"Open Letter to Hobbyists"
David Jacoby
computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to
write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and
FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document
online. But I can't find it. Any pointers?
--
David Jacoby mailto:jac...@ecn.purdue.edu
Lead Web Technician, ECE http://pier.ecn.purdue.edu/~jacoby/
CS Major Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Shoppa
>
> Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to
> computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to
> write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and
> FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document
> online. But I can't find it. Any pointers?
From my usenet archives (note that it was "Micro-Soft", not
"Microsoft", at the time):
AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
February 3, 1976
By William Henry Gates III
An Open Letter to Hobbyists
To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now
is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself.
Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a
hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the
hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the
hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair
BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us
have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding
features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC.
The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who
say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things
are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC
(less thank 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The
amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the
time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,
most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but
software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on
it get paid?
Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is
get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make
money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape
and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do
is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do
professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into
programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute
for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money
in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080
APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this
software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is
theft.
What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they
making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported
to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad
name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up,
or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE,
#114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more
than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market
with good software.
Bill Gates
General Partner, Micro-Soft
Sergej Roytman
Tim Shoppa <sho...@trailing-edge.com> wrote:
>David Jacoby wrote:
>> Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to
>> computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to
>> write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and
>> FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document
>> online. But I can't find it. Any pointers?
>
>From my usenet archives (note that it was "Micro-Soft", not
>"Microsoft", at the time):
>
>AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
>
> February 3, 1976
>
> By William Henry Gates III
King of Newbies, Protector of Cruft, Lord High Muckymuck of the Golden
Lawsuit, Knight of Ni!, General All-Around Protection Fault, Quasher of
Things Quashable, Supporter of Athletics...
> An Open Letter to Hobbyists
>
> To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now
>is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself.
You said it!
>Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a
>hobby computer is wasted.
Any examples come to mind... ?
> Will quality software be written for the
>hobby market?
Not by your lot, obviously.
> Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the
>hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair
>BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us
>have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding
>features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC.
>The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
And we want it back, dammit!
> The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who
>say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things
>are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC
>(less thank 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The
>amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the
>time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
About what your current offerings are worth, methinks.
> Why is this?
Because we think you're a twit.
> As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,
>most of you steal your software.
How refreshing! And now you pre-steal our software for us! Now
_that's_ convenience. Sure thing. Worth each and every blue-screen,
you bet!
> Hardware must be paid for, but
>software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on
>it get paid?
>
> Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is
>get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make
>money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape
>and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do
>is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do
>professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into
>programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute
>for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money
>in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080
>APL and 6800 APL,
Haha! 8080 BASIC! 6800 BASIC! APL! It's mine! Mine! ALL MINE!!!
> but there is very little incentive to make this
>software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is
>theft.
And I'll get you for this! All of you! And your little dogs, too!
> What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they
>making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported
>to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad
>name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
When I grow up I'll have a herd of lawyers to deal with these
miscreants. And dungeons and torture machines to put them in. And the
big guys who used to beat me up in elementary school and take my lunch
money, I'll track them down too and make them write long documents on
386s running M$-Nerd, with 14-in. monitors that flicker, and that
someone has put big, greasy fingerprints on. You just see!
> I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up,
Before I _make_ you pay up! Mwahahahaha!
>or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE,
>#114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108.
Unmarked packages from small cabins in Montana excluded.
> Nothing would please me more
>than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market
>with good software.
...except hiring about a million code-monkeys to deluge it with tons
upon tons of utter drek, that is.
> Bill Gates
>
> General Partner, Micro-Soft
...Upholder of the Rules of Snot-Wrestling, Keeper of the Seal of Simon
the Fender-Polisher, Wearer of Pocket Protectors and Thick Glasses,
etc., etc. etc.
Scary, no?
--
Sergej Roytman, All-Around Geek and Linux User
Alexandre Pechtchanski
>In article <36D014C6...@trailing-edge.com>,
>Tim Shoppa <sho...@trailing-edge.com> wrote:
[ snip ]
>>AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
>>
>> February 3, 1976
>>
>> By William Henry Gates III
[ snip ]
>> Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the
>>hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair
>>BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us
>>have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding
>>features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC.
>>The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
>
>And we want it back, dammit!
Didn't he use the time on Harvard's PDP-10 from his student account, which
conditions specifically forbid commercial use, and never paid for it? Wasn't it
why he was kicked out of Harvard?
