29 Jan
2009
29 Jan
'09
2:25 p.m.
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:07:20 -0600
From: John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com>
Subject: Re: Seeking reverse-engineers - Apple II VisiCalc
At 01:00 PM 1/28/2009, Tim McNerney wrote:
No matter how many times I hear stories like this, or lived through
stories like this, I still shake my head and can't understand how the
source code gets lost. All these corporations, all the lawsuits, all
the programmers, all the marketing money, and so often no one, NO ONE,
preserves arguably the most important bits.
What I find particularly irritating, is that the loss of the source code,
arguably, defeats the implicit reason that copyright and patent protection
exists in the first place. The U.S. constitution states:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for
limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their
respective writings and discoveries;"
Now one could argue that securing the exclusive rights promotes progress
all by itself. But the fact that it is meant to be for a limited time,
implies to me that at some point the full benefit of that advancement
should become available to everybody. If no copy of the source code is
required to be filed with the government, then the copyright and/or patent
laws are not securing the benefits of that progress for society at the end
of the exclusive period.
Patents have become similarly lame. Chips get patented with no
description language at any level required to be filed. Sigh.
Bad congress. Bad bad congress. No cookie.
Jeff Walther
I am
looking for volunteers to help reverse-engineer and document
Apple II VisiCalc.
I have three versions of the Apple II software. I
know one of them
still boots (1983?)
and have some confidence that the other two
versions (1979 and
1981) work too.
I have been in contact with both Bob Frankston and
Dan Bricklin.
Of course you ask, well then why do you need volunteers?
The answer is because no one can find the sources.