On Saturday 19 Jul 2003 5:47 pm, Carroll Grigsby wrote: > On Saturday 19 July 2003 11:08 am, Anne Wilson wrote: > > On Saturday 19 Jul 2003 3:46 pm, Carroll Grigsby wrote: > > > On Saturday 19 July 2003 10:01 am, JoeHill wrote: > > > > On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 16:31:09 +0100 > > > > > > > > Inhabitant of Zion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> uttered: > > > > > You guys should really read this its outragious - if its > > > > > true! > > > > > > > > and guess who started all this shite... > > > > > > > > no, take a wild guess... > > > > > > > > ok, here: > > > > > > > > http://www.linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/open-letter-to-hob > > > >byis ts.html > > > > > > > > :) > > > > > > Wow, APL! I'd forgotten all about that one. I never learned the > > > language myself, but I had a buddy that did. It turned him into > > > a genuine fanatic -- worse than the Hare Krishna kids in > > > airports. It also made a lot of money for him developing > > > software for programming NC machines that would run on the > > > original IBM 5100 desktop computer (circa 1975). He's still > > > doing that part time. -- cmg > > > > I can't take this seriously. It was late '70s before Microsoft > > Basic was around, IIRC, and such 'hobbyist' machines as were > > around were not only expensive, but had the operating system > > embedded - and it was into the '80's before it became anything > > like standard. If you were not building your box - and how many > > were at that time? - why would you 'steal' the operating system? > > > > Anne > > Anne: > Actually, there was a market for MS Basic and similar software in > the early days. Gates didn't get into the operating system business > until IBM showed up on his front step with a blank purchase order > in hand. His Basic was used on a both CP/M and non-CP/M machines. > The latter computers usually had cassette interfaces -- the most > famous being the Radio Shack TRS80 -- but some had floppies, too. > IIRC, the base model TRS80 came with a simple Basic in ROM, but > there was also an extended version that was loaded from cassettes. > (You had to have 16K RAM to do that. Cost about $150 or so.) > Liberating software for your buddies was tricky since there were > virtually no standards; each manufacturer came up with his own > nifty format which was supposed to make the disks (or tapes) > inaccessable to any other hardware. > -- cmg
Yup - I had a ZX-81 and then a Sinclair Spectrum. I bought the Extended Basic, which included the ability to program text/graphics to windows (!). As I said, there was no piracy there - we bought the box with basic in rom, and bought additional extended basic if we were interested in programming. I didn't know anyone else at that time that had the same interest, so there was never a question of piracy. I learned by typing in programs listed in magazines, finding that they didn't work, then working throught the logic to find out why and correcting them. Anne
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