On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:09:19 -0500 (CDT) starling(a)umr.edu wrote:
>>Would this be for proffit or non-proffit purposes?
Well, if we have to pay real $ for the info, we should try to make a
reasonable return. I'm not really considering remanufacturing anything in any
quantities, but just in case we need to, we can.
>>I could see purchasing the rights to the C=64 and setting them free as
public domain. Perhaps raise the money to do it by selling "shares" of
ownership in the rights to C= enthusiasts. That way, emulators can use
original C= ROM code without copyright infringement, and "Build Your Own
Commie 64" kits could be a possibility. Since the rights would be
purchased by the computing community, they'd belong to the computing
community.<<
I don't necessarily have a problem with this. If this ever comes to pass (a
slim chance at best), we can make provisions for emulator licenses.
>>I don't see much of a point to owning the rights to such things in a
for-proffit mode. Except maybe just bragging rights...<<
Mmmmm. What's wrong with a little bragging?? <g>
>>"Hey, baby... I own the exclusive rights to manufacture the Commodore
Plus 4. Want to go back to my place for a drink?"<<
;-) Sounds like Austin Powers!
------------------------
Rich Cini/WUGNET
- ClubWin Charter Member (6)
- MCPS Windows 95/Networking
i enjoy reading what others have acquired over the weekends so i thought i
might add mine also.
there was a hamfest saturday morning so i went and picked up a 30meg rll
drive; a copy ][ pc option board which seems to copy just about anything. is
that correct? the laugh of the day was some guy selling an apple ][+ with two
drives, joystick and box of software for $300 <!> i think i had met this
guy before at a previous hamfest; claiming to have known steve wozniak
personally and did blue boxing with the steves! yea, right! i think that's
the same ][+ he was trying to sell then. i also picked up something called a
mattel aquarius for $10. the box was still sealed up, even the staples were
intact! i havent used it yet. any opinions on the copy option board or the
aquarius would be welcome.
david
At 11:51 PM 7/19/97 +0000, you wrote:
>A while back I picked up a TRS-80 Model 3 without disk drives. It
>works fine and I've been on the prowl for drives for it. Well, the
>other day while picking up some PDP-8 stuff (questions for another
>time), the guy gave me 2 Model 3s with drives. I've cleaned them up
>and checked them out and finally powered them on. Now this is the
>problem. They come on and the lower drive (drive 0?) lights up and
>then stops and the screen stays blank. I don't have a DOS for them
>so my question is, should these boot up without it as my cassette
>based 3 does, giving me the Cassette? and RAM? questions or do I have
>to get TRSDOS or one of the others. If these systems are bad, I'm
>thinking of moving the drives to my cassette system. Looks like a
>lot of boards to move, assuming the drives and controller are ok.
>Comments? Also, can someone help out with a copy of TRSDOS, NewDOS,
>LDOS or some other and a comm program?
>
>Thanks.
>
>-----
>David Williams - Computer Packrat
>dlw(a)neosoft.com
>http://www.neosoft.com/~dlw
>
>
CORRECTION..... Apparently I engaged my keyboard before my brain was in gear!
When I turn on my Model 4 without a disk installed I get "DISKETTE?"
on the screen. Sorry about that.
At 11:51 PM 7/19/97 +0000, you wrote:
>A while back I picked up a TRS-80 Model 3 without disk drives. It
>works fine and I've been on the prowl for drives for it. Well, the
>other day while picking up some PDP-8 stuff (questions for another
>time), the guy gave me 2 Model 3s with drives. I've cleaned them up
>and checked them out and finally powered them on. Now this is the
>problem. They come on and the lower drive (drive 0?) lights up and
>then stops and the screen stays blank. I don't have a DOS for them
>so my question is, should these boot up without it as my cassette
>based 3 does, giving me the Cassette? and RAM? questions or do I have
>to get TRSDOS or one of the others. If these systems are bad, I'm
>thinking of moving the drives to my cassette system. Looks like a
>lot of boards to move, assuming the drives and controller are ok.
>Comments? Also, can someone help out with a copy of TRSDOS, NewDOS,
>LDOS or some other and a comm program?
>
>Thanks.
>
>-----
>David Williams - Computer Packrat
>dlw(a)neosoft.com
>http://www.neosoft.com/~dlw
>
>
When I turned on my Model 4 with no disks I got "CASSETTE?"
on the screen. The lower drive light stays on. Have you checked to see if
brightness is turned up on the monitor?
Cheers
Charlie Fox
Message text written by INTERNET:classiccmp@u.washington.edu
>Does anyone know if Atari is still around? I remember years ago (really
not TOO long ago) I wrote to them and they sent me a pretty huge list of
old Atari 2600, etc., games still available, as well as old Atari 400/800
software they still had around. Does anyone know if there are still Atari
disutibutors that do this?<
Atari was purchased by someone else and dissolved as an independent
company.
