Old Software rights (was content rights)

In an unrelated topic, I have a bunch of old programs from my University days, back in the late 70's, early 80's all Vax/VMS code, in various languages, etc. In those days we never put "(C)" or copyright notices on code. I'm just wondering if it's generally "ok" to release this code to the public? It's been 30 some years (longer than copyright would apply anyhow). I have searched for 20 years for some of the authors and never found anyone. 14 years ago I posted pieces of it, and said "if anyone objects to this, please contact me" and never got any response from anyone. The system and associated parts used for the development are long gone. But another age old question, who has rights to code developed on the universities equipment? I know it's a common question these days, but "back in the day" such considerations never occurred, it was a different era. Everyone from that era has also vanished with the wind, I know, I've looked. So is it fairly safely abandoned? Another way to look at it - If it was your code, some small silly thing you wrote, would you care? Dan. _________________________________________________________________