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

[COURYHOUSE at aol.com]

Looks  like the  big  "C"  to me!
 
I have no idea about the  Davidoff guy...
 
But   would  you REALLY  even  want to  spend  the amount 
of money to argue this  with the lawyers of  Gates and  Allen?
 
Ed#
 
 , and 
00380    
00400    --------- ---- --  ---- ----- --- ---- -----
00420    COPYRIGHT 1975 BY  BILL GATES AND PAUL ALLEN
00440    --------- ---- --  ---- ----- --- ---- -----




In a message dated 8/25/2015 11:35:05 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org writes:

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/