How long will they last?

On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, hellige wrote: This debate has raged on and off for months on Apple2 newsgroups. People who are doing the copying and archiving are arguing that they are preserving classic apple2 software, while those against it say it is piracy since some of the titles are still commercially available. My view is this: if it is no longer available, and will not likely ever become available again, right or wrong, nobody is going to raise a stink about it. Simply put, it IS preservation. Worst case, just do it and don't tell anyone. Think of this. Recently, Levi's Strauss paid over $100,000 for a pair of Levi's jeans from the late 1800's. The reason they paid so much is because they were original jeans made by the company back then and were of significant historical value. Obviously, Levi's was very grateful to recover a piece of its long past history to have paid so much for a pair of old jeans. I know this case is different in significant ways from copying once copyrighted software, but I believe in 20, 50, 100 years, a lot of these companies that manufactured computers and software (should they still be around) will be delighted to know a piece of their long lost past has been preserved by enthusiastic collectors. I say do it. Sam ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass