25 Aug
2015
25 Aug
'15
2:34 p.m.
From: Paul Koning
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2015 7:48 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Larry Niven's Altair
On Aug 20, 2015, at 10:30 AM, Jay Jaeger <cube1 at
charter.net> wrote:
> On 8/20/2015 3:32 AM, Randy Dawson wrote:
>> I assume all the 8K, 4K BASICs are in public
domain by now. The
>> demo for the kids will be the 15 minutes of paper tape, followed by
>> READY.
> Bad assumption. Things that were actually
registered even if there
> was no notice, or published with a copyright notice would still be
> protected under U.S. copyright.
Depending on when. If it was published without
notice, the key
question is whether publication occurred before Jan 1, 1978, or after.
After, notice does not matter; before, lack of notice means no
copyright.
Sorry to take so long to chime in on all the rampant speculation, but
I've had real work to attend to.
The following is excerpted from the main source file of BASIC for the
Altair, by Gates, Allen, and Davidoff. I have no further comment.
00100 MCSSIM(START)
00120
00140 TITLE BASIC MCS 8080 GATES/ALLEN/DAVIDOFF
00160 IFNDEF LENGTH,<PRINTX !!! MUST HAVE COM !!
00180 END>
00200 IF1,<
00220 IFE LENGTH,<PRINTX /SMALL/ >
00240 IFE LENGTH-1,<PRINTX /MEDIUM/ >
00260 IFE LENGTH-2,<PRINTX /BIG/ >
00280 IFE STRING,<PRINTX /NO $$/ >
00300 IFN STRING,<PRINTX /$$ $$/ >
00320 >
00340 SUBTTL VERSION 1.1 -- MORE FEATURES TO COME
00360 COMMENT *
00380
00400 --------- ---- -- ---- ----- --- ---- -----
00420 COPYRIGHT 1975 BY BILL GATES AND PAUL ALLEN
00440 --------- ---- -- ---- ----- --- ---- -----
00460
00480
00500 WRITTEN ORIGINALLY ON THE PDP-10 AT HARVARD FROM
00520 FEBRUARY 9 TO APRIL 27
00540
00560 PAUL ALLEN WROTE THE NON-RUNTIME STUFF.
00580 BILL GATES WROTE THE RUNTIME STUFF.
00600 MONTE DAVIDOFF WROTE THE MATH PACKAGE.
00620
00640 THINGS TO DO:
00641 SYNTAX PROBLEMS (OR)
00642 NICE ERRORS
00643 ALLOW ^W AND ^C IN LIST COMMAND
00646 TAPE I/O
00648 BUFFER I/O
00650 USR ??
00652 ELSE
00660 USER DEFINED FUNCTIONS(MULTI-ARG,MULTI-LINE,STRINGS)
00680 MAKE STACK BOUNDARY STUFF EXACT
00700 (FOUT 24 FIN 14)
00720 PUNCH,DELETE,,,
00740 INLINE CONSTANT CONVERSION--MAKE IT WORK
00750 SIMPLE STRINGS
00760 *
Rich
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/