sburke@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Scott Burke) (02/01/91)
Boy, isn't this fun. > I disagree. If I buy software, I don't OWN the software; I am licensed > to use it. What if I damage/lose/suffer theft of the application card? > Are you telling me I automatically lose the license I paid for? This isn't > how most software vending works. The only difference between most software > and the applications cards is the media. The courts have already ruled > that I have the right to copy my software for archival. So legally, I can > copy those ROMS for my own backup purposes if I wish, and I listed three > reasons why I might want to do that. 1. I called HP and asked how I could break my ROM card. Static electricity above and beyond their testing criteria is one approach. Breaking it in half is another. The opinion was that I would have a _really_ hard time damaging the circuitry. If I did zap the thing, I could send it in and get a new one if it was under warranty (one year). I think that backing up a very reliable ROM card is a flimsy excuse for public distribution of the ROM extraction code. > Even if "they" didn't own the card, it wouldn't be piracy. Technically, > it would be 'software creep'. It would only truly be piracy if the copies > were being sold. And if "they" owned the card, plugging it in takes a port. > I think the original poster meant that he wanted to buy the card, and extract > only those pieces he used, so he could save the port. Nothing illegal there. 2. I can't argue semantics with you, because honestly I don't know the legal definitions of software piracy or 'software creep', whatever that is. My intuitive understanding is that if somebody uses commercial software that I write without paying for it, I don't like it and am willing to call it piracy. One of the original posts _was_ just about extracting a piece of a card they owned; the other original post _was_ about veiled pirating, because they didn't want to _buy_ the whole card. > So what? The possibility of piracy is an accepted fact. He is using > a distribution channel that most of the world uses- disks. If EVERYONE put > their blasted code on applications cards, NO ONE would buy them, since only > two slots are available. 4. I know the possibility of piracy is an accepted fact, but I think you will find it reasonable of me to worry about it as a commercial developer. ;-) Not everyone will put their code on ROM cards. I agree that disks are quite useful (Even Steve Jobs has seen the light!), but I don't feel inclined to, say, distribute my code on ROM card _and_ disk, simply so the user can have that choice. The reason is _not_ that I am draconian about piracy, but that I have not yet been convinced it is necessary. > It takes longer than three seconds, and you know it. Especially if > like me, you want to be real careful. It potentially can be a real hassle. > Besides, what if my application requires TWO 128k cards? Then what do I do? > Not buy YOUR software? I'm sure you wouldn't like that. 6. Ok, ok, I timed it. 6.5 seconds to pull out the EQLIB card and plug in the Sparcom Personal Information Manager. 8 seconds to go the other way, because the EQLIB card has 6 auto-configuring libraries, whereas the PIM only has 1. I'm not sure what being real careful means. If it means not leaving important data on the stack, you're right; that data must first be stored because the 48 will warm start when the ROM is changed. The statement, "It potentially can be a real hassle." is not an argument, and I have _not_ been convinced that it is an overwhelming problem to have to pull out one card and insert another. Sure, it's a minor annoyance, but it certainly isn't of the magnitude of working on a floppy-based Macintosh, like in the 'old' days! It's a few seconds--maybe 15 or 20 if you're slow and have to putz around and find the other card. To me, the advantage of having the ROM extraction tool does _not_ outweigh the piracy issue. Name an application that requires 288K to run... I can name an application that should use a PC or palmtop!! ;-) In the same vein, what if your application requires THREE 128K cards? You're just out of luck, unless someone does a bus extender for the 48. Even then, the address space of the CPU is probably only 512K, so you're going to have bank swapping, and you _still_ won't have access to everything at once. > I started by saying that I was playing devil's advocate. That's because > I would not pirate software. On the other hand, I truly believe that > I have the right to protect my investment from something as trivial as > static discharge. I DO NOT buy software that I cannot personally back up. > That doesn't automatically mean I give it away. Hell, if I'm the registered, > user, I wouldn't want MY copy floating around. You have that right. My point is it is _not_ necessary to back up a reliable, solidly tested ROM card, and that no one has yet demonstrated a supportable reason for needing more than 1 slot (assuming a merged 128K RAM card). I am a developer, and _I_ don't need 2 slots. I am certainly _not_ going to write programs that _do_ need that! Just like I won't shoot myself in the foot! ;-) It'd be really nice if the 48 had, oh, six or seven slots, but lets keep in mind that this is a calculator. (I don't think this necessary, but it is not my intention to demean or insult any of the other participants in this discussion; I am merely trying to provide a viewpoint somewhat different than that held by most users. E-mail me if I stepped on your toes.) Scott. sburke@jarthur.claremont.edu
taber@ultnix.enet.dec.com (Patrick St. Joseph Teahan Taber) (02/01/91)
In article <10594@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>, sburke@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Scott Burke) writes: |> .... I think that backing |> up a very reliable ROM card is a flimsy excuse for public distribution |> of the ROM extraction code. |> I agree. The code should be posted because there's no reason not to, not because someone found an reason why it should be. It's improper to decide in advance what use is going to be made of the program when you don't know. It's a matter of intellectual freedom. Arguments about the potential for unlawful use should not prevail, since unlawful use by definition means that there is a law in place already to handle the situation. -- >>>==>PStJTT Patrick St. Joseph Teahan Taber, KC1TD If I was authorized to speak for my employer, I'd be too important to waste my time on this crap....
