Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!sharkey!cfctech!ttardis!rlw
From: rlw@ttardis.UUCP (Ron Wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: Some observations
Message-ID: <2652@ttardis.UUCP>
Date: 8 Nov 90 15:50:28 GMT
Organization: Gallifrey
Lines: 50

In article <9148@aggie.ucdavis.edu>, f175011@yogi writes:
>Last...how did Laser get around the non-GS ROM licensing problem?
>Is the GS ROM so much incredibly more difficult to do than a IIe
>ROM?  

Back in the days before ProDOS, there was a company that made an Apple II
clone that had only enough ROM in it to boot DOS (3.2 or 3.3) and then load
either the file FP.BASIC or the file INT.BASIC.  Once either of these files
was loaded, the onboard ROM waas nolonger needed:  These BASIC load files
had copies of the Apple II+ ROM in them; they were originally intended to
load a RAM card occupying the ROM address space in a real Apple II or II+
to provide the machine with the "other" BASIC (Apple's version of this card
was called the "Language Card") -ie: it would load Applesoft into the II or
load Integer BASIC into the II+.

Thus, this clone avoided the copyright problem re: the ROMs because it
required the owner to purchase the Apple DOS System Master disk from Apple,
which contained copies of ALL of the Apple II and II+ ROMs (Applesoft,
Integer BASIC, the Monitor ROM, and even the Apple Mini-assembler and Sweet16)

However, life isn't as easy with ProDOS and GS/OS: both of these use the ROM
routines and neither provides a copy of the ROM from which to load into RAM.
In the case of ProDOS, one could either first boot with DOS 3.3 to load
Applesoft and a copy of the II+ monitor ROM, OR copy the FP.BASIC file from
the DOS master disk and use a modified boot routine to load FP.BASIC from
the ProDOS boot disk and then load ProDOS.  All of this is technically legal
because Apple supplied a loadable copy of the ROMs on the Apple DOS master
disk (I say "technically legal" because none of this violates the LETTER OF
THE LAW, however, it is theoretically possible to convience a court that it
is a violation of the intent of the law (although convictions based soley on
the intent of a law tend to be hard to get and easy to get over turned))

For the IIgs, however, there is disk based copy of the core routines of the
IIgs ROMs - only the Toolbox routines.  Therefore a would be clone maker
would have to either license the ROMs, leave it to the customer to aquire
a set of the ROMs, or implement enough of the ROMs from scratch to satisisfy
GS/OS's needs (one of those needs is to match several dozen checksums GS/OS
computes over various areas of the ROM - a very nearly impossible requirement)

Thus, Apple has effectively locked out clones of the IIgs.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
About MS-DOS: "... an OS originally designed for a microprocessor that modern
                kitchen appliances would sneer at...."
                   - Dave Trowbridge, _Computer Technology Review_, Aug 90

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