Fusion 3.x and Phase 5 scsi ... does it even work ?

[Romanujan]

Well, I don't suppose the copyright owners of my software really care about it being pirated 20 years from now Neither do I care - the financial effect of this possibility is probably close to 0 for just about everyone.

The there always be originals argument is simply false - recently only a miracle allowed us to retrieve historic versions of CROOK and SOM operating systems for MERA computers (researchers had to crack them...). And there already are C64 games, which are probably lost forever (http://www.gamebase64.com/oldsite/lost.html).

And, if I understand, we are talking not only about pirated versions - but also about taking down perfectly legal free demo versions...

BTW. Fortunately, the U.S. law is U.S. law and not worldwide law (and even U.S. starts making exceptions, see http://www.wired.co.uk/article/dmca-...bandoned-games or https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming...mca-exemption/ or https://www.copyright.gov/1201/docs/...tement_01.html), so there is bigger chance important pieces of IT history will survive (including the history of cracking scene). Hopefully, software preservation projects (some of them broadly discussed on this forum) will be able to continue their work, even if they break U.S. laws. Hopefully WHDLoad team will continue their work (these pesty intellectual property thefts crack the XXth century DRMs!), and hopefully Apple won't harass you for writing software allowing to run MacOS (probably pirated in 95% of cases...) on unlicensed non-Apple hardware (which also might be a grey area).

[JimDrew]

Originally Posted by Romanujan

Well, I don't suppose the copyright owners of my software really care about it being pirated 20 years from now Neither do I care - the financial effect of this possibility is probably close to 0 for just about everyone.

It has nothing to do with financial effect. It's the fact that someone is actually stealing work that you put in the hours to create. In my case it is millions (literally) of lines of assembly code and decades worth of time.

Originally Posted by Romanujan

The there always be originals argument is simply false - recently only a miracle allowed us to retrieve historic versions of CROOK and SOM operating systems for MERA computers (researchers had to crack them...). And there already are C64 games, which are probably lost forever (http://www.gamebase64.com/oldsite/lost.html).

And, if I understand, we are talking not only about pirated versions - but also about taking down perfectly legal free demo versions...

Daffy Duck was found and made available. http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=57760

I would much rather have all of my software completely lost than to have it blatantly stolen. I am certainly not alone with this feeling. I have lots of colleagues that feel the same way.

Yes, I have pulled all of my demos. At this point, demo versions are no longer needed. If you don't know the programs I have written by now then you have probably been living in a cave. However, the real reason for pulling the demo versions is that they no longer reflect the products that will be available, so this will cause confusion.

Originally Posted by Romanujan

BTW. Fortunately, the U.S. law is U.S. law and not worldwide law (and even U.S. starts making exceptions, see http://www.wired.co.uk/article/dmca-...bandoned-games or https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming...mca-exemption/ or https://www.copyright.gov/1201/docs/...tement_01.html), so there is bigger chance important pieces of IT history will survive (including the history of cracking scene). Hopefully, software preservation projects (some of them broadly discussed on this forum) will be able to continue their work, even if they break U.S. laws. Hopefully WHDLoad team will continue their work (these pesty intellectual property thefts crack the XXth century DRMs!), and hopefully Apple won't harass you for writing software allowing to run MacOS (probably pirated in 95% of cases...) on unlicensed non-Apple hardware (which also might be a grey area).

Fortunately, most countries follow the exact same U.S. guidelines. I think you are confused about what the DMCA has done. The DMCA has exemptions for floppy backup, and the recent addition that you linked to that reads:

"The United Stated Library of Congress has ruled to add new exemptions to the USA's Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that will allow legitimate owners of games which require no-longer-operational authentication servers to modify their games so that they can continue playing them. "

This means that you as the "legitimate owners of a game" can modify the game so that it can still be used. The copyright does not change, and although there are exemptions for backing up software that is disk based, you still can not share, give away, or sell any backup copies (AKA pirate) even with the original disk. You probably don't realize that I am actively involved with helping form some of the copyright laws in the U.S. dating back to when Public Law 117 was in affect up until recent years pushing for exemptions with the DCMA to allow magnetic media backups.

[Romanujan]

I linked to total of 4 types of exceptions currently in use, with more being considered. And piracy != stealing. Stealing - 'move command'. Piracy - 'copy command'.

Well, somehow your software didn't arrive into my cave as of yet Macintosh wasn't popular in my country at all (so far I have seen MacOS Classic on YouTube only... I don't have a Coffin), and software PC emulators on Amiga were... well, just a toy, in reality too slow for anything. I remember friend of mine had one back then (I think it was PCTask, but I'm not sure after all these years), but quickly deleted it to make space for something actually useful. And in the era of VMWare, VirtualBox, DOSBox, DOSEmu, PCEm, and QEmu - I'm afraid the PCx has only historic/nostalgic value...

