tjb Posted March 24, 2007 Share Posted March 24, 2007 (edited) Anybody know whatever came of this company? As I understand it this outfit (a single person?) obtained the rights to Mac/65 and SpartaDos (and others?). I wonder if the source code for these products is still lying around somewhere. It would be really cool if the sources could be released as open source to allow continued development. It would also be a great learning tool. tjb Edited March 24, 2007 by tjb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted March 24, 2007 Share Posted March 24, 2007 Mike Holman made a lot of promises, took a lot of money for orders for product he never delivered, took a bunch of prototype gear from a collector and never gave it all back. In the end, I think this was back maybe around 1997-1998 I flew out to CA. to look through 135 boxes of equipment that came out of Mike's storage unit, apparently he got in there before the storage unit was locked down for non-payment and its contents sold off to a surplus shop in Santa Cruz. Well I found a bunch of family photo's, check books and such, I gave them all to the collector who was pretty pissed and determined to find Holman. Since Mike owes so much money to so many and has been in hiding for like 10 years now, basically most of his rights to stuff have been a free for all because the community pretty much feels that he has defaulted on such ownerships since he's been a fugitive for so long. I know he tried to quietly sell some rights over to a few Atari dealers and individuals, but pretty much anyone who then tries to do anything with such properties has felt the wrath of the still scathing individuals ripped off by Holman and they undermine anyone's attempt to try and benefit from Holman's ill gotten goods, so basically anything he owned has become PD. I looked for disks, printouts, etc... basically it was 135 boxes of crap - empty 8bit cartridge cases, crates of empty MIO cases, boxes upon boxes of Guitar and boyscout magazines, a ton of TI 99 stuff, Apple ][ stuff, bunch of PET's, a Bell & Howell smoked plexiglass Apple ][ and some assorted cartridges and odds and ends, nothing significant and nothing from the OSS/ICD stuff he has bought. Oh and 3 palletes of OSS flat boxes and manuals that were outside getting slightly water damaged. Curt Anybody know whatever came of this company? As I understand it this outfit (a single person?) obtained the rights to Mac/65 and SpartaDos (and others?). I wonder if the source code for these products is still lying around somewhere. It would be really cool if the sources could be released as open source to allow continued developed. It would also be a great learning tool. tjb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamageX Posted March 24, 2007 Share Posted March 24, 2007 I heard that Mr. Hohman wanted to get back into the Atari scene and implement an A8 in FPGA for the C-One. This was several years ago, apparently the idea didn't go anywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted March 24, 2007 Share Posted March 24, 2007 Mike Holman has become the making of urban myth in the Atari scene, next to him ranks close by is Terry Ortmann - a fiend who made his rounds on Bulletin Board Systems where he would post very rare items for sale, take people's money and never ship them anything, when he slimed his way onto the internet it was an all out assault public information campaign on the guy and he was driven away not to prey on unsuspecting buyers again. Curt I heard that Mr. Hohman wanted to get back into the Atari scene and implement an A8 in FPGA for the C-One. This was several years ago, apparently the idea didn't go anywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted March 24, 2007 Share Posted March 24, 2007 It would be nice to have a FAX on him and FTE and what products they made/were going to make. Maybe some of them could be reproduced if there aren't any equivilants of them. Does anybody know what products they were going to make other than a 65816 Atari? Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 (edited) Don't forget to mention the new SDX project: http://trub.atari8.info/index.php3?strona=...upgrade_en.html Edited March 25, 2007 by kheller2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gtkakega Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 Wow, very interesting story, first time hearing it. So how much did this guy pay for the rights? Mike Holman made a lot of promises, took a lot of money for orders for product he never delivered, took a bunch of prototype gear from a collector and never gave it all back. In the end, I think this was back maybe around 1997-1998 I flew out to CA. to look through 135 boxes of equipment that came out of Mike's storage unit, apparently he got in there before the storage unit was locked down for non-payment and its contents sold off to a surplus shop in Santa Cruz. Well I found a bunch of family photo's, check books and such, I gave them all to the collector who was pretty pissed and determined to find Holman. Since Mike owes so much money to so many and has been in hiding for like 10 years now, basically most of his rights to stuff have been a free for all because the community pretty much feels that he has defaulted on such ownerships since he's been a fugitive for so long. I know he tried to quietly sell some rights over to a few Atari dealers and individuals, but pretty much anyone who then tries to do anything with such properties has felt the wrath of the still scathing individuals ripped off by Holman and they undermine anyone's attempt to try and benefit from Holman's ill gotten goods, so basically anything he owned has become PD. I looked for disks, printouts, etc... basically it was 135 boxes of crap - empty 8bit cartridge cases, crates of empty MIO cases, boxes upon boxes of Guitar and boyscout magazines, a ton of TI 99 stuff, Apple ][ stuff, bunch of PET's, a Bell & Howell smoked plexiglass Apple ][ and some assorted cartridges and odds and ends, nothing significant and nothing from the OSS/ICD stuff he has bought. Oh and 3 palletes of OSS flat boxes and manuals that were