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From: dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Mac ROMs available for AMAX emulator [COMMERCIAL]
Message-ID: <3988@druwy.ATT.COM>
Date: 20 Apr 89 15:12:18 GMT
References: <10421@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 49

in article <10421@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>, bdiscoe@tybalt.caltech.edu (Ben W. Discoe) says:
>    The AMAX looks like a very attractive option for me.  However, the prices
> aren't exactly all that low:
> 	AMAX, when available ........ ~$200
> 	128K ROMS, IF available .....  $150
> 	Mac drive, w/edu discount ...  $283
> 				---------------
> 				       $633

	I think your price for a Mac(tm) drive is high, remember you
don't have to buy the drive that Apple sells.  Third party drives are
much cheaper.  You also don't may not need to have a Mac drive. 
Standard Amiga drives can read and write part (about 200K) of a Mac
disk.  That may be enough as long as you only transfer small amounts of
data to and from real Macs.

	I wouldn't worry about the availability of the 128K ROMs much. 
Prices have floated up and down for the last year or so but they have
always been available.  When the Spectre 128 (the 128K ROM Mac emulator
for the ST) came out many of the dealers selling ROMs ran out.  It was
almost impossible to get the ROMs for about 2 or 3 weeks, the time it
took the dealers to get them back into stock.  If the AMAX is as
successful as the Mac emulators on the Atari the same thing may happen
again.  Or maybe the dealers have learned to keep a larger stock of ROMs
on hand.

> One option, which my EE friends say is possible, is to copy the ROMs out
> of an existing Mac onto fresh eproms.  However, this sounds like an illegal
> thing, and the ROMs might not be socketed, although they probably are, seeing
> as how the ROMs get upgraded every so often.  
> Anyone know about the feasibility/legality of the above? It's important
> to bring the price of this thing DOWN.

	The Mac OS ROMs are socketed.  I would recommend that you don't
even think about copying them into EPROMs, Apple is very touchy about
people violating their copyrights on software.  Copying ROMs into EPROMs
is a very definate violation of their copyright and Apple does every
thing they can to protect their copyrights.  (They have to, if they
didn't take actions to protect them the copyright might be ruled to be
invalid.  That is one of the reasons they decided to sue Microsoft and
HP, they may not "own" the "idea" of the desktop but if they do and didn't
sue they would lose the ownership since they didn't protect it.)



				Dan Moore
				AT&T Bell Labs
				Denver
				dlm@druwy.ATT.COM