tt@sonja.jyu.fi (Tapani Tarvainen) (02/01/91)
In article <10594@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> sburke@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Scott Burke) writes: >no one has yet demonstrated a supportable >reason for needing more than 1 slot (assuming a merged 128K RAM card). I am >a developer, and _I_ don't need 2 slots. Just wait a few years. The HP-41 has 4 expansion ports. It took me almost two years before I found that intolerably few: I found swapping modules such a pain that I bought a port extender which, besides costing a small fortune, doubled the size of the machine. Later, when the HEPAX module became available (a RAM module small enough to fit in one slot yet had enough memory to allow copying several ROMS into, expensive as hell) I bought one, and I've never used it for anything much besides holding copies of ROMs (yes, ROMs I own). Another problem: I am not sure if the 48 has been designed with frequent card swapping in mind: contact wear did become a problem with the 41. Anybody at HP care to promise that it will survive removing and inserting a card five times a day for ten years? (Oh well, slight exaggeration, but perhaps not much when I think of the 41 ...) I think it is more than likely that soon enough a card will appear I can't live without, one all my programs need, making all cards from which I can't extract and copy to RAM what I need useless. Or several cards from which I want pieces in at all times. Indeed, any utilities-type card, designed to be used from one's own programs will be a pain to remove. Swapping cards won't be too hard with "take-over" cards that contain one big application and doesn't let you do anything much on the side -- but I don't think such sit too well with the 48. Given a choice between two cards with otherwise same functionality but one with the possibility of downloading it piecewise into RAM I would pay _a lot_ more for the latter. Whether I have a "supportable reason" for that or not is moot: I want it, and I want to pay for it. If you don't want to provide it, you will lose -- more or less than piracy would cost, that is the question. -- Tapani Tarvainen (tarvaine@jyu.fi, tarvainen@finjyu.bitnet)
madler@pooh.caltech.edu (Mark Adler) (02/02/91)
What I want to know is how to get Minehunt off my Eq Lib ROM card, SO THAT IT ISN'T THERE ANYMORE! Maybe someone can tell me where to scratch the rom chip with a needle :-) Mark Adler madler@pooh.caltech.edu
Jake-S@cup.portal.com (Jake G Schwartz) (02/02/91)
Scott Burke writes: > My point is it is _not_ necessary to back up a reliable, > solidly tested ROM card, and that no one has yet demonstrated a supportable > reason for needing more than 1 slot (assuming a merged 128K RAM card). I > am a developer, and _I_ don't need 2 slots. I am certainly _not_ going to > write programs that _do_ need that! Just like I won't shoot myself in the > foot! ;-) It'd be really nice if the 48 had, oh, six or seven slots, but > lets keep in mind that this is a calculator. Hey, does anybody remember the good ole' HP41??? It had 4 ports, and that wasn't nearly enough. I had a port extender on that baby and was able to fill all ten ports with things, especially when developing code for people. Now, ten is too much, I'll agree, but four or five might have been a better choice than two. I know, the physical constraints limit us to what there is, but if there had been two HP48 models - one with two ports and one with, say, four, I bet lots of folks would have chosen the one with 4 (if they realized that there would be so many cards under development within a short period of time). Gee, it's a good thing that PC's don't require you to have a disk drive for each and every application you want to run, instead of being able to store it all on one hard disk. Jake Schwartz
jsims@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (J. Robert Sims) (02/04/91)
FRINGE <TNA32@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU> discusses why there are only two ports on the HP48sx. This post seemed to be in response to earlier posts on reasons for copying (all or part) of a ROM card. These earlier posts were simply stating that the 48 is limited to 2 ports, not necessarily complaining about it. These posts stated that given the two port limit, the need to copy parts of ROM cards increases. These posts were discussing something that we _could_ change. We are trying to "deal with it." The copying of ROM cards is within the capabilities of the 48; we're not trying to get the 48 to do something it can't, we're trying to get the 48 to do something that many people don't know how to do, and increase the usefulness of it thereby. For the record, I would like a machine with more ports. But I paid my cash knowing in advance that the 48 has only 2 ports. We're not trying to modify the hardware or the design of the machine, we're using the hardware up to its potential. If we followed only what was in the manual, we would not have ASC-> and associated utilities; we would have no machine language programs; we would not be able to use our 28s as a remote control. The machine language increases the speed of anything we wish to write, making the 48 faster than it was designed to operate. Obviously the speed is a design limitation which we cannot alter, right? The port issue is the same thing. We're not adding ports, were combining two pieces of software into one. We lose parts in the process, but probably parts we don't need or want. Rob jsims@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
prestonb@hpcvra.cv.hp.com. (Preston Brown) (02/05/91)
>Going back to the PC world, you may have noticed
That most PCs have at most 2 floppy drives. Do many people complain
that they can't have more then two floppys loaded at a time? Of
course this is not a complete comparison.
