ti99resources.wordpress.com

[hloberg]

I'm not going to put my new computer blog in TI99RESOURCES. Instead I'm going to put it in my Atariage projects blog which will be called Projects & Post and then link to ti99resources. Some ideas I have for articles:

Dartmouth BASIC

UCSD Pascal

6502

computer memory

hard storage

microcode

There are tons of articles on IBM, TI99, C64, Atari etc.. I'm like to try and write on some of the lesser know aspects on computerdom and see if anybody reads them or cares.

 

 

 

[hloberg]

Updated the Mille Borne XB game in MyGames to version 3.40. I added sound, voice, sped up the game in several places and fixed some long standing minor bugs. Enjoy.

Oh, and it only took me 2 years to get around to it.

here is the link to MyGames area: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RcSrpqSycflj7B57onsvfiYuLI_lLMEY

Link to the website: https://ti99resources.wordpress.com/

 

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by hloberg

[hloberg]

slowly working on posting about 30 pieces of software with manuals for this weekend. A big MBX drop and Databotics. Also LOGO, which I found I some how forgot to add previously. 

 

[hloberg]

NEWLY UPLOADED!!! Both software & documents.

 

to 3rd party game carts:

ambulance

boxer

micro tennis

hen house

qbert

star runner

 

to 3rd party disk games

old dark caves 2

 

to TI game carts

fathom

hustle

music maker

return to pirates island

sneggit

treasure isle

 

to TI game disk software

market simulation

mystery melody

 

to atarisoft

donkey kong

shamus

 

I'm still working on LOGO stuff, that will come later in the week. Looks like I had already uploaded previously all the MBX stuff I had set aside.

 

One thing I found is I have very little in the way of TI game disk. I need to look more into that.

 

The LIST for the search will be updated in a few days after I take care of the LOGO. I like to download a copy of the google drive every now and then and I'll make a new search list after that (takes a while now to download 9gb of data) .

 

Enjoy, HLO

 

Edited March 3, 2021 by hloberg

[hloberg]

Now I know why I haven't already done LOGO. the manuals on FTP.WHTECH are from the CYC which is copyrighted. So until I find a non-CYC version LOGO upload is on hold. 

[+Schmitzi]

Do they have the copyright on the Logo manual ?

[hloberg]

2 hours ago, Schmitzi said:

Do they have the copyright on the Logo manual ?

from what I remember when I had a copy of the CYC (I gave it to a friend few years back) everything on the CYC he arranged copyrights to IF it came from the CYC. We can reproduce the LOGO manual & post it but we cant use the CYC copy to post. but, maybe CYC allowed it on this one manual? don't know? Still, to be safe im not putting it on ti99resources. 

which means, anyone want to scan their LOGO manual?

[blackbox]

Just to clarify a confusion-  the PDF documents in the Cyc are NOT simple scans of the original manual.  Yes Mike did get consent to scan and republish at the time --  when TI knew what a TI99/4A was!.

But he did a great deal more, and copyright in his documents lies with him (which he retains) due to the work he has done in formatting the documents into a standard style and format and correcting discovered errors etc.  This adds two layers of copyright- a publishers layout copyright and an editors modified content copyright. The original text (that is the original unmodified words) is copyright by TI who won't discuss the issue these days- they claim to no longer have any required records. TI will not release copyright as they don't actually know if they have it!

 

 

The Cyc PDFs represent  "modified works" and the modifier achieves a separate (linked) copyright as reward for his work.   There is a little wriggle room if the modification work is small- for example increasing contrast a little - but Mike Wright has spent many hours on the Cyc content .  Recommended.   Perhaps WHT could take down Cyc content that has been posted there???  It's an ethical issue really.

 

 

 

take care everyone,  Stephen

 

[+mizapf]

I removed both PDFs. I believe there is no other way but to re-scan the documents, so this won't infringe CaDDs copyright on the scanned documents. As for the TI copyright this is somewhat unfortunate, but I don't believe that TI would try to enforce their original copyright from 197x or 8x.

 

Two years ago I had a short conversation with Mike concerning the TI-99/4A User's Guide that also appeared on WHTech since 2006. It was also taken from the Cyc, and he asked to take it down.

 

Once I started a rewrite of the Editor/Assembler manual from an own scan (similar to the HFDC rewrite that I did some time ago). I learned that there was already a typeset version by CaDD, but this would be available via the Cyc only, too. Hence, it makes sense to recreate the manual. I appreciate all of Mike's work with CaDD, but the last thing we need is a monopolized source of manuals. My 2 ct.

[+9640News]

1 hour ago, blackbox said:

Just to clarify a confusion-  the PDF documents in the Cyc are NOT simple scans of the original manual.  Yes Mike did get consent to scan and republish at the time --  when TI knew what a TI99/4A was!.

But he did a great deal more, and copyright in his documents lies with him (which he retains) due to the work he has done in formatting the documents into a standard style and format and correcting discovered errors etc.  This adds two layers of copyright- a publishers layout copyright and an editors modified content copyright. The original text (that is the original unmodified words) is copyright by TI who won't discuss the issue these days- they claim to no longer have any required records. TI will not release copyright as they don't actually know if they have it!

 

 

The Cyc PDFs represent  "modified works" and the modifier achieves a separate (linked) copyright as reward for his work.   There is a little wriggle room if the modification work is small- for example increasing contrast a little - but Mike Wright has spent many hours on the Cyc content .  Recommended.   Perhaps WHT could take down Cyc content that has been posted there???  It's an ethical issue really.

 

take care everyone,  Stephen

 

And, it should be noted, the content in PC99/CYC is still a compilation that is still being sold to this day.  I've used my legitimate purchase of the CYC several times pulling up manuals that Mike has typed in to find answers to some things I could not recall.

 

Beery

[sparkdrummer]

The CYC is awesome! I use it everyday when composing Yesterday’s News to search and check stuff. Don’t know what I’d do without it. 

[hloberg]

Someone has volunteered to scan the LOGO manual and associated manuals but it's a really, really big manual and will take a really long time. So if you already have a non-CYC LOGO manual scanned please speak up and post soon before