[ When replying, remove *'s from address ]
Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY
Bill Vermillion
>>
>> Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to
>> computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to
>> write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and
>> FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document
>> online. But I can't find it. Any pointers?
>
>From my usenet archives (note that it was "Micro-Soft", not
>"Microsoft", at the time):
>
>
> February 3, 1976
>
> By William Henry Gates III
>
>
>
> The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who
>say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things
>are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC
>(less thank 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The
>amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the
>time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
> Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,
>most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but
>software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on
>it get paid?
I remember those days - coming in just a year later. The computer
industry wasn't too fond of Gates, after he basically accused all
hobbyists of being thieve.
As I recall his software was $150 - while many other BASIC's were
$50 to $75, and some less. Tiny BASIC in Vol II of Drs.Dobbs was
there for the keing in of code at about the same time. A great
many people then considered Gates as being someone who was trying
to rip them off.
He was really po'ed about the copy fest the computer clubs would
have to bootleg his software, but I sometimes wonder if he'd priced
that in $50 range how many would have become legitimate users.
$150 in 1976 was a substantial sum. Or did I remember that figure
incorrectly. I remember buying 16K of dynamic RAM for only $300
:-(
--
Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
David Scheidt
: Didn't he use the time on Harvard's PDP-10 from his student account, which
: conditions specifically forbid commercial use, and never paid for it? Wasn't it
: why he was kicked out of Harvard?
This is one of the rumors. I don't think you will get harvard to talk about
why he left, though. And Bill himself would deny being a thief or a liar.
David Scheidt
--
dsch...@enteract.com
"[C]ows are extremely mammalian." -- Dr I. A. York
Dan Strychalski
> Alexandre Pechtchanski <alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu> wrote:
>: Didn't he use the time on Harvard's PDP-10 from his student account, which
>: conditions specifically forbid commercial use, and never paid for it?
>: Wasn't it why he was kicked out of Harvard?
>
> This is one of the rumors. I don't think you will get harvard to talk about
> why he left, though. And Bill himself would deny being a thief or a liar.
The following was my introduction to this matter:
http://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/harvard/partone.htm
Others might find it enlightening as well.
Dan "The keystrokes tell all" Strychalski
dski at cameonet, cameo, com, tw (no _x_)
Peter Seebach
David Scheidt <dsch...@enteract.com> wrote:
>This is one of the rumors. I don't think you will get harvard to talk about
>why he left, though. And Bill himself would deny being a thief or a liar.
Both of them would, and I suspect they'd both happily do it at someone else's
expense without permission.
-s
--
Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / se...@plethora.net
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon!
Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/
Visit my new ISP <URL:http://www.plethora.net/> --- More Net, Less Spam!
Joe Thompson
(Peter Seebach) wrote:
> In article <7at587$6bd$1...@eve.enteract.com>,
> David Scheidt <dsch...@enteract.com> wrote:
> >This is one of the rumors. I don't think you will get harvard to talk about
> >why he left, though. And Bill himself would deny being a thief or a liar.
>
> Both of them would, and I suspect they'd both happily do it at someone else's
> expense without permission.
In the US I believe educational institutions are legally forbidden from
publically disclosing information about grades or, if a student was
expelled, what the reason was for expulsion. Only those with an interest
and permission to obtain records (i.e., potential employers or educational
institutions, or parties paying for the student's education such as
parents or organizations paying scholarships) are permitted to see that
data. -- Joe
--
Joe Thompson | http://kensey.home.mindspring.com/
fbi...@orion-com.com | PGP key: Finger joe-...@mindspring.com
AFU Axolotl of Scorn | 0- He-Who-Grinds-the-Unworthy
"Everybody stare at Rebecca's prowess." -- Cael
Gene Wirchenko
[snip]
>> Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,
>>most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but
>>software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on
>>it get paid?
>
>I remember those days - coming in just a year later. The computer
>industry wasn't too fond of Gates, after he basically accused all
>hobbyists of being thieve.
Yes, but he was pretty much correct. During the TRS-80 / Apple
II days, I remember the copy fests that went on for software that sold
for $20 Can. and less. Speaking with one retailer, he made the
comment that his software sales dropped severely after user groups got
going. I don't wonder why.
