SHULMAN@RED.RUTGERS.EDU.UUCP (12/22/86)
Delphi Mac Digest Sunday, 21 December 1986 Volume 2 : Issue 68
Today's Topics:
RE: Nova boards
RE: 16Mhz 68000,68020,68881 upgrade (3 messages)
dMac III bought by Nantucket
MacPlus to Aladin upgrade (5 messages)
RE: Re: MPW question (2 messages)
Re: Looking for advice for using multiple stacks (2 messages)
C-P Hall Of Shame, Part II
An important Copyright decision (3 messages)
MacFind
LASER COPY PROTECT? (3 messages)
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From: MACINTOUCH
Subject: RE: Nova boards
Date: 19-DEC 10:50 Network Digests
John,
It's my understanding that a substantial amount of software is needed
with "hot rod" boards to provide compatibility with existing applications.
(Isn't that true of the HyperDrive 2000?). Could you fill us in on the
software aspects of your packages?
Thanks,
Ric Ford
------------------------------
From: SYDNEY
Subject: RE: 16Mhz 68000,68020,68881 upgrade (Re: Msg 1095)
Date: 20-DEC 20:46 Tools for Developers
I am very interested in your board, and I wanted to say that I think
your prices are outstanding. I have called Levco on serveral
ocassions, and questioned their pricing scheme. They stated that they
were using 100ns megabyte chips which drove the price up. However,
after checking through Byte, I noted 1Mbyte chips selling for $40.
So, if I included in the price of a 16Mhz 68020 and 68881, plus
4Mbytes, it came nowhere near $7000. I am fimilar with factor of 2
markups, but I need log paper to draw Levco's pricing curves. {Flame
off}
Anyway, I am glad to see the RYAD is interested in truly supporting the
Macintosh community, and I wanted to know some additional info about the
upgrade:
- Is it a clip-on board or does it replace the logical board?
- What speed/size ram chips are on the board? (100ns?)
- Is there any power load problems with the Mac+ power supply?
- Does the upgrade require a fan, and is a fan included in the upgrade?
- Fortunately, I 881 instructions, but will there be a SANE library
replacement,
so existing programs can use the floating point chip? Well, that just about
does it. You may be seeing an order from me in the near future. I can't keep
waiting soooo long for the Aladdin and Paris.
Paul Sydney
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From: BRECHER
Subject: RE: 16Mhz 68000,68020,68881 upgrade (Re: Msg 1104)
Date: 21-DEC 01:26 Tools for Developers
Those $40 chips are 1Mbit, not Mbyte; multiply by 8 to get the raw
chip cost of 1Mbyte.
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From: SYDNEY
Subject: RE: 16Mhz 68000,68020,68881 upgrade (Re: Msg 1105)
Date: 21-DEC 04:01 Tools for Developers
You are absolutely correct. I didn't type what I meant. Anyway, my
last message was a little garbaled. I also wanted to mention that I
had MPW assembler, so I could access the 68020 and 68881 instructions.
However, I was wondering if there would be SAME lib provided so that
other programming utilities such as compilers. (Correction, SAME =
SANE, just in case you're still listening, Steve). Also, as has been
noted in the past, MacWrite will not work with the 68020, because it
uses traps for other purposes. How many other programs have you found
that will not work with the upgrade? Thanks for listening.
Paul
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From: MACINTOUCH
Subject: dMac III bought by Nantucket
Date: 19-DEC 18:54 Business Mac
According to a public relations rep. of Nantucket Software, dMac III has been
bought entirely by Nantucket and will be enhanced, sold and supported by them.
(Nantucket sells a dBase compiler for the IBM PC). This seems like good
news to me -- I'd be much more inclined to buy software that resides in the
U.S. than in another country, where support is a rather expensive toll-call
away.
Since dBase Mac has slipped out 6 months (are they waiting for a 68020 Mac
to solve the performance problems?!), dMac III's and Omnis 3's window of
opportunity seems a bit larger.
Ric Ford
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From: MADMACS
Subject: MacPlus to Aladin upgrade
Date: 19-DEC 21:24 Hardware & Peripherals
Now that all of this stuff about the new macs is starting to come out in the
press, is there any news about how much the MacPlus upgrade will be? I have
heard that it will be on the order of $1000. Is there really going to be an
upgrade path? -Doug
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From: DWB
Subject: RE: MacPlus to Aladin upgrade (Re: Msg 15892)
Date: 19-DEC 23:15 Hardware & Peripherals
I certainly wouldn't bet on an upgrade path.
