Powersoft/Breeze software in the public domain?
Skip May
Any of you guys know what Kim Watt or Powersoft/Breeze Inc. is doing with
TRS-80 Software? I have a copy of TRS-CROSS that I'd like to put up for
free download on my home page, but I'd like to try and contact Powersoft
to see if it's ok. The letter I mailed was returned.
TRS-Cross is a program that lets you read and write to TRS-80 disks on a
pc or equiv. I figure it would be handy to have out in the public domain,
if possible.
cheers
Tim Mann
> TRS-80 Software?
Kim is sending me his entire collection of old TRS-80 disks, and his
old Model III with its hard drive, so I expect to find some
interesting stuff in there to add to my Web page, such as the source
code for SuperUtility.
Both Kim Watt and Dennis Brent (who were the principals in
Powersoft/Breeze/QSD) are still doing things with computers. Kim has
a Web page at http://www.breeze.org/. Dennis runs the Nolan Ryan Web
site at http://nolanryan34.com/. Neither is doing anything with
TRS-80 software.
> I have a copy of TRS-CROSS that I'd like to put up for
> free download on my home page, but I'd like to try and contact Powersoft
> to see if it's ok. The letter I mailed was returned.
> TRS-Cross is a program that lets you read and write to TRS-80 disks on a
> pc or equiv. I figure it would be handy to have out in the public domain,
> if possible.
As I understand it, Kim and Dennis sold their company to Misosys when
they went out of business, so everything that Powersoft actually owned
the copyright to should be distributable under Roy Soltoff's
permission statement. (See my Web page.)
Note that Roy's statement does not put the software in the public
domain. "Public domain" has a specific legal meaning; among other
things, people can make modified versions of public domain works and
apply their own copyright to them. Under Roy's statement, he retains
copyright ownership, but people are allowed to copy the software as
long as they retain the proper credits on it.
If Powersoft was only a licensed distributor of a product, not the
owner, Roy did not acquire ownership of it either, and the original
author/owner would have to be contacted for permission.
I don't know who wrote TRS-Cross. Is it part of the family that
included SuperCross, HyperCross, Hyperzap, and PC Cross-Zap? Those
were written by Mike Gingell (Hypersoft) and belong to him.
Fortunately he's just made them freely available. See his Web page at
http://users.vnet.net/gingell/vnethome.html. (Actually SuperCross
isn't there -- was that an older product that was replaced by one that
is there?)
--Tim
--
Tim Mann <ma...@pa.dec.com>, Compaq Systems Research Center
http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/personal/Tim_Mann/
F Barry Mulligan
> I don't know who wrote TRS-Cross. Is it part of the family that
> included SuperCross, HyperCross, Hyperzap, and PC Cross-Zap? Those
> were written by Mike Gingell (Hypersoft) and belong to him.
The documentation for TRSCROSS includes the indicia:
| Program by Doug Hogarth
| Documentation and editing by Doug Hogarth and Dennis Brent
| TRSCROSS (TM) computer program Copr. (c) 1986,87 Breeze/QSD, Inc.
Under acknowledgements is:
| TRSCROSS, SUPER UTILITY, and SuperCROSS/XT are trademarks of Breeze/QSD
Mark P. Fishman
SuperCross was a licensed (by Powersoft) version of HyperCross. They
changed the name on the licensed version so it would fit their line of
tools (e.g., SuperUtility) better. SX and HX run on the TRS-80s.
TRS-Cross, on the other hand, was written by or for Powersoft and
eventually included in the Powersoft stuff that Roy sold. TX runs on
IBM-compatibles. It does have a timing problem on fast machines, though.
Cheers -- Mark F.
Tim Mann wrote:
>
> I don't know who wrote TRS-Cross. Is it part of the family that
> included SuperCross, HyperCross, Hyperzap, and PC Cross-Zap? Those
> were written by Mike Gingell (Hypersoft) and belong to him.
> Fortunately he's just made them freely available. See his Web page at
> http://users.vnet.net/gingell/vnethome.html. (Actually SuperCross
> isn't there -- was that an older product that was replaced by one that
> is there?)