One user group said that they were going to give away copies of a
text processing program. They apparently meant one that was PD, but
used the name "Electric Pencil" in describing it. EP was a commercial
program and the software company apparently got word of it. The user
group had to retract their statement and state that they weren't
referring to illegal copying. I remember the president of the group
repeatedly stating their no illegal copying policy in a
wink-wink-nudge-nudge tone. He apparently resented having to state
that the club didn't tolerate stealing.
>As I recall his software was $150 - while many other BASIC's were
>$50 to $75, and some less. Tiny BASIC in Vol II of Drs.Dobbs was
>there for the keing in of code at about the same time. A great
>many people then considered Gates as being someone who was trying
>to rip them off.
>
>He was really po'ed about the copy fest the computer clubs would
>have to bootleg his software, but I sometimes wonder if he'd priced
>that in $50 range how many would have become legitimate users.
I saw many people justify their stealing of *$20* programs. No
wonder they were irritated. How would you like it if you were
correctly described as being a petty thief?
>$150 in 1976 was a substantial sum. Or did I remember that figure
>incorrectly. I remember buying 16K of dynamic RAM for only $300
>:-(
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Sergej Roytman
Gene Wirchenko <ge...@shuswap.net> wrote:
>bi...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS (Bill Vermillion) wrote:
>>I remember those days - coming in just a year later. The computer
>>industry wasn't too fond of Gates,
Hm, what else is new?
>> after he basically accused all
>>hobbyists of being thieve.
> Yes, but he was pretty much correct. During the TRS-80 / Apple
>II days, I remember the copy fests that went on for software that sold
>for $20 Can. and less.
To touch on a different topic (and sort of relate this to the you-
can{'t,}-decompile-a-binary thread, what about copy protection? I have
heard stories about some clever copy protection schemes and their
breaking. Or not-breaking. Any interesting stories from those days
that scene?
--
Sergej Roytman
bill_h
>
> David Scheidt <dsch...@enteract.com> posted --
>
> > Alexandre Pechtchanski <alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu> wrote:
> >: Didn't he use the time on Harvard's PDP-10 from his student account, which
> >: conditions specifically forbid commercial use, and never paid for it?
> >: Wasn't it why he was kicked out of Harvard?
> >
> > why he left, though. And Bill himself would deny being a thief or a liar.
>
>
> http://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/harvard/partone.htm
Well.......
This Boston Globe article says Gates HIMSELF put the code he was
working on "for a New Mexico company" in the public domain IN ORDER
TO AVOID EXPULSION. It appears he was being accused not only of
mis-using Harvard equipment, but also Federal funding for it.
UNDER OATH ("Affidavit of William Gates.....Comes now William Gates,
having been first duly sworn upon his oath, and for his affidavit
states:") it appears he told a somewhat different story:
"35. Paragraph 6 of the License agreement requires MITS to secure
secrecy
agreements from all third parties to whom it sells the Basic
Program.
H. Edward Roberts, President of MITS, unilaterally discontinued
using
secrecy agreements some time during October or November of 1975
without
prior consent from Paul Allen or me.
"36. I personally asked Mr. Roberts to continue to use the secrecy
agreements
but he continued to refuse to employ them.
"37. After the secrecy agreements were stopped, I received reports of
large
scale program swapping of the Basic Program among computer club
members,
thus diminishing the value of the Basic Program."
So, according to this affidavit, signed 9th May 1977, it doesn't appear
Basic was "in the public domain", Harvard agreement or no Harvard
agreement.
But Gates' attorney went a step further. MITS sued over the claims by
Gates
and Allen upon which they sent (dated 30 April 1977) Notice of Intent to
Terminate their licensing agreement. In the "Answer and Counterclaim
Answer"
dated 16th June 1977, Attorney Mines stated:
"Third Defense
"Plaintiff MITS by its own actions has publicly disclosed the computer
program defined in the license agreement .... and by such action has
put such program in the public domain. Plaintiffs are therefore
barred,
estopped or have waived any right to institue these proceedings".
Maybe somebody oughta ring up ol' Ed Roberts and see if HE knew Basic
had
been placed in the public domain..... BY GATES..... to AVOID
EXPULSION!!!!!
Sam Yorko
>
> As I recall his software was $150 - while many other BASIC's were
> $50 to $75, and some less. Tiny BASIC in Vol II of Drs.Dobbs was
> there for the keing in of code at about the same time. A great
> many people then considered Gates as being someone who was trying
> to rip them off.