David
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From: MOUSEKETEER
Subject: RE: MacPlus to Aladin upgrade (Re: Msg 15893)
Date: 19-DEC 23:46 Hardware & Peripherals
I don't see how Sculley could have been making such a big deal about
upgrade paths just a few months ago if they didn't plan on having such
for the new Mac...Aladdin, so they say. I've seen two reports in two
sources, both hitting on a $900 price for the upgrade. One report suggested
that one of the reasons for the high upgrade price is that you basically
get a totally new cabinet to hold the goodies. Probably like the GS, the
units will appear first, and the upgrades only after production is really
ramped up. Of course, if they wait too long to offer the upgrade, the OTHER
new Mac will be out, the non-upgradeable-to unit, and no one will want to
upgrade to the Aladdin anyway...grin.
While we are in rumortown, this weeks C&SN has an article about a new high-
end laserwriter to come out in the next few months, Postscript compat,
50% faster than the current unit, with a 400-500 dpi resolution, priced
at $5000 or a tad over. The LittleLaser (grin), according to them, will
NOT support PostScript, but utilize QuickDraw. The article also talks
about some new, flashy scanner Apple is working on for release in
6-9 months, and a Frog database....does anyone really
have enough frogs to develop a database for?
Alf
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From: INC
Subject: RE: MacPlus to Aladin upgrade (Re: Msg 15897)
Date: 20-DEC 10:50 Hardware & Peripherals
And do we think the upgrade will destroy power supplies?
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From: MOUSEKETEER
Subject: RE: MacPlus to Aladin upgrade (Re: Msg 15908)
Date: 20-DEC 11:40 Hardware & Peripherals
(grin) An upgrade wipe out a power supply? Oh, come on on now...
Interesting question, though, since the Aladdin supposedly includes at
least a couple of slots, they must have beefed up the power supply to handle
added load. Active rumor that the new Mac has a fan would support that
as well. Problem is, if it needs a new power supply (analog board), new
logic board, case, and another 800K drive, an upgrade path starts
sounding more and more unlikely.
Alf
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: Re: MPW question (Re: Msg 15878)
Date: 20-DEC 00:57 MUGS Online
What does it do with a line that is less than "n" long?
peter
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From: BRECHER
Subject: RE: Re: MPW question (Re: Msg 15901)
Date: 20-DEC 14:32 MUGS Online
It doesn't affect lines that are less than "n" characters long.
------------------------------
From: BRECHER
Subject: Re: Looking for advice for using multiple stacks
Date: 20-DEC 14:32 MUGS Online
To: Paul Rutter <philabs!per@briar>
Subject: Re: Looking for advice for using multiple stacks
> Does anyone have experience with:
> a) turning the stack sniffer off
> b) using the user stack pointer (the Mac normally uses only supervisor mode)
> (entering user mode is easy enough, but I am not sure of the consequences,
> or how to cleanly exit back to supervisor when the application exits).
a) The sniffer can be turned off by setting the low-memory system
variable StkLowPt (longword at $110) to zero. StkLowPt is initialized
to a nonzero value by _Launch.
b) It is not feasible to use the USP: the A-line traps used to invoke
ROM routines cause a switch to system state. Working around this
would be a complex hack.
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From: LOGICHACK
Subject: RE: Re: Looking for advice for using multiple stacks
Date: 21-DEC 02:41 MUGS Online
> Does anyone have experience with:
> a) turning the stack sniffer off
> b) using the user stack pointer (the Mac normally uses only supervisor mode)
> (entering user mode is easy enough, but I am not sure of the
consequences,
> or how to cleanly exit back to supervisor when the application exits).
You should not need to turn the sniffer off if you do a SetApplLimit before the
heap is expanded much. For instance, if you need another stack with 10K of
space, you would get the current stack (from SP or BufPtr), subtract 10K from
it, and then do a SetApplLimit on that value. Works for me.
Paul :)
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From: MOUSEKETEER
Subject: C-P Hall Of Shame, Part II
Date: 20-DEC 01:02 Mousing Around
My newest candidate for this high honor is Mac Pro Football, published by
Avalon Hill Game Company. Of course, you have the usual copy-perversion
stuff of finder-made copies not running at all, but there are some new
twists here as well:
1) The game requires two disks, one Master and one Team Disk, both are 400K.
Because of the copy-perversion, one gets to play "disk swap" before kick-off,
as the game loads first from the master, then requires insertion of the
Team Disk to load one team's file, then return to Master, then back to Team
Disk to load the second team, then back to Master. You'd think at least the
Team Disk could be loaded onto one's HD or such, since having the Team Disk
without the Master would be a bit pointless, but since they are offering to
sell other Team Disks, I guess they thought they needed to copy-pervert them
all.
But the really dumb fumble...
2) Aside from checking for a master disk, the game asks that you give it
a word associated with an Offensive/Defensive Call #XX from the manual before
it will actually load the game. So, you think, there is a list of these Call
numbers in the manual, right? Wrong...there is one Offensive/Defensive Call
number at the bottom of each page of the manual, so you get to flip through
the manual to find the Call number requested, type in the word associated with
that number (stuff like "Pitchout" or "Option"), and then the game will load,
except for the times when it asks for a second Offensive/Defensive Call #
password to be REALLY SURE you are being honest.
Now, aside from the inane copy-perversion, what is the company accomplishing
here? The game disks are easily copied using Copy II Mac, at least with ver.
6.1. But instead of just copying the disks, the "pirate" will also make a
full copy of the documentation if he/she wants the copies to be usuable, and
with the doc copy in hand, will have little or no reason to buy the package
later. It might stop a few people with no access to a copy machine...maybe in
a rural province of China.
And after all this junk, the program author asks that you help him expand
the program's range by not making a copy and giving it to your friend. This,
I think, is called the Slap and Kiss Approach.
So, in recognition of the most Offensive Defense toward copying, I nominate
Mac Pro Football to the Copy-Perversion Hall of Shame....15 yards and loss of
down!
Alf
------------------------------
From: MACLAIRD
Subject: An important Copyright decision
Date: 21-DEC 08:33 Business Mac
I have to call everyone's attention to a "recent" legal development. The Third
Circuit of Appeals, located in Philadelphia (and the same court that decided
_Apple_v_Franklin_ in 1983) has recently decided _Whelan_Associates_v_Jaslow_
Dental_Laboratory. Well, they decided it in August but it was only recently
published in the Federal Reporter - see 797 F.2d 1222.
Those of you who want other summaries of this case can also look in the
_Computer_Lawyer_ periodical, which the library of your local law school should
have, in the October and November issues under "Current Developments".
The gist of this case is the court based part of its decision on the
"visual and interactive feel" of the application developed by Jaslow.
It is a little important for even the casual commercial programmer to
familiarize himself with this principle and the reasoning behind it.
The facts are, briefly, that the plaintiff's predecessor developed a
program for the Defendant, and sent him a letter stating, in effect,
that the developers would continue to develop and market the package
(a dental billing and supplies /inventory system) and pay a 10%
royalty to Jaslow as part of the bargain. Although Jaslow never
signed the agreement, the court found that they had acted as if they
agreed, so they were held to it. The implication of it was that the
developer of the software was retaining copyright, that is, this was
not a "work for hire" (when the employing client takes copyright).
The defendant, Jaslow, had tried to write a system for himself on a
"small personal computer". Not having nearly the expertise, he then
hired Strohl Systems Group, Inc. to write one - they chose an IBM
Series One for the hardware and event driven language (EDL) for the
programming language.
After the IBM PC came out, Jaslow decided to try his hand at Basic again. He
had a working system to go on as a basis, and apparently copied it without too
many changes. File layouts, screens, and control structure were pretty much
identical. He also exercised the termination clause of the contract, although
the two kept doing business for over a year after termination, asking the dev.
to "respect the rights of Jaslow and not use or disclose to others the trade
secrets of Jaslow". The stage was set.
The court found that the plaintiffs had a copyright, and the defendants had
violated it. If you ask me, they achieved the right result, but had to fuzz
around the logic of law in order to achieve it. The important considerations
were that the defendant made no improvements to the system. A professional,
experienced software engineer can almost always improve on a software system,
and can give lucid reasons when he doesn't. The defendant also manifested
assent to an arrangement whereby he had no commercial interests in remarketing
the software. To me, this sounds more like "unfair competition" than a
copyright infringement. Finally, the defendant had tried to produce his system
without the benefit of a working design before and had failed. Whatever else he
did, he took the judgement of a skilled software engineer and passed it off as
his own.
The last one is the real fuzz in the law. You cannot really copyright
judgement and conclusions, but only their results that can be seen.
There is an important body of intellectual property without a valid
legal category to fit it into. The big problem here is that lawyers
and probably judges will take this legal decision and attempt to make
it fit into the "audiovisual feel" slot as a copyright theory. You
can't copyright "look and feel", because copyright is usually only
applicable to _exact_ copying. I take that back. You _can_ have a
"look and feel" copyright, but really what is your property is the
distinctive touch that identifies your work to the public. Who knows,
maybe I am the one who is fuzzy about it.
If you think this message was long, wait until I finish the independant study
project I have been working on. I promised the professor Jan. 1, so maybe I
will have it done soon, all about PC copyrights.
Laird
------------------------------
From: MOUSEKETEER
Subject: RE: An important Copyright decision (Re: Msg 15938)
Date: 21-DEC 15:51 Business Mac
Interesting notes. While every IBM program I've seen has the same "look and
feel" (re: ugly and clunky...grin), I wonder how Apple will apply the same
ideas if, as rumored, Sharp has a Mac-compatible ready to introduce. If they
have managed to do a good ROM that does not violate Apple's copyright,
I would think the "look and feel" would be Apple's last weapon.
Alf
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: An important Copyright decision (Re: Msg 15937)
Date: 21-DEC 19:39 Business Mac
Just because Jaslow failed in the past to produce a working system doesn't mean
that they were incapable of succeeding later. I'm not disputing that having a
working model could be an excellent guide (maybe even the system analysis stage
of the project all wrapped up and documented) but the fact is that developing
code for "a small personal computer" (what was it, an Apple ][ or a C-64 or a
CoCo?) might be quite different from developing for the IBM PC, particularly if
you take into account the superior disk hardware and file system on the PC.
This would be all the more emphasized by the fact that the people who did the
working system for them chose a minicomputer (the IBM Series/I) for the job.
That to me represents the judgement of the developer.
peter
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From: MACINTOUCH
Subject: MacFind
Date: 21-DEC 14:29 Business Mac
I have just ordered a database of Mac magazine articles called MacFind. It's
from William Mackay, 6439 Boxelder Dr., Lincoln, NE 68506; 402-483-0267, and
costs $12 for the beginnings-to-end'86 version, $15 for the 1987 versions.
What Mr. Mackay says he will provide is an index to MacUser, MacWorld, and
MACazine, on disk, in the format of any popular database you choose - OverVUE,
Excel, FileMaker (original), Helix, Record Holder, Reflex/Interlace, and
Microsoft File (and probably others). The original data is entered in
OverVUE.
The $12 Premier Edition covers the 3 magazines from their first issues to
the start of 1987. Mr. Mackay has a consulting firm and first prepared the
database as a service to customers who had questions about products and
information.
(Thanks to Rob Hafer of the B.C.S. for the tip)
Ric Ford
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From: SYNTHONY
Subject: LASER COPY PROTECT?
Date: 21-DEC 19:17 Mousing Around
Hi Alf!
I had a friend who came into the store and after talking synths,
he started talking about copy protection. He said one foolproof way
of doing it was to 'burn' a strip on disk with a laser (very small).
The software when booting, tries to write to that spot. If it can't,
it says okay, but if it IS able to write, it knows it has been copied.
Is this type of CP being used much, or is my friend pulling the oxide
over my eyes? Just curious.
Bill
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: LASER COPY PROTECT? (Re: Msg 15950)
Date: 21-DEC 19:47 Mousing Around
That method is used by Vault in their ProLok system, I think. There have been
some grumblings about whether it's good for your disk heads to read such a
blemished disk, but the theory is that it is only done once per run of the
program and therefore should not be a problem.
Of course, like all copy protection schemes it is not foolproof.
Anyone sufficiently determined to crack it can do so by finding where
in the program it tries to access the damaged spot on disk and defeat
the code.
peter
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From: MACINTOUCH
Subject: RE: LASER COPY PROTECT? (Re: Msg 15957)
Date: 21-DEC 20:24 Mousing Around
Bill,
I try to keep tabs on copy protection schemes somewhat, and, as far as I
know, the laser-hole technique is not in common use. (I used to go looking
on disks themselves, opening up the shutter, and once got confused because
some disk manufacturers put a big hole in the disk anyway, for alignment
or something; while others don't.)
Something I'd like to know more about, though, is what is the
"indefeatable" technique being used by a lot of the music software
vendors (Opcode, Digidesign,others?). It seems that every technique
could be bypassed, given enough effort on the software end. It's just
a matter of how much effort it's worth. A lot of times, I figure it's
just not worth buying the program at all ...
Ric
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End of Delphi Mac Digest
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