15 July 2009, 07:54 | #1 |
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Tampere / Finland
Posts: 127
|
C64 Forever ROM licensing
I've been trying to establish some licensing information concerning the ROM code distributed in C64 Forever. After waiting for a month for a reply to my e-mail, I got an initial quick reply from Cloanto by using their web form. It did not answer all my questions so I queried further, but I've now waited two weeks for a second reply and am not certain one is forthcoming. I have been implicitly told the code should be licensed and that All licensing information and credits are included in the documentation, but I don't wish to buy it to find out what it says. Other threads indicate some users here have this product, and I was thinking perhaps they could check out a few things for me.
|
15 July 2009, 07:56 | #2 |
HOL/FTP busy bee
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Germany
Age: 46
Posts: 32,072
|
Maybe Lemon64 or some other C64 forum is more appropiate to discuss that topic. You know how this thread will end here...
|
15 July 2009, 09:14 | #3 |
gone
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: completely gone
Posts: 1,596
|
Personally, I don't hate Cloanto at all...
You don't get Amiga ROM codes along with UAE but obviously that's because Amiga corp still own the ROMs that Cloanto license for distribution with Amiga Forever. But, Commodore don't exist so I'm not sure anyone actually owns the ROMS for the C64 and its relations (VIC20 et al). This lack of licensing requirement was, I assumed, why you get the ROM code along with the big three C64 emulators VICE, CCS64 and HOXS64. Based on my assumptions above I don't think Cloanto need a license to distribute those ROMs as there's no-one to agree a license with anymore. |
15 July 2009, 10:06 | #4 | |
HOL/FTP busy bee
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Germany
Age: 46
Posts: 32,072
|
Quote:
Seems like they haven't went belly up yet... (this is the company that bought the rights in 2004 from Tulip ) |
|
15 July 2009, 10:40 | #5 |
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: SouthEast-ish UK
Posts: 372
|
That's interesting TCD. I thought http://www.commodoregaming.com/pcshop/Country.aspx owned all the rights? Indeed, it's that company release the C64 games on the Virtual Console (Wii).
|
15 July 2009, 10:43 | #6 |
HOL/FTP busy bee
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Germany
Age: 46
Posts: 32,072
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodo...al_Corporation
The last sentence makes it clearer |
15 July 2009, 12:17 | #7 |
gone
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: completely gone
Posts: 1,596
|
Interesting, cheers TCD.
So Commodore does still exist - in a rather twisted and convulted mutation of the original... . Just goes to prove I should never base my conclusions on assumptions! |
15 July 2009, 12:55 | #8 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: SouthEast-ish UK
Posts: 372
|
Quote:
|
|
17 July 2009, 23:39 | #9 |
Phone Zen
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Banned
Age: 52
Posts: 234
|
I thought at least one C64 emulator had the ROMs coded from scratch (i.e. not Commodore's code at all) which is perfectly legal to distribute.
|
18 July 2009, 19:55 | #10 |
-
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Helsinki / Finland
Age: 43
Posts: 9,929
|
Uh, Commodore themselves gave the 8-bit machine roms out to public domain when they still existed. I think the author of C64S made it happen?
|
21 July 2009, 08:27 | #11 | |
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Tampere / Finland
Posts: 127
|
Quote:
If this was true, license-conscious things like Debian would probably ship it as well, because Vice is not very useful without. At http://packages.debian.org/lenny/vice it says: This package does not contain the various ROM images needed to actually use the emulators; they are available separately from other locations (see the README.ROMs file). A corporation in the Netherlands called Tulip holds the copyrights to the ROM images, and redistribution is not permitted, but VICE itself is unencumbered.This may be a bit out of date, but not Commodore-much. |
|
21 July 2009, 08:35 | #12 |
Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Tampere / Finland
Posts: 127
|
Possible, but not entirely useful. Could work with programs that behave very nicely and only use system code through the published interface, but it was common to cut corners. A few programs may even have jumped to ROM code 'between the lines', interpreting data as opcodes, and ran unintended code that happened to be there.
|
21 July 2009, 10:27 | #13 |
-
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Helsinki / Finland
Age: 43
Posts: 9,929
|
I really need to dig into my pile of old disks. I seem to remember reading it in the documentation of an old C-64 emulator. Perhaps it was one of the emulators for the Amiga.
|
21 July 2009, 13:46 | #14 |
Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: ...
Age: 52
Posts: 1,838
|
Rixa is right, especially some autoboot code for example started to load from the end of the rom area (writing goes to ram instead) and when the address of the next byte to be written wrapped to 0 from 0xffff the rom could be changed to ram suddenly with the custom code pre-loaded already instead of the rom code.
And this is just one of the many inventive ways of autostarting software on C64 The point is, anything that is not identical code at least in the IO routines is a waste of time. |
05 December 2019, 16:59 | #15 |
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2019
Location: Bulgaria
Posts: 3
|
I'm really curious about Atari ST and C64 ROMs about managing to play them in one emulator. Installing one emulator for both consoles if it's possible. I love this forum because it has posts about retro games.
Last edited by ledikom; 05 December 2019 at 21:22. |
12 December 2019, 19:12 | #16 |
Retro Gamer
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Underworld
Age: 51
Posts: 4,072
|
Sorry, but not interested, since I already have emulator that plays them (and many other systems) all from nice interface.
RetroArch + LaunchBox = Nice and easy emulation Way to bring post from 10 years ago... bot or something like that??? |
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
Thread Tools | |
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
C64 Forever | dcms61 | Retrogaming General Discussion | 4 | 19 November 2011 09:41 |
C64 Forever released... | Paul_s | Retrogaming General Discussion | 45 | 03 July 2010 13:38 |
C64 Forever EAB Discount | amigakit.com | MarketPlace | 0 | 19 June 2009 22:33 |
Coming soon, C64 Forever by Cloanto! | Yoto | Retrogaming General Discussion | 56 | 07 June 2009 15:24 |
Amiga Forever and C64 Forever Live Video Meetup | mcb | News | 1 | 30 May 2009 19:09 |
|
|