>
Wasn't the first issue of Dr Dobbs a one-off that was nothing but a Tiny
Basic source, and then it continued on from there on a regular basis?
Sam
Derek Peschel
bill_h <bil...@sunsouthwest.com> wrote:
>Dan Strychalski wrote:
>> The following was my introduction to this matter:
>>
>> http://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/harvard/partone.htm
>Well.......
>
>This Boston Globe article says Gates HIMSELF put the code he was
>working on "for a New Mexico company" in the public domain IN ORDER
>TO AVOID EXPULSION. It appears he was being accused not only of
>mis-using Harvard equipment, but also Federal funding for it.
>
>UNDER OATH ("Affidavit of William Gates.....Comes now William Gates,
>having been first duly sworn upon his oath, and for his affidavit
>states:") it appears he told a somewhat different story:
I'm confused. I skimmed the Globe article about Harvard. I don't recall it
actually identifying the code which was put into the public domain. Perhaps
it was Gates' 8080 simulator which got him in trouble at Harvard, and not
BASIC itself? In that case, therre's no contradiction with the affidavit.
Where did you get the affidavit? Did I miss something in the Globe article?
-- Derek
Bill Vermillion
It was a compliation of much of the stuff from PCC (I may have a
copy or two of that burried deep somewhere).
Issue 1, vol 1 is 19 pages long - I just counted. (reprint in the
published volume 1).
The one that made it understanable for me, becuase of the extended
comments was Palo Alto Tiny Basic by Li-Chien Wang.
I just noticed something intersting. He predated Stallman as the
code has this notice at the top.
10 June, 1976
@copyleft
All wrongs reserved.
I never noticed that before.
Eric Fischer
> Wasn't the first issue of Dr Dobbs a one-off that was nothing but a Tiny
> Basic source, and then it continued on from there on a regular basis?
According to the editorial in issue 2, they had originally planned
to do three issues and then stop, but public response to the first
issue convinced them it should be a continuing series.
Of the 16 pages in issue 1, two and a half are source code, two are
octal, and the remainder are in English. One page is even an article
that's not about Tiny Basic -- it's about using a calculator as a
math coprocessor for a computer.
eric
jsa...@ecn.ab.ca
: Alexandre Pechtchanski <alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu> wrote:
: : Didn't he use the time on Harvard's PDP-10 from his student account, which
: : conditions specifically forbid commercial use, and never paid for it? Wasn't it
: : why he was kicked out of Harvard?
: This is one of the rumors. I don't think you will get harvard to talk about
: why he left, though. And Bill himself would deny being a thief or a liar.
I've wondered about that...but if it had any substance, why wouldn't
Harvard be interested in suing for, say, a 30% interest in Microsoft?
Actually, though, although Mr. Gates may have had some opportunities not
everyone had, I'd be more inclined to call this showing initiative than
theft. But then, while I think that it *is* wrong to take advantage of
people who produce creative works under the encouragement our copyright
laws provide, I don't think the term "theft" is precisely appropriate for
that either.
John Savard
Ed Thelen
I notice a lot of animosity in many follow-up posts
Here is (a little of) my experience
- I was a regular at the Home Brew Club near Palo Alto, CA in the '70s
- about the time "the letter" came out, it was regarded
as a public service to copy software and give the copies
to other people
- someone had (8?) paper tape copies of BASIC (for Hp2100 or MITS or
???)
and said he would give a copy to anyone who would make more copies
and bring them to the next meeting
- in the spirit of public service, I promised, and got a copy.
The paper tape was a spool about 5" in diameter.
Went to my employer's computer and used "his" tape and made
5 copies.
- took the 5 copies back to the next meeting and made the
same announcement - however, I was shocked by the people
that rushed over, mobbed me, and even stole my "original".
I felt violated - raped - and made a fool of - no one else
had brought any tapes.
- the public service fad seemed to have died in a burst of
red eyed lust and give-me-a-free-tape feeding frenzy.
I never provided free copies to strangers again.
- I now try to reward those who spend their time doing
shareware - and even commercial ware. I feel guilty that
I have never contributed to those kind people that did
gnu projects.