Originally Posted by JimDrew

I would much rather have all of my software completely lost than to have it blatantly stolen.

And this is exactly what I call very very sad. Adding to the fact that I would have probably purchased PCx and Fusion licenses (despite Fusion being, well, grey area - had it became popular in 90s, Apple would probably seek a way to take it down) if they were still available - just like many other amigans.

[JimDrew]

I guess you were in a cave. There was no "gray" area. EMPLANT and FUSION were popular in the 90's. I met with Scully (along with a large number of Apple execs and engineers) at Apple's headquarters in Cuperino, CA in 1992 and we talked about my Mac emulation (EMPLANT at the time). Commodore wanted to make a bundle deal with the A4000 and EMPLANT board. Apple refused to license the ROMs to us or Commodore, but admitted that there was nothing that could be done to stop the emulation because it was legal. Their biggest complaints were the fact that EMPLANT's Mac emulation was faster than any real Mac, and it could also run more software than any single real Mac because ROM (images) could be changed. Creative Computers released an A4000/EMPLANT bundle and many of these systems ended up in Hollywood production studios running Avid's video studio.

The success of EMPLANT turned into FUSION. FUSION would later be ported to the PC where it was wildly successful (we had a million downloads of the demo version the first day it was released, crashing downloads.com).

[Romanujan]

And what was the legal way to obtain these Mac ROMs back then? If these studios were buying Macs to get the ROMs and OSes in a legal way (which would probably be insanely expensive) - you weren't that much of a treat to Apple. As for Fusion PC - I don't expect the performance was too spectacular.

They had plenty of ways to complicate matters for you, had they considered you a threat - like Psystar, which was eventually shut down due to lawsuits.

[DamienD]

Romanujan; you can argue all you like that it's not right, blah / blah / blah until your blue in the face...

It's not going to change anything...

At the end of the day, and all that really matters is that this software has been produced / worked on by JimDrew over many decades now, he has future plans for it and is still the copyright owner...

End of... and he doesn't need to justify his reasons to anybody!!!

[JimDrew]

Originally Posted by Romanujan

And what was the legal way to obtain these Mac ROMs back then? If these studios were buying Macs to get the ROMs and OSes in a legal way (which would probably be insanely expensive) - you weren't that much of a threat to Apple.

The EMPLANT board had ROM sockets and you could BUY ROMs back in the day. Apple service centers were selling ROMs at an alarming rate, and eventually figured out what was going on and started charging a premium for them. However, for people like special effect production studios that were paying $25,000 per day to go to businesses that ran Avid video studios, it was cheaper to buy several Amiga 4000/EMPLANT/Mac ROM/Mac OS setups, especially because you could run the software faster than a real Mac. Once they were done with the project, the next ones were free because they already had the equipment... not to mention all of the money they saved when multiple days of editing was required.

Originally Posted by Romanujan

As for Fusion PC - I don't expect the performance was too spectacular.

Ha! Must be that cave thing again. 1.6 million lines of x86 assembly code yielded a Mac emulation that on a dual core Intel CPU (from 1998) would easily outrun the Amiga version of FUSION. If I run FUSION-PC on a DOS box with my 4930K CPU and 780ti video cards (under Windows 10), it scores around 120x the speed of a real 25MHz 040 Mac.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by Romanujan

As for Fusion PC - I don't expect the performance was too spectacular.

Whilst I said I had troubles running the Amiga format version of Fusion, and never went back to it on the Amiga, on the PC, I can testify Fusion was indeed great.

I downloaded that demo, after trying other pc mac emulation alternatives that sucked (anyone remember Ardi`s Executor?). Well, the point is, that I remember saving money to buy that Fusion cdrom. The cd had some lightnings on a purple cover. I loved it, and it worked very good on my Pentium 1 pc (it was MS-DOS based).

[JimDrew]

Yep, here is the splash screen that was also used for the CD-ROM case cover. I created that using one of the 3rd party plug-ins for Photoshop under the emulation.

[Romanujan]

@JimDrew - so you see, they did use the copyrights to get what they wanted. Or rather - they implemented a stopgap measurement, as transition to PPC solved their problem. 1998 was a start of the iMac era - just outrunning 1992 machines was... well, not to even mention the end of 68k support.

@DamienD - I only claim the current situation is really sad - fortunately, after some research I clearly see he won't be able to fully perform what he intends (I mean - taking down the software; possible further Fusion development and availability to purchase is at the opposite end of what makes me sad and angry).

For me EOT, before this flame gets completely out of control.

[JimDrew]

Again, you must have been in a cave. There was a PPC emulation - iFUSION. THAT didn't even need ROMs because the entire Mac OS is loaded from the hard drive.

EAB has removed all of my software from its servers, and the various archival sites have as well.