!tenney@LLL-CRG.ARPA Delphi and MCI Mail: TENNEY
As Alphonso Bodoya would say... (tnx boulton)
Disclaimers? DISCLAIMERS!? I don' gotta show you no stinking DISCLAIMERS!rb@ccird2.UUCP (Rex Ballard) (04/25/86)
In article <959@well.UUCP> tenney@well.UUCP (Glenn S. Tenney) writes: >What is a line eater? > >A company has developed some software and a cartridge for the >Atari ST computer that allows Apple Macintosh roms to run on the >Atari ST. They take official Apple roms and plug them into their >cartridge and then their software lets the ST run Macintosh software. > >I hope that net.legal is the proper place for this discussion (it has >been on net.micro.atari16). Some of the questions are: >1. Is there any copyright infringement? I believe there is none, but > the developer thought Apple might so claim. This depends on whether Apple is depending solely on copyright protection or a liscence agreement. If copyright is the only restriction, then Apple dealers, who have purchased the ROMs legally, may resell them to anyone who wants to buy them legally. However the upgrade policy for the Mac to Mac+ upgrade stipulates $$ PLUS the ROM. Apple already gives service centers ROMs with credit/charge policies. It is quite possible that Apple Dealers would be perfectly willing and able to sell you an Apple ROM for $1000 or more. >2. Can Apple suddenly claim the roms as proprietary? The roms are > evidently availble (officially) for somthing like US$195. They don't have to. They are already covered by well documented copyright notices. They have probably also registered the copyright. >3. If Apple tries to restrict this product wouldn't they expose > themselves to restraint of trade claims? This would be a problem ONLY if the "bundling" were a restraint of trade in that it was impossible to get the same functionality, product, software, ... for the other machine, and that the purpose was to maintian artificially high prices. Atari's low price may enable customers who buy both Apples and STs to file such complaints. Some important cases are the NOVA case, the IBM "bundling" case, and the Apple vs. Fanklin case. In the latter case, Franklin attempted to prove "restraint of trade" via the ROMs, and lost. Personally, I would hope that they could come up with an object code translator, as Landon did for the Amiga, or maybe Atari will come up with translaters to go Atari-> Mac, and Atari -> Amiga. Another possibility is that a third party such as DRI, MicroWare, Metacomco or ??? could come up with operating systems which would provide the best functionality of all these machines and still be tranparent to application software. Possible candidates include Concurrent GEMDOS (is it coming?), OS-9 68K, Tripos, GNU with VDI, Windows, UNIX, or ???. At this point, it looks like OS-9 will be the first contender. There is too big a potential market for "compatibility" between these machines, and too many new peripherals (CD-ROMs, WORMs,...) which can't be released in a timely fashion if four separate interfaces and systems must be supported. The "componant computer system", like the "componant stereo system" will be an important factor in the future. Manufacturers may produce "compact" versions, but users will still want to plug in additional "black boxes" that shouldn't need to know what computer they are connected to. This also includes software. Hopefully, by the end of the year, this will have all sorted itself out, and we will be able to "Mix and Match" componants from a variety of manufacturers. Mac+ is the first to "Throw the gauntlet" with built-in SCSI. IBM dealers and users are already beginning to follow suit. Interestingly enough, Atari, with their "lowball price" and "high power" stand to gain the most from such a situation.
keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (04/30/86)
In article <162@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >In article <794@ccird2.UUCP> rb@ccird2.UUCP (Rex Ballard) writes: >>with translaters to go Atari-> Mac, and Atari -> Amiga. Another possibility >>is that a third party such as DRI, MicroWare, Metacomco or ??? could come up >>with operating systems which would provide the best functionality of all >>these machines and still be tranparent to application software. Possible >>candidates include Concurrent GEMDOS (is it coming?), OS-9 68K, Tripos, >>GNU with VDI, Windows, UNIX, or ???. At this point, it looks like OS-9 >>will be the first contender. I'm not at all convinced that OS-9 has much chance here. And, I don't think it has anything to do with how good of an OS it is (unfortunately). I would expect that GEM may have the best chance. Why? You can get off the shelf applications for GEM of the sort that most people are interested in. Languages are not applications. Spreadsheets, Word processors, painting packages, DBMS programs, games, THOSE are applications. People want to buy PeeCee DOS emulators for their machine, NOT OS-9, and certainly NOT because PeeCee DOS is a better OS. GEM is not owned by one of the hardware manufacturers, who would probably want to keep you locked in to their hardware and not let their OS run on other machines. This is what will rule the MAC OS out. TRIPOS would only have a chance if Amiga would consider selling Intuition (their graphics/windowing software) to go with TRIPOS. This would actually be in Amiga's best interest, TRIPOS and INTUITION running on a ST would sell a lot of Amigas, both by expanding the attractiveness to developers of developing Amiga compatible packages, and by magnifying the performance and feature differences of Amigas vs STs. Otherwise, TRIPOS has the same problems as OS-9. GNU might have a chance, because it's free. There is no way I am going to BUY an OS for my machine even if it is a great OS, if there are no (or almost no) applications that run under it. If it's a FREE OS, (public domain or similar) THEN I might be inspired to run it on my machine. If Atari, Amiga, Apple or some Alternate manufacturer produces a machine that comes with OS-9 plain vanilla, and developers decide to get behind it, then OS-9 has a chance. Until then, OS-9 is at the level of the 8-bit CP/M systems, because there will be no applications that will use any graphics, windows, or other neat stuff that you need to sell applications these days. I don't need OS-9 to run 'C', assemblers, Modula, Pascal, Lisp, Basic, Forth, etc. on my Amiga, or to be able to print stuff while I'm editing or compiling now do I? Keith Doyle # {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd # cadovax!keithd@ucla-locus.arpa
peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (05/09/86)
> I'm not at all convinced that OS-9 has much chance here. And, I don't think > it has anything to do with how good of an OS it is (unfortunately). >... > I don't need OS-9 to run 'C', assemblers, Modula, Pascal, Lisp, > Basic, Forth, etc. on my Amiga, or to be able to print stuff while I'm > editing or compiling now do I? Once again, the good is the enemy of the best. Does anybody know anything about running GEM or Intuition or even a generic windowing system (with each window being a virtual terminal, of course) under OS/9? That's what we really need. -- -- Peter da Silva -- UUCP: ...!shell!{baylor,graffiti}!peter; MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076
daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (05/12/86)
You could certainly make Intuition calls from OS/9 just as easily as you
could from AmigaDOS. You'd have to rewrite some of the support functions
(like OpenLibrary()) to look for OS/9 style directories instead of AmigaDOS
logical names, but other than that they'd be little problem, I imagine.
--
Dave Haynie {caip,inhp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh
"There, beyond the bounds of your weak imagination
Lie the noble towers of my city, bright and gold"
-Genesis