It's his prerogative though. He owns the rights to it. It's pretty clear that he doesn't want people copying it and we should respect that regardless of availability.

Just use ShapeShifter and PC-Task

Yeah, but Estrayk has a very good point.

People are willing to purchase legally so Jim should try to provide a method to enable this otherwise how will anyone be able to use the fruits of his labour?

so that you can understand me:
You should not remove the apples from the tree, but you can not buy them either, I prefer that they rot there.

OK, the tree and the apples are from Jim Drew and I respect it, but it does not make any sense

V3.2 was the last official release version.


The v3.3 that has been floating around is definitely fake. We never had an official v3.3 beta version. The fix for the Mediator was a few byte change, and because the Mediator was not popular it was not something that had to be released.

Not currently, but a new version is coming. I have several people on the FPGA Arcade Replay team beta testing the new version.


I have no idea who apc-tcp.de is, but I own the copyrights to FUSION (and PCx) and I can release whatever I like.

Like I said, there is a new version coming. The new version has improved video drivers (with support of several of the FPGA solutions), the ability to use ISO image files as CD-ROM drives, and other changes.

This is not my day job, but I do spend a considerable amount of time developing retro products now.

This is the bit I'm struggling with. Jim wrote (what is as I understand it) an excellent piece of software. He put the time into it, made it. He owes us all nothing. Why *should* Jim try to provide a method? He's under no obligation to do so. If he doesn't want us to distribute it (as he made clear), for whatever reason it's nobody's decision but his own. The CU Amiga CD is there for people that want it. If they want a different version, they might be able to find someone willing to part with theirs.



Maybe I'm just getting hung up on the wording here, I apologise for doing so if that's the case. This feels as though the framing diminishes the author's agency and that seems unfair to me. Of course opinions are like arseholes. Everyone has one and most smell bad up close.

I have no problem at all with Jim asking for pirated / illegal copies to not be uploaded / distributed; do remember that I spent hours removing them all from EAB resources as soon as Jim requested a few months back :agree

...but again I think you're missing the point that Estrayk was making.

There are people who would like to be able to purchase / try this but there's no way possible... How are they supposed to get hold of this software?

Anyway, all this discussion is mute now as Jim has replied saying that a new version is being worked on; and hopefully will be made available for interested parties to purchase.

Thanks for the reply Jim. We look forward to that new version.

In the mean time, people can apparently use v3.2 that was included on the Amiga cover disk CD thing. I was not aware that the full version (with a .key file even) was released that way. That is actually in violation of the licensing agreement for FUSION and PCx... obviously a little late now. A new version is on the horizon for 68K machines. There will be special versions for Replay 2 and a few other FPGA platforms as well.

@DamienD - I appreciate the immediate response by EAB in removing all of the pirated/hacked versions that were maintained or link to from this site. The mods here have always been top notch!

few other FPGA platforms includes Vampire series?

The version-string of my Fusion-3.3 reads
FUSION_68k 3.3 (2001-04-12)
and the executable is
262144
Bytes long.

By the way, what actually was the last release version of Pcx?

And will people who can provide a valid Fusion/Pcx-serialnumber get the upcoming versions for a lowered price?

Maybe because I'm not native english I don't get it fully but should I understand that you are saying that's ok to use it from that source ?

Not currently because I am using some special features specific to the accelerator boards.

Yeah, that FUSION is bogus.

PCx's last official release was v3.0.

No, there won't be a discount for being a previous owner 20 years ago. :) However, the new versions will be cheap.. like $20 or less for both emulations.

Technically, no. That is in violation of the licensing agreement. I was pointing out that this was done. You can't re-distribute that (or any) version.

If you can't buy it, you have no choice but to pirate it. Simple as that.

You all used to copy shit off friends, BBS's, etc. Why get on your high horse about it now?

I think you need to understand the copyright laws. Just because you can not obtain something does not give you the right to steal it.

I don’t think insulting people will bring you any good. He didn’t stole you anything - didn’t took you car, didn’t even touch your wallet, and your bank balance is precisely the same as if he didn’t pirate Fusion (and his probably too). Broken the law - possibly (might depend on the jurisdiction), but I’m afraid hardly anyone here will be sorry for such... “theft”.

BTW, have you ever seen emulator author unable to solve a problem, because he couldn’t get a legit license for the software not running under emulation correctly? Me - never. Interesting ;)

@Hewitson, look at the FPGA Arcade Slack forum, Jim published there a beta to download for everyone not so long ago, possibly it’s still there... if you still care about Fusion (I don’t).

first i did not download that amiga format cd. i was willing to wait for a new version. i just followed that thread, reading, not posting. but today, after "stealing" and "theft" accusation... now i had to download it. just to act out of spite.
pcx and fusion were available on a official magazine cd, which one actually could buy some time. i can't imagine a official computer magazine would publish anything pirated, so i'm positive that the creators of amiga format magazine had to have some kind of permission to publish it.
and this magazine (along with it's cd) is available on archive.org which is subject to us-american fair use law... well, for me this is legal enough, as archive.org is a fully legal source... even if there wasn't any iso available on archive.org, i dont't think it's very difficult to get hands on a used physical copy of that amiga format issue with cd.
about "stealing"... did someone actually take away anything from you? i don't think so... it's just copied. and how would you know if someone really would have bought this software if it would be possible to buy it...