Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!fernwood!apple!uokmax!munnari.oz.au!samsung!know!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!grian!alex
From: alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Wanting to snub Emulators
Message-ID: <1990Nov6.110539.14613@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us>
Date: 6 Nov 90 11:05:39 GMT
References: <1990Oct27.190254.8511@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> <107918@convex.convex.com> <1990Nov2.040936.29686@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
Organization: Workman & Associates
Lines: 36

wieser@cs-sun-fsd.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Bernhard Wieser) writes:

>This should be a dead topic.

>There are two main points which people conveniently avoided.
>A MAJORITY OF AMAX USERS HAVE THE PIRATED SOFTWARE VERSION OF ROMS.
>CONVERTING A DISK TO AMAX FORMAT IS A CHANGE IN FORM COUNTER TO MOST
>SOFTWARE LICENSING AGREEMENTS.
>I don't support piracy (or pirates), and I believe clones/emus are theft.

1) ST users have been running non-converted, straight Mac applications
right off the original Mac floppies for over two years.  So, by your own
rules, the ST-plus-GCR doesn't violate the Agreement Sanctorum.

The ST provides
a larger screen, more RAM, a lower price, and a faster execution than a
Plus.  Until very recently (about three years late) with the advent of
the Classic, the ST was the cheapest Mac around.  (The STacy is still by
far the cheapest portable Macintosh.)

2) The Spectre GCR (for that is the name of the product that turns an ST
into a Mac) won't run with copied Mac ROMs.  (PROMs draw too much
power.)  There are literally thousands of 128K ROM sets out for the
buying.  Why are you convinced that AMAX buyers are pirates?

I think, though, you have fallen into the "Mac Uber Alles, and There is
no God But Sculley" trap.  Competition is HEALTHY, guy: if Apple doesn't
realize it, there will be unlicensed competing clones, or they'll be the
tiny specialty market most PC mfrs. consider them to be forever.

		Alex
-- 
		Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker
		Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others
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