Patrick@ark.cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) (12/19/86)
**** MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH **** Posting for a friend: --------------------- Hey, hey, hey, I've only just recovered from this avalanche of people that -I got the impression- are personally offended by my earlier posting. Although I stick to the contents, I apollogize. I did en do not mean to offend people. What I write is my believe. And why it still is, I'll try to explain in this posting. I don't know why you people call the Magic Sac a software device. I can see it, hold it, move it and therefore I call it a hardware device. And it's a hardware device that's far from cheap here at the European continent. The prices range between $300 and $400. And that's a price of a product *without* ROM's. For that price you get Magic Box containing exactly two chips, one condensator and two Rom sockets. Considering this, I find it understandable that inventive guys go look for meansoof making their own emulator. And software only is -in my opinion- something that entirely loads from disk, no hardware (sorry) device needed. I consider the loss of 64 Kb of Ram a small loss, compared to the 'loss' of $300 to $400. (Ok, ok, it's no loss, it's a repayment for Small's efforts in creating the Magic Sac. Again, no offense meant. But for that kind of money, I expect a product that runs more than the *very* limited amount of good Mac software it runs now.) And finding some way of putting your Mac Rom's on disk, is far easier than obtaining them. In Europe, Apple took great care in getting all obsolete Rom's back. Therefore there's hardly any place where you can buy them. Considering this, I don't think the US situation can be compared to the European market. If I could buy a Magic Sac for some $200, including Rom's and software, I'd be in line to buy it. Even if it's only a gadget. Don't get my wrong, I appreciate the way Small went about in making the Sac. But I think you can understand now why Europeans prefer a software version. Ok, end of the line for me. This is my last posting on this subject. I only wanted to inform the world of some interesting developments here. And by the way the mailbox is flooded with reactions (read:requests), I guess some people were interested. But I don't feel like these long discussions that I feel are pointless. I does, however, discourage me from posting some real nice Public Domain software (no, not a software Ma....) I collected especially for the purpose of posting..... -Paul Molenaar ------ End of posting for a friend. Please, no more mail. My mailbox can't handle it! (By the way, opinions expressed above are Paul's. I don't even have an Atari...)
fouts@orville (Marty Fouts) (12/20/86)
In article <868@ark.cs.vu.nl> Patrick@ark.cs.vu.nl (Patrick van Kleef) writes: >**** MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH **** > >Posting for a friend: >--------------------- >I don't know why you people call the Magic Sac a software device. I can see it, >hold it, move it and therefore I call it a hardware device. And it's a hardware >device that's far from cheap here at the European continent. The prices range >between $300 and $400. And that's a price of a product *without* ROM's. >For that price you get Magic Box containing exactly two chips, one condensator >and two Rom sockets. Magic Sac is a product. The entire product consists of a manual, two diskettes of software (one for the Mac and one for the ST) and a ROM cartridge. The cartridge is supplied so that you can use the Apple ROM's which you have to buy yourself. As has been said before, this is the only legal way to do a Mac emulator which uses the binary software from the Apple ROM's. Data Pacific wanted to be able to supply the ROM's (as well as the system image and finder you also need,) but Apple refused to license them to do this. If you have to wretch, wretch at Apple for making all of this necessary. > >Considering this, I find it understandable that inventive guys go look for meansoof making their own emulator. And software only is -in my opinion- something >that entirely loads from disk, no hardware (sorry) device needed. I consider You seem to have missed something. A disk is hardware, the drive it loads from is hardware. Software is the collection of signals which become the memory data that runs the machine. Either a disk or a rom (among other things) can be used to contain software. Both require additional hardware (rom cartridge, disk drive) to be accessed. You are splitting hairs. > >And finding some way of putting your Mac Rom's on disk, is far easier than >obtaining them. In Europe, Apple took great care in getting all obsolete >Rom's back. Therefore there's hardly any place where you can buy them. Making duplicates of Apple's ROM software is copyright infringement. It is illegal. It would be possible for someone to do a Mac emulator entirely in software. This would require determining how the Mac behaved using only published descriptions and writing software which behaved exactly the same way. To stay out of legal trouble you would probably have to be able to prove that you never had the opportunity to disassemble the code in the ROMS, or to look at a disassembled code listing. And even then you would probably have problems because Apple has copywritten the 'look and feel' of the interface. BTW I'm not in any way related to Data Pacific, other than as a satisfied customer. Marty