No clue if the successors have any inventory, but I suspect I know where
their leftover cartridges went. An outfit called O'Shea, Ltd. has one
million, three hundred thousand atari video game cartridges (!), and is
selling them for 80 cents apiece. They claim they have 50 different
titles, but I only see about 40 listed; pretty evenly divided between 7800
series cartridges and 2600 cartridges.
These people seem to sell mostly in bulk (most of their different items are
available only by the case), but there's no such notation with respect to
the Atari cartridges. I've never done business with them, and I frankly
don't know what they'd do if you asked for (say) one copy each of ten
different titles. But might be worth a try if you want to round out your
Atari cartridge collection.
One the internet, they're at http://www.oshealtd.com/
E-mail is billh(a)oshealtd.com
Phone is 816-531-1177
Address is on West 47th Street in Kansas City.
and I'm at
Gil Parrish
107765.1161(a)compuserve.com
My friend's apple /// has the same problem. i had to have a chip replaced
several times. now it broke again but it's been so long that no tech will
touch it.
dave
On Fri, 18 Jul 1997 01:56:33 Mr. Self Destruct <more(a)camlaw.rutgers.edu>
wrote:
>>Me too! On a sidenote, I once saw an ad for some old shares (worthless of
>>course) in Commodore (for people to hang on their wall, etc.)
If you come across this ad again, I'd be interested.
Also, to those who have expressed a passing interest in the remote idea of
acquiring any leftover Commodore intangible assets {assuming that (1) we can
find out who has them and (2) they want only peanuts for them}, I'll be
contacting my attorney today to have him get an update from the US Bankruptcy
Court. Maybe we can trace what happened after ESCOM went bankrupt last July.
My idea would be to acquire the rights to the source code for the ROMs, the
schematics for their machines, IC masks for any custom chips, PC board
artwork, engineering diagrams, manuals, and service/technical information.
That's it. I don't want any inventory (which by now, I'm sure, has been
dumped) or tooling. I'm up in the air about trademarks, though (I know that
"Commodore" is gone, but the others like VIC, C-64, and PET may still be
available).
As far as any licenses that Commodore may have had (for games written by
third-parties and sold under the Commodore name, for example), I don't
necessarily care. Commodore's machines were developed in-house with MOS/CSG
parts, so they were owned by the same company ultimately. At worst, we'd need
the IC masks for any custom chips (VIC, VIC-II, SID).
Sounds like the beginnings of a business case...
-------------------------------------------------
Rich Cini/WUGNET
- ClubWin Charter Member (6)
- MCPS Windows 95/Networking
Would anyone have any ideas as to what might be causing a problem
with my Apple ///...it does the following:
1) the only disks it will boot are the disks for the Apple ][+ emulation,
the CP/M 2.2 diskette for the Softcard ///, and the 'Apple /// Dealer
Diagnostic' diskette. All other diskettes give a blank screen, though I
have two full sets of the Apple /// systems disks.
2) The diagnostic diskette keeps reporting a RAM Map failure when I try to
run a RAM test, on either the 5V or 12V settings, and it then asks me for
the amount of RAM in the machine. No matter which choice I've given, it
just goes back to the same error. As far as I know, it is a 128k machine
with the RAM daughtercard below the keyboard. The amount of RAM was gotten
>from the factory sticker next to the PSU on the bottom of the machine.
3) Of the diskettes that will boot, once booted, the machine runs fine,
including being able to boot Apple ][ DOS 3.3 and being able to run Wordstar
under CP/M 2.2.
Any help someone can provide as to trouble shooting this would be
greatly appreciated since my experience with Apple machines is quite
limited. The machine has a Monitor ///, Disk II for the Apple ///, Softcard
///, and a Silentype printer. It would appear that Apple at least did some
kind of work on the machine at one point as it has an extended warranty
sticker on the bottom from Apple, with the additional 1 year ending on
08/06/83. Thanks.
Jeff jeffh(a)unix.aardvarkol.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Amiga enthusiast and collector of early, classic microcomputers
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
Spring having arrived here in the wilds of Canada, I moved some
stuff and got close enough to that thing I was given last fall to read the
labels on it. The box is a little bigger than a legal two drawer filing
cabinet, and weighs a couple of hundred pounds. There are three tags with
"M.A.I. Basic 4 Information Systems, each with a different model number...
#9152 upgrade, # 610, and #1321. There is also a tag saying that in event of
power failure the batteries are good for four hours!
The cabinet contains a backplane and several plug-in boards.
Does annyone have any idea of what this is?
Cheers
Charlie Fox
