Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> ____/ Mark Kent on Tuesday 28 August 2007 14:48 : \____
>
>> [H]omer <spam@xxxxxxx> espoused:
>>> Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
>>>
>>>> US Copyright Office grants abandonware rights
>>>
>>> This might have been relevant ten years ago, and still is to a certain
>>> extent for things like old games, but IMHO the future is in Free
>>> Software, where the concept of "Abandonware" is largely moot.
>>>
>>
>> As a future-looking thing, I think you're right, but it's worth noting
>> that there is a vast amount of binary-only software out there for all
>> those 8-bit and 16-bit machines from the 1980s and 1990s, including
>> arcade games and so on.
>>
>> There's something about computer games which means that even the oldies,
>> if they gameplay is good, are still very playable, and with the
>> continuing growth of portable hardware capable of running emulators,
>> these old games have some value. I have a spectrum emulator on my Nokia
>> 3360 and had one on the 6630 before I dropped it into a puddle, and my
>> N800 and N770s and the lads' GP2Xs do a good job of running gameboy
>> emulators and the like (another Z80 machine). Of course, gameboy games
>> are hardly in the abandonware category yet, but you know what I mean, I
>> hope.
>>
>> I do not condone copyright violation.
>
> Linux has some open source emulators that run my old ROMs. I suspect (read it
> somewhere, I think) that Vista 'killed' many of those binary emulators, just
> as it ended the life of many old games that will never run under future
> versions of Windows (XP VMs will 'expire' at some stage. Remember National
> Archives and the BBC article?).
>
The National Archives problem is a disaster being contructed right now
by one Alistair Farquarson, who, rather naively and astonishingly,
believes that Microsoft will do anything other than force HMG into
paying millions for "format upgrades" or whatever every 2-3 years in
order to get the best "fidelity" or other such marketing nonsense.
Lock-in performed on a whole country - how arrogant is that, and how
stupid are the people who agree to it?
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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