--
(reply to: mfishman at el el dot em eye tee dot ee dee ewe)
trss...@my-dejanews.com
products. He has given Tim Mann permission to post all MISOSYS products on
the web. Take a look at:
http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/personal/Tim_Mann/trs80.html
- Scott
In article <71l6pm$igq$1...@mark.ucdavis.edu>,
sk...@dogbert.ucdavis.edu (Skip May) wrote:
> Hey there,
>
> Any of you guys know what Kim Watt or Powersoft/Breeze Inc. is doing with
> TRS-80 Software? I have a copy of TRS-CROSS that I'd like to put up for
> free download on my home page, but I'd like to try and contact Powersoft
> to see if it's ok. The letter I mailed was returned.
>
> TRS-Cross is a program that lets you read and write to TRS-80 disks on a
> pc or equiv. I figure it would be handy to have out in the public domain,
> if possible.
>
> cheers
>
> Skipp
> Sk...@pilot.ucdavis.edu
>
> tr...@pilot.ucdavis.edu/trs80
>
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Tim Mann
F Barry Mulligan <7003...@CompuServe.COM> wrote:
> The documentation for TRSCROSS includes the indicia:
>| Program by Doug Hogarth
>| Documentation and editing by Doug Hogarth and Dennis Brent
>| TRSCROSS (TM) computer program Copr. (c) 1986,87 Breeze/QSD, Inc.
>
> Under acknowledgements is:
>| TRSCROSS, SUPER UTILITY, and SuperCROSS/XT are trademarks of Breeze/QSD
Thanks for clearing that up!
I also found an old mail from Roy Soltoff that I had forgotten about,
where he says, "TRSCROSS is actually my product since I bought
Powersoft. I may even send that along for MS-DOS folks." He never got
around to sending it to me, but if someone would like to send me a
copy, I can legitimately put it on my Web page with the other
Misosys-owned software that Roy contributed.
Another fun fact is that for most of the software that Roy supplied
for my Web page, he used TRSCROSS to copy the original TRS-80 disks to
MS-DOS files, then emailed the files to me. I had forgotten what tool
he used on his end.
pb0...@iaehv.nl
On 1998-11-03 ma...@src.dec.com(TimMann) said:
tm>Another fun fact is that for most of the software that Roy supplied
tm>for my Web page, he used TRSCROSS to copy the original TRS-80 disks
tm>to MS-DOS files, then emailed the files to me. I had forgotten
tm>what tool he used on his end.
Is it possible to add these trscross images to your web page?
That would make copying them to real disks a great deal easier
for people who can't get an emulator to write the .dsk files
to a real disk.
Kees
--
Kees Stravers - Geldrop, The Netherlands - pb0...@iae.nl
Sysadmin and DEC PDP/VAX preservationist - Visit VAXarchive!
http://vaxarchive.ml.org (primary) - http://www.sevensages.org/vax/ (mirror)
Net-Tamer V 1.08.1 - Registered
Tim Mann
>
>On 1998-11-03 ma...@src.dec.com(TimMann) said:
> tm>Another fun fact is that for most of the software that Roy supplied
> tm>for my Web page, he used TRSCROSS to copy the original TRS-80 disks
> tm>to MS-DOS files, then emailed the files to me. I had forgotten
> tm>what tool he used on his end.
>
>Is it possible to add these trscross images to your web page?
>That would make copying them to real disks a great deal easier
>for people who can't get an emulator to write the .dsk files
>to a real disk.
For the things Roy sent me, my page has the individual files that he
extracted using TRSCROSS (gathered into .zip files), except for the
operating system disks, which can't be fully represented as individual
files. My page does have .dsk files for software that other people
sent me in that format, though.
If there is such a thing as a "TRSCROSS image" of a complete disk, I
didn't know about that, and anyway, it's not what Roy sent me. I
don't have a copy of TRSCROSS or any documentation on it myself.
I didn't know there was a class of people who can't get an emulator to
write .dsk files to real disks, but who do have some other means of
downloading individual files from the Web and getting them onto real
TRS-80 disks. My FAQ page has instructions on copying .dsk files to
real disks that should work for anyone who has a PC with a 5.25"
drive, running either MS-DOS or Linux, and that don't require
purchasing any software.