Altair BASIC copyright [was RE: Larry Niven's Altair]

[Rich Alderson]

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/