outside getting slightly water damaged. Curt Anybody know whatever came of this company? As I understand it this outfit (a single person?) obtained the rights to Mac/65 and SpartaDos (and others?). I wonder if the source code for these products is still lying around somewhere. It would be really cool if the sources could be released as open source to allow continued developed. It would also be a great learning tool. tjb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 Don't forget to mention the new SDX project: http://trub.atari8.info/index.php3?strona=...upgrade_en.html Very nice upgrade. It made the purchase price of my 1MB flashcart worh it all over again. Stephen Anderson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 The big thing was going to be his Mars-8 board which had all of the OSS/ICD languages and DOS combined and you could bank select into the system any one of them to use, essentially having a task switching system. There was also the MIO II box, I forget what the spec's were other then having an 80 column output built into which was something that Tom Harker of ICD had always promised but never delivered which was an addon daughterboard with 80 column output for the MIO box. Curt It would be nice to have a FAX on him and FTE and what products they made/were going to make. Maybe some of them could be reproduced if there aren't any equivilants of them. Does anybody know what products they were going to make other than a 65816 Atari? Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 As I understand it this outfit (a single person?) obtained the rights to Mac/65 ... FTE never acquired the copyright on MAC/65, because ICD didn't acquire it from the original copyright holder in the first place. ICD only licensed limited rights. So in the worst case that's what FTE got. The copyright holder for MAC/65 is still the original author, Paul Laughton. Paul made this very clear some time ago in the newsgroup. He also noted that he understands that similar arrangements were made with the other OSS products (Basic XL/XE and Action). Furthermore, he has the sources for all of them, all the versions. So if we want the sources, we should contact Paul in the first place. I don't know if he is ready to release MAC/65 sources, but he might. He probably won't be able to release the other ones, even when he has them. For that we'll need to contact Bill Willkinson and whoever was the Action author for getting permission. Regarding the original ICD products, it would be great if somebody could contact Mike Gustafson. He might have sources and schematics. He was the main arquitect of most (if not all) ICD products. And if somebody deserves to be asked for permission, it is certainly him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 The sources for Action would be great to have in the public domain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted March 25, 2007 Share Posted March 25, 2007 I just read in Current Notes June/July 1994 that FTe also obtained the rights to Wes Newell's line of memory upgrades, OS enhancements and software programs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted March 26, 2007 Share Posted March 26, 2007 Wasnt' Paul Laughton part of the same team (with Bill Wilkinson and Kathleen O'Brien) that did Atari Basic/Dos and AAEMD (Atar Assembler editor monitor/debugger)...or am i thinking of someone else Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pab Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 I think I spoke with Mike Holman a total of five times right after FTe bought out the ICD rights. He had been impressed by some of the stuff I had written, especially my articles on SpartaDOS file structures, and wanted me on board for one of his big projects: SpartaDOS 5. To that end I agreed to let him include my MOVE and MAP utilities with SpartaDOS (which was no big deal anyhow, since I had put them in the public domain) and accepted my first two assignments: a disk defragmenter and a rewrite and expansion of DiskRX. In our last conversation, I was told to expect the source code for DiskRX and an NDA in the mail, and that was the end of that. I never received either. I still started writing the defragmenter, deciding I could always release it myself if it came down to it. I guess all this was happening just as everything came crashing down with FTe, and SpartaDOS 5 was stillborn. A few months later my XE blew up and rather than replace it I just moved on to the MSDOS laptop I had been given a few months before. Funny now, after being out of the Atari loop for years, to find out what happened. Sad, really. About a year ago I started dusting off the concepts I had come up with for SpartaDOS 5 before my own life came crashing down again. I went back to the emulator and some source code the other day. Who knows, maybe I'll finally get to write my own Public Domain DOS after all. Anyone interested in helping? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 (edited) Wasnt' Paul Laughton part of the same team (with Bill Wilkinson and Kathleen O'Brien) that did Atari Basic/Dos and AAEMD (Atar Assembler editor monitor/debugger)... Yes, of course. He was actually the main coder of most OSS and SMI products, including those made for Atari. But, I understand, he holds copyright only for MAC/65 and the previous OSS assembler. Edited April 26, 2007 by ijor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dinosaur Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 Hello! Is this Pab Sungenis (?),of PabQuick fame? Welcome,you old coder! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pab Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 Hello! Is this Pab Sungenis (?),of PabQuick fame? Welcome,you old coder! Yes, it's me. Glad I found this place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 Hello! Is this Pab Sungenis (?),of PabQuick fame? Welcome,you old coder! Yes, it's me. Glad I found this place. with your talent and history, so are we Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 (edited) Hello Pab I used Pab-QWK before most people even know the Internet existed. Nice to see that you are back. BTW there are people already working on a new version of SpartaDOS X. Maybe you can join them. Greetings Mathy (who is a MyDOS follower himself) Edited April 26, 2007 by Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 I just read in Current Notes June/July 1994 that FTe also obtained the rights to Wes Newell's line of memory upgrades, OS enhancements and software programs. Only the right to sell his products, according to Wes. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 As I understand it this outfit (a single person?) obtained the rights to Mac/65 ... FTE never acquired the copyright on MAC/65, because ICD didn't acquire it from the original copyright holder in the first place. ICD only licensed limited rights. So in the worst case that's what FTE got. The copyright holder for MAC/65 is still the original author, Paul Laughton. Paul made this very clear some time ago in the newsgroup. He also noted that he understands that similar arrangements were made with the other OSS products (Basic XL/XE and Action). Furthermore, he has the sources for all of them, all the versions. So if we want the sources, we should contact Paul in the first place. I don't know if he is ready to release MAC/65 sources, but he might. He probably won't be able to release the other ones, even when he has them. For that we'll need to contact Bill Willkinson and whoever was the Action author for getting permission. Regarding the original ICD products, it would be great if somebody could contact Mike Gustafson. He might have sources and schematics. He was the main arquitect of most (if not all) ICD products. And if somebody deserves to be asked for permission, it is certainly him. Hi Ijor- Do you remember anything about that thread that would help me locate it -- I'd like to read it. Now for some "name-dropping" (mainly from the title pages of the manuals): Mac 65 is listed as "Copyright 1983 by Optimized Systems Software and Stephan D. Lawrow." I wonder how Paul Laughton was involved? Action! was © by OSS and Action Computer Services (Clinton Parker, IIRC). We've tried unsuccessfully to find Mr. Parker several times. My understanding is that Mr. Parker licensed OSS and perhaps others to produce the Action! products. However, I know nothing of the details. Basic XL and Basic XE were © Optimized Systems Software. Since these were developed "in-house" by OSS it seems likely that ICD got those outright. I would certainly think that Bill Wilkinson could definitively tell "who got what." with regards to the OSS sale to ICD. My information is that the copyrights for the Archiver products are now owned by B&C ComputerVisions. I'm 95% sure that B&C also tried unsuccessfully to acquire the other ICD products when ICD sold them, but were not successful. Too bad that didn't work out. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 Mac 65 is listed as "Copyright 1983 by Optimized Systems Software and Stephan D. Lawrow." I wonder how Paul Laughton was involved? You are right, I mixed up the names. It was Stephan Lawrow who made the post in the newsgroup. Basic XL and Basic XE were © Optimized Systems Software. Since these were developed "in-house" by OSS it seems likely that ICD got those outright. Not sure. He said, again, that ICD wasn't interested in acquiring full rights for any of the ICD prodcuts. He said he can't be 100% sure about the final contract because each product was negotiated separately with the respective owner. Do you remember anything about that thread that would help me locate it -- I'd like to read it. Unfortunately not much more. It was in the atari 8-bit newsgroup. My information is that the copyrights for the Archiver products are now owned by B&C ComputerVisions. Are you sure about that? Are you talking about both the software and hardware? I know that they have some kind of agreement with CSS, but never heard they actually purchased the rights for the products. Just out of curiosity, I was always interested what exactly happened with the original Archiver/CHIP (Spartan) copyrights in the first place. Do you have any info? I never could find any details. I just assume that because Spartan closed own it was de-facto considered in the public domain/abandonware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 If any of you ever get a chance to talk to any of these guys from OSS, can you ask them if they know/remember anything about the 7800 stuff they wrote? I think they were suppose to have written BASIC and the word processor for the 7800 keyboard (which hopefully we will see soon thanks to Curt V.) Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 Mike Holman has become the making of urban myth in the Atari scene, next to him ranks close by is Terry Ortmann - a fiend who made his rounds on Bulletin Board Systems where he would post very rare items for sale, take people's money and never ship them anything, when he slimed his way onto the internet it was an all out assault public information campaign on the guy and he was driven away not to prey on unsuspecting buyers again. Terry Ortmann. There is a blast from the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 Are you sure about that? Are you talking about both the software and hardware? I know that they have some kind of agreement with CSS, but never heard they actually purchased the rights for the products. Just out of curiosity, I was always interested what exactly happened with the original Archiver/CHIP (Spartan) copyrights in the first place. Do you have any info? I never could find any details. I just assume that because Spartan closed own it was de-facto considered in the public domain/abandonware. I don't know the details of the arrangements, but yes, I'm 99.9% sure (0.1% "wiggle room"). The board design and any firmware might be ©, but I would believe it is the software that matters most, as goes ©. No, I don't have any info other than that. Sorry. "Abandonware" is a slippery proposition, at least here in the US. It may be "abandoned" until someone comes back with a lawyer... -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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