Roger Merchberger wrote:
Ward Griffiths wrote:
> >That's _formal, professional_ programmers with systems that support
> >revision control -- how much of the development for eight-bit micros
> >was done on systems without such formal structure back in the 70s,
> >early 80s? -- I'd wager a gagload.
> That was the point I was making myself -- Sure you can pick up Linux
> 1.2.13, but can you get a copy of "Merch's Half-Written CoCo3 OS-9 Level2
> (Basic09) Multi-Color, Multi-Window Genealogy Program with Built In Help"???
>
> Thankfully, yes, if you give me a week or so to dig it up!
>
> And there's a lot of software for Tandy CoCos (for example -- I'm sure the
> problem may be rather widespread) that just seems like it cannot be found.
> Whether it was actually bad code, or expensive code, or whatever, there's a
> lot of software packages that I've asked around for for quite some time and
> cannot turn a copy up to beat the band. (For purchase, archiving or otherwise)
>
> It's a shame -- Looking at FHL's (Frank Hogg's Laboratories) old ads there
> was a boatload of software like the Flex OS, 3 or 4 different Basics,
> COBOL, Pascal, Macro Assemblers / Disassembles, etc. for that OS alone,
> that may have gone *Poof* and may never be seen again.
>
> It would be a shame to lose it like that.
Yeah, I know. For a lot of that, even the production binaries are in
landfills, let alone the source code belonging to long lost companies.
(I've grabbed everything Roy Soltoff has given Tim Mann to post on
his site for the Mod 1/3/4, it's on more than one Zip disk at present
until I can get it burned into a CD-R at work (that's multiple copies,
it doesn't fill a whole Zip disk yet). I keep hoping the "The Source"
to LS-DOS is made available, since I was too stupid to buy a hardcopy
from Roy years back. And all of my 8" LS-DOS material was wiped out a
couple of moves back. As Ben Franklin said, "three removes equal one
fire" at least where posessions are concerned.
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.
Received on Thu Jan 15 1998 - 20:48:18 GMT