Been there, done that
Ed Thelen
P.S. I wish Linux well. My son helped port it over to the
PowerPC. However, somebody eventually has to pay for the
pizza, beer, and electricity (maybe even the phone, car,
server and apartment). If nobody gets paid for software,
most people I know will go on welfare or beg or pick grapes,
or ...) The server for gnu.org is "Connection refused"
right now as I write. :-(
Tim Shoppa wrote:
>
> David Jacoby wrote:
> >
> > Years ago, before it was big, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to
> > computer hobbyists, in part asking "How do you expect people to
> > write commercial-quality programs without pay?" Since Linux and
> > FSF have answered that question, I've been looking for this document
> > online. But I can't find it. Any pointers?
>
> From my usenet archives (note that it was "Micro-Soft", not
> "Microsoft", at the time):
>
> AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
>
> February 3, 1976
>
> By William Henry Gates III
>
> An Open Letter to Hobbyists
>
> To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now
> is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself.
> Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a
> hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the
> hobby market?
>
> Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the
> hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair
> BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us
> have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding
> features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC.
> The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
>
> The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who
> say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things
> are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC
> (less thank 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The
> amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the
> time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
>
> Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware,
> most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but
> software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on
> it get paid?
>
> Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is
> get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make
> money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape
> and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do
> is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do
> professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into
> programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute
> for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money
> in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080
> APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this
> software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is
> theft.
>
> What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they
> making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported
> to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad
> name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
>
> I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up,
> or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE,
> #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more
> than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market
> with good software.
>
bill_h
I guess you have to rely on the many accounts of what happened - the
tape
loader may have been written on the way to MITS, but the actual Basic
code
was done at Harvard. Also, I think I read Paul Allen did the 8080
emulation.
I have a large collection of every book I can find about the evolution
of the
personal computer (I'm still looking for Forrest Mim's book -
"Siliconnections"
- if anybody has one....). It helps to put various "versions" side by
side.
Not necessarily that somebody isn't telling the truth, but it helps to
illuminate the frequently totally differing points of view.
> Where did you get the affidavit? Did I miss something in the Globe article?
I spent about three hours in the basement of the Bernalillo County
Courthouse
fighting with a recalcitrant microfilm machine, at 40 cents a page,
making
a copy of everything MITSian...... Can you believe they THREW AWAY the
papers,
including a number of now famous signatures? What a loss of artifacts!
Bill
Tucson
Eric J. Korpela
>Actually, though, although Mr. Gates may have had some opportunities not
>everyone had, I'd be more inclined to call this showing initiative than
>theft.
Basically, if a computer owned by the government or the university is
used to develop software, that software belongs to the university or
the government. Every bit of code I write on the machines at work gets
a "Copyright 1999, UC Regents" put on it (should they desire the protection).
Things that I write at home are mine. If I showed Mr. Gates' type of
initiative, there would be big trouble.
> But then, while I think that it *is* wrong to take advantage of
>people who produce creative works under the encouragement our copyright
>laws provide, I don't think the term "theft" is precisely appropriate for
>that either.
Apparently, in the view of Mr. Gate, it's not theft when he steals, only
when others do so. It surely shows how the "entreprenuer" got its name.
Eric
--
Eric Korpela | An object at rest can never be
kor...@ssl.berkeley.edu | stopped.
<a href="http://sag-www.ssl.berkeley.edu/~korpela">Click for home page.</a>
Lars Duening
I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
copy protections :-)
--
Lars Duening; la...@bearnip.com
Sam Yorko
>
> Sergej Roytman <ft...@engin.umich.edu> wrote:
>
> > To touch on a different topic (and sort of relate this to the you-
> > can{'t,}-decompile-a-binary thread, what about copy protection? I have
> > heard stories about some clever copy protection schemes and their
> > breaking. Or not-breaking. Any interesting stories from those days
> > that scene?
>
> I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
> copy protections :-)
I am. Had to; the company that I worked for was making "IBM-compatible"
computers that were not 100% IBM compatible. Invariably, it was the
copy protection scheme that gave us the most fits. I would have to use
an Intel ICE and look through the code to find out what the problem was.