It wuld be nice to have more ports but you have to make some compromises
for size etc.
Prestonkaufman@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (Michael L. Kaufman) (02/05/91)
In article <25590096@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.> prestonb@hpcvra.cv.hp.com. (Preston Brown) writes: >Going back to the PC world, you may have noticed that most PCs have at most 2 >floppy drives. Do many people complain that they can't have more then two >floppys loaded at a time? Of course they did (do). That's why Hard disks are so popular. Or to put it in a way that is more to the point, that's why high density disks are so popular. This is a good anology. I want to extract ROMs for the same reason that I have put a bunch of utilities from different companies on a single disk. That way they are all available at the same time. I have brought all of the utilities, and it is nice to have them all in on place. Michael Michael Kaufman | I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on kaufman | fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in @eecs.nwu.edu | the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be | lost in time - like tears in rain. Time to die. Roy Batty
umapd51@cc.ic.ac.uk (W.A.C. Mier-Jedrzejowicz) (02/05/91)
Among Tapani Tarvainen's remarks on the problem of moving HP48 cards is a question - can he swap a plug-in card 5 times a day for 10 years? Tapani (and all others interested) - the specs say the cards are good for 100,000 insertions. Five a day for 10 years comes to less than 20,000 - so you should have no problems! 20,000 swaps at about 6 seconds a swap (see earlier messages) would accumulate to 33 hours of card-swapping though, not to mention the grief every time you forgot to save the stack. For these reasons alone - ignoring all discussion of program copying - more slots would have been very welcome - unfortunately they would have led to a bigger calculator. Maybe page-swapping cards WILL be available though. I am in communication with the German company W&W (makers of the HP-41 CCD module) who claim to be producing 512K, 1Meg and 2Meg cards for the 48. I am still waiting for details of these, but if they ever do come into existence they will have to use page-swapping since the HP48 has a memory space of only 512K bytes. By the way, W&W claim to have a machine code programming card already on sale, and have invited me to translate the manual into English, but I have not yet received the card and manual. When I do get them I hope to report here - and at the same time to answer Bill Gribble's question whether I could write a machine language programming book for the HP48 in the wake of my book on the HP28. Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz, Ph.D., Space & Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College, London. BITNET address (I prefer to use it) MIER@ SPVA.PH.IC.AC.UK
flinton@eagle.wesleyan.edu (02/06/91)
In article <25590096@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.>, prestonb@hpcvra.cv.hp.com. (Preston Brown) asks: > Do many people complain > that they can't have more then two floppys loaded at a time? Perhaps not -- but *I* do: I picked up an old HP-110 ("Nomad") Portable along with matching battery-operated HP-IL diskette drive (9114A) and printer (2225) at a swap meet a year or so ago, and some few weeks ago leapt upon another 9114 when I found it at a computer fair (a -B version) -- and I'd leap just as eagerly upon yet another, or upon an HP-IL 5-1/4" diskette drive or two, if I could ever find such beasts. BTW: any hints as to how to get the 9114's to read or write standard MS/PC-DOS formatted diskettes? They will succeed at the DIR command after enough Retries or Ignores, but fail persistently at COPYs or TYPEs unless it's an HP-formatted diskette that's in the bay. -- Fred <flinton@eagle.wesleyan.edu> <fejlinton@mcimail.com> <fejlinton@attmail.com>
jcohen@lehi3b15.csee.Lehigh.EDU (Josh Cohen [890918]) (02/08/91)
Well here's my two cents... I am also someone who writes software and sells it. Although I write less copyable stuff, (pc software for first aid squads and such ), I agree with what you are saying to a point. Nothing annoys me more than to write a good utility and find it on a public board spread around our campus(lehigh) which does happen. Some have even gone as far as modifying and selling others work. But anyway, we arew not talking about your average 20-40 dollar game or application for a PC. We are talking about 100 to 500 or more dollars. Look at other programs for the pc which cost more, almost every single one is non protected, software or hardware. You can bet your ass that if I am going to fork over somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 dollars for some soft/firm ware, I would like to have a copy just in case. I am not just going to 'hope' that it doesn't break after the warranty runs out. And then what? these are new things. With the versatility and diversity of the applications for this baby, you could conceivable end up in some unusual environments for a calculator. Look at the surveying cards! 400 dollars at least and you will be outside! I use my 48 on an ambulance. I use it for data aquisition and such. I love it. But if something happened and the card was destroyed where would I be? With a ram based application, I could just reload it. The only possible loss short of the calc itself would be my data. The other point I see as valid is the workspace. I am a college student. I want to have one EE library, the periodic table , personal databank and whatever else. I spent a thousand dollars at least on a calculator. Call me crazy, but I am going to do my damdest to make sure I dont have to pay to replace it or any of its accesories. I buy my thihngs to use them and I dont have so much money that well, if it breaks and its out of warranty, oh well, buy a new one. Not me.. In addition I'm not going to sit and swap cards during an exam or project lab and wait 7 seconjds to swap back and forth each time. josh cohen jcohen@scarecrow.csee.lehigh.edu