Microsoft BASIC 80 non-disclosure agreement - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

5 May 1998

Well, this kind of comes from a rant of mine... ya see, on my computer, I
origionally had an AMD InterWave chip on my sound card, but found that it
was STB made.  It was made in Dec. 1996.  I called about it in Dec. 1997,
and NO ONE at their technical support knew ANYTHING about it.  And that's a
year after it was made!!!
    Anyway, lets call, e-mail, fax, walk up and talk to, etc. people at
various companies and talk about tech support, etc. for old OLD products.
(Like calling up IBM... "Hello, I've got this 8" disk here, it was new in
package, and it was not free of mechanical errors.  I want my money back!")
Or saying that we found a bug in the 4K MS tape basic, etc. ;-)
    And DON'T COPY ANY SOFTWARE.  I don't even care if it was made by a
criminal, it gives you no right to do the same.
    BTW, I remember seeing copies of DOS 3.3 shwrinkwrapped by this company
for Microsoft.  Was this done widely?  Where can I find out more?  (Kai
Kaltenbach?  Know anyone who knows anything about this?  I REALLY am longing
for a copy of Windows 2.x, as I've got this software for it... from our
school, even though they can't find hte actual 2.x disks.)
    Thanks,

Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Shoppa &lt;shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca&gt;
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
Date: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 8:05 PM
Subject: Re: Microsoft BASIC 80 non-disclosure agreement

...
 > >> The party agrees that unauthorized
copying or disclosure will cause great
...
     damage to
MICROSOFT." 
Hey! Let's all start copying Basic 80!  Or other Microsoft stuff!
Perhaps we can cause great damage to Microsoft!

Wait a bit... somehow I don't think we'll do any damage unless we
persuade people to buy our copies in preference to the originals. 
 Oh? You know somewhere you can buy the originals? 
I've found some original sealed Microsoft CP/M software by frequenting
comp.os.cpm.  None of the registration cards that I've sent in during
the past couple years have come back returned from any of Microsoft's
old Redmond/Seattle addresses, so I assume they found their way to
the right place (though I've never heard anything back from any bug
reports on CP/M products.)

Q7 of the comp.os.cpm FAQ provides this address as a non-US source
of several Microsoft CP/M products:

   For our European readers, much is available in Germany.  dBASE,
   WordStar 3.0, Multiplan 1.06, SuperCalc PCW, and Microsoft Basic
   (Interpreter and Compiler), M80, L80, CREF80 , and LIB80 can be
   ordered in either PCW format or C128 (also native 1571) format from:

             Wiedmann Unternehmensberatung & EDV-Handel
             Hauptstrasse 45
             73553 Alfdorf
             F.R.Germany
             Tel: +49-7172-3000-0 (Inside Germany use 0-7172...)
             Fax: +49-7172-3000-30

   They are marketed as "for the C128", however the disks are in KAYPRO
   IV format, and since the C128 uses the same screen codes as ADM-31
   or KAYPRO, it's probably interesting for people with other CP/M
   machines as well.  Everything is said to come with a German language
   manual and each one is offered for DM 149.50 , including sales tax
   of 15%, which you could probably somehow get a refund on if living
   outside the EC.

Tim. (shoppa(a)triumf.ca) 