Let's see: there was the scheme that burned a hole into the floppy in a
random place, and then check to make sure that the area was still
unwritable. Another scheme mixed up the order of the sectors in a
track, and then checked to make sure that the sectors were still in that
order by timing the delay between sectors. Another took advantage of
the software single-step feature of the chip to scramble the order of
instruction execution (the single-step monitor would take the
instruction pointer, and throw it through an algorithm to get the real
next IP). Then, if you want to talk dongles; I found one program that
accessed this big super-complex dongle (from Rainbow Technologies) to
verify that the dongle was present; the problem was, it only checked for
existance at the beginning, and then never again, so if the check at the
beginning was defeated, the program would run. Another program used a
dongle as a hasher for access to it's internal parts catalogs; the
program would take it's reference number and run it through the dongle
hasher to get the catalog index. It turned out that the dongle was
nothing more than two chips (we X-Rayed it), and I figured out it was
nothing more than a 7486 and a 6 bit shift register connected as a CRC
generator, and wrote a program that would try out all possible CRC
algorithms to get the correct connections. That's all I remember for
now.....
Sam
Mike Swaim
: Sergej Roytman <ft...@engin.umich.edu> wrote:
:> To touch on a different topic (and sort of relate this to the you-
:> can{'t,}-decompile-a-binary thread, what about copy protection? I have
:> heard stories about some clever copy protection schemes and their
:> breaking. Or not-breaking. Any interesting stories from those days
:> that scene?
: I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
: copy protections :-)
I wasn't directly involved, but some friends of mine in High School got
copies of Ultima ][ that they'd run by bloading it into memory, and then
jumping to a spot in memory. Towards the end of my career there, they'd
figured out the memory locations of their characters' attributes, and
started playing with them. Most of the characters had flashing names.
--
Mike Swaim, Avatar of Chaos: Disclaimer:I sometimes lie.
Home: sw...@c-com.net
Alum: sw...@alumni.rice.edu Quote: "Boingie"^4 Y,W&D
Brendan Hahn
>Sergej Roytman <ft...@engin.umich.edu> wrote:
>> To touch on a different topic (and sort of relate this to the you-
>> can{'t,}-decompile-a-binary thread, what about copy protection? I have
>> heard stories about some clever copy protection schemes and their
>> breaking. Or not-breaking. Any interesting stories from those days
>> that scene?
>
>I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
>copy protections :-)
Sure, why not? Strictly for personal archive purposes, of course.
Actually I never broke anything very fancy--my favorite was always
reverse-engineering games so I could make myself invincible, edit scenes,
etc. There's a lot in common between the two, though, not least that doing
the crack or the edit was often more fun than playing the game itself. The
last crack I did was a couple of years ago for the game Marathon
(technically uninteresting--just a registration code thing) and I still
haven't played past the first level.
I found myself recalling those old days not too long ago. A certain major
developer of specialized application software was preparing a new release
of their main package. This company is also in the business of reselling
OEM hardware, both as integrated systems and as add-ons for their software
customers. A big part of our business was providing similar hardware
setups to these software users. Turned out a new feature of the next
release was an extensive system of hardware "validation"--provided, of
course, to ensure that users didn't suffer any difficulties due to inferior
or otherwise unqualified hardware. Would the company qualify our hardware?
No. Would they provide the criteria, or otherwise explain why not? No.
Was there any possible thing we could do to achieve this state of grace?
No. They were quite hostile about it, actually.
Nothing else for it--crank up the disassembler! Actually there was more to
it than that: I had all the hardware drivers, so I could make versions that
traced all the software activity, interrupted at interesting points, and so
on. Most of the job was working backwards from disassembly printouts,
though. I was fortunate to have a beta copy of the software that didn't
seem to have undergone heavy optimization. That was offset by the
inconvenience of being unable to step or place breakpoints in the running
code; the software installed its own exception handlers over the system
debugger hooks, so the only way I could get a look at it in action was to
invoke the debugger directly from one of my drivers and go back up the
stack. I suppose with enough frustration, I would have worked out how to
repatch the exception vectors, but it turned out not to be necessary. The
disassembly was enough for us to fake out the validation system from our
software.
The interesting thing was, I was in the middle of this--late at night,
staring at the system monitor, pages of marked-up assembly code
everywhere--and it suddenly struck me: "Damn--this is exactly like cracking
Ultima V". And it was, the technique was identical. It was nice to feel
my misspent youth hadn't been *completely* in vain.
bh...@transoft.mangle.net <-- unmangle to reply
AndyC
Lars Duening wrote in message
<1dnqyv3.zx...@usr244-edi.cableinet.co.uk>...
