johns@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Conan the Barbarian) (01/13/90)
In article <18126@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU> davidli@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (David Paschall-Zimbel) writes: >[...] >Public domain programs have appeared in STart before, and are generally >marked as such. Programs such as ST Writer may be freely copied, since >STart magazine _cannot_ hold a copyright on the material. This does not mean >that all programs on STart are PD, most of the are not. But in the case of >Ani-ST and ST Writer, the programs are freely distributable ... > >-- David Paschall-Zimbel What about programs like GFA BASIC, and some of the other GFA stuff that was released on START issues? Is that PD, or do I have to buy a START disk? -- "After all is said and done, John Schmitt a lot more is said than done." johns@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca Don't blame anybody for what I say. SCHMITTJ@SCIvax.mcmaster.ca
davidli@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (David Paschall-Zimbel) (01/16/90)
In article <25AEA403.23275@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> johns@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Conan the Barbarian) writes: > What about programs like GFA BASIC, and some of the other GFA > stuff that was released on START issues? Is that PD, or do I have > to buy a START disk? GFA BASIC and the other GFA stuff on START disks are not PD. The only part of GFA BASIC which is distributable is the GFABASRO.PRG (the run-time program) so that people can run GFA programs without having GFA.PRG. You can't write programs with the run-time program, only run them. The GFA BASIC related programs on the START disks do not come with more than rudimentary documentation, so you would probably have to buy a book which described GFA BASIC 2.0 as well. You can, of course, purchase version 3.0 of GFA BASIC, as well as the 3.0 compiler. If all you want to do is fiddle around a bit, you can get the January 1989 issue of START and the accompanying disk for version 2.0. If you want to do 'serious' work, you might wish to go with version 3.0 -- or forget about BASIC and work with C instead... (I don't mean to imply that 2.0 can't be used for 'serious' work, but the lack of full documentation and the interpreter-only mode do make it harder on the would-be programmer). Re: START The best thing to do is to read the descriptions of the disks in each issue of START. Some of the "second side" programs they've been including are PD/Shareware, and most of them have already crossed the net and/or are available on one of the net-accessible archives. Over the past several months START has included the BSTAT statistical package and AniST, as well as ST Writer. -- David Paschall-Zimbel