:I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
:copy protections :-)
Well I removed the protection on Jet Set Willy. Does that count?
AndyC
Lars Duening
> la...@bearnip.com (Lars Duening) wrote:
> >Sergej Roytman <ft...@engin.umich.edu> wrote:
> >> To touch on a different topic (and sort of relate this to the you-
> >> can{'t,}-decompile-a-binary thread, what about copy protection? I have
> >> heard stories about some clever copy protection schemes and their
> >> breaking. Or not-breaking. Any interesting stories from those days
> >> that scene?
> >
> >I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
> >copy protections :-)
>
> Sure, why not? Strictly for personal archive purposes, of course.
> Actually I never broke anything very fancy--my favorite was always
> reverse-engineering games so I could make myself invincible, edit scenes,
> etc.
*smile* long ago, in my underage Apple-][ years, I too did the
occasional crack. Not many, and they never left my machine. I also found
the mere cracking of a protection pretty boring, so I went a step
further and tried to put the program into normal DOS files. That, or
extracting the flashy intro from the boring main program into a
standalone binary. But that too became boring after a while - writing my
own programs was much more fun :-)
I vividly remember how I tackled Archon II, and how this program nearly
defeated me. After the usual bootstrap phase it used not one, but two
virtual machines to do the initialisation and check the copy protection.
Furthermore the bytecodes were dynamically masked: the currently
executed instruction determined how to demask the next. And the copy
protection (it tried to read a specially formatted halftrack) was
somewhere in this mess. But I was lucky: somehow, and up to today I
don't know how, I found a vm instruction which just incremented a memory
location. And it was this memory location where the copy protection code
counted its number of failures to read that halftrack. I just had to
deactivate that increment and I was done. The program still tried to
read that halftrack, but it didn't matter anymore.
Archon II also contained the fastest disk reading routine I have ever
seen on the Apple. Oh boy, that one was _really_ fast.
And one day I also took a look at Karateka - I never went past those
first looks, but Karateka was impressive. Not only did the program use
almost all of the disk - even in memory it was so big that it couldn't
keep its own disk routines loaded. The solution was quite ingenious:
after loading one part of the program, the disk head was settled on a
certain track of the disk. This track contained a bootstrap loader for
the disk routines, so when it was time to load the next part of the
program, it copied the bootrom, deactivated the track recalibration in
the copy and then performed an almost normal bootstrap with it.
> [...]
> The interesting thing was, I was in the middle of this--late at night,
> staring at the system monitor, pages of marked-up assembly code
> everywhere--and it suddenly struck me: "Damn--this is exactly like cracking
> Ultima V". And it was, the technique was identical. It was nice to feel
> my misspent youth hadn't been *completely* in vain.
Mhm, I also don't think that the time spent on that is wasted. Even
though I never tried nor wanted to break any program ever since, I find
that the techniques and a kind of acquired intuition come in handy when
dealing with dodgy code.
--
Lars Duening; la...@bearnip.com
John Varela
> I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
> copy protections :-)
I had a copy of Microsoft "Original Adventure" for the TRS-80 and wanted to make
a back-up copy, but couldn't because the protection scheme used a non-standard
diskette format. I cracked that by figuring out the formatting and then
duplicating it. But just so I could make a back-up.
--
John Varela
(delete . between mind and spring to e-mail me)
Lee K. Gleason
>
> Mhm, I also don't think that the time spent on that is wasted. Even
> though I never tried nor wanted to break any program ever since, I find
> that the techniques and a kind of acquired intuition come in handy when
> dealing with dodgy code.
I spent many an hour learning to reverse engineer VAX/VMS code, working
on the Dungeon game, learning how to disable the light going out,
figuring out how to access the Game Debugging Tool, and the like.
Years later this experience was invaluable in dealing with a vendor
who was adamant that a problem we were experiencing with their
product was caused by our environment, rahter than their code...the
same methods I had used to look at subroutine calls in Dungeon enabled
me to tell them that Fortran subroutine FLOW_GAS was missing an
argument when called from routine CALCPRESS...they were taken aback,
and wanted to know where I learned to do that...I told 'em it
was a long time ago, in the land of Zork.
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
gle...@mwk.com
Simon Slavin
Sam Yorko <JOATno...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> Lars Duening wrote:
>
> > I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
> > copy protections :-)
>
> I am.
Me too. But in those days I was still in school. We learned lots
about machine-code by cracking the copy-protection on several games
for the BBC micro. The bit I liked was that we never saw the same
copy-protection method twice: every company seemed to have developed
its own system and none of them worked.
By far the most popular method found depended on rendering one
sector of a floppy disk unwritable, usually by physical means. To
simulate this we patched the drive writing routines so that they
would do something non-standard when told to write to that sector.
Occasionally we found some kind of thing we just couldn't work out
and this eventually forced us to patch the keyboard handler so that
a key-combination dumped memory (all 20k of it !) and chip-state to
disk. It's very difficult to write a routine that dumps the PC,
the stack-pointer, and all the accumulators when that routine isn't
allowed to store values in any of the value-holders it's dumping !
Okay, so it was unethical. But because we knew we'd all be able to
play the game we were happy to form a club and buy one copy of lots
of different games. And learning machine-code when you're still in
school does tend to force you to work really hard at understanding
computing -- my A-Level project was a disassembler but I doubt my
teacher understood why it was almost complete so quickly.
Simon.
--
No junk email please. <http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk>
Simon.
Simon.
--
No junk email please. | What a story !
<http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk> | I can't wait to embellish it.
| -- Elaine from _Ally McBeal_
Peter Maydell
>I wonder if anybody is bold enough to admit in public that he/she broke
>copy protections :-)
What I could never understand was why games companies put copy
protection on tape games [8-bit micros, using standard audio cassettes.]
After all, any fool can copy those with a standard dual-tape cassette
deck, without ever going near a computer.
Actually, I found that occasionally that was the only way to produce
a usable tape; the copy process would shift the volume/tone sufficiently
that it would be readable when the original wasn't. (this was on
an Amstrad CPC 6128 with an external tape deck.)
The irritating thing about all the copy-protecting non-standard loaders
is that they were generally more sensitive to misadjusted vol/tone
on the tape recorder; if they'd just used the firmware routines I'd
have had much less grief. As it was I became very familiar with the
sound of a loading program as I went through endless cycles of
play-rewind-adjust settings-play...
Peter Maydell
Lars Duening
> By far the most popular method found depended on rendering one
> sector of a floppy disk unwritable, usually by physical means.
Didn't that method die out after it was found that the damaged parts of
the disk tended to wear down the r/w heads?
But you just reminded me of one neat copy protection I found on one
Apple disk. It looked like a normal disk - you could read it, write it,
no half tracks, no damaged sectors. And yet the program would run when
booted from a copy only if the copy was made with one of the nibble
copiers.
The protection used the fact that Apple DOS stored to disk's volume
number in every sector. Usually, every sector on one disk has the same
volume number, but, you guess it, on this particular disk each sector's
volume number was different. Normal (non-nibble) disk copiers didn't
check for this and produced copies with equal volume numbers in every
sector.
I can imagine that this protection was quite efficient against the
casual coporate pirate (you know, department head buying one copy for n
employees) while costing hardly anything to implement.
> And learning machine-code when you're still in
> school does tend to force you to work really hard at understanding
> computing -- my A-Level project was a disassembler but I doubt my
> teacher understood why it was almost complete so quickly.
At least you got to do a project where you could use your knowledge. For
my friends and me there was just a voluntary 'work group', supported but
not graded by our school. I tried to compensate by entering one of my
programs into a nationwide 'computer science at schools' programming
competition. Bloody lusers - I had to call them to find out how I scored
(not very good, but they didn't tell my why - I can just guess that for
the jury a disk editor was not educational enough) and that it might be
a good idea to send the disk and manual back to me.
--
Lars Duening; la...@bearnip.com
Richard Lamb
What assembler will work on it???
Bill Vermillion wrote:
>
> In article <36D304...@compuserve.com>,
> Sam Yorko <JOATno...@compuserve.com> wrote:
> >Bill Vermillion wrote:
>
> >> As I recall his software was $150 - while many other BASIC's were
> >> $50 to $75, and some less. Tiny BASIC in Vol II of Drs.Dobbs was
> >> there for the keing in of code at about the same time. A great
> >> many people then considered Gates as being someone who was trying
> >> to rip them off.
>
> >Wasn't the first issue of Dr Dobbs a one-off that was nothing but a Tiny
> >Basic source, and then it continued on from there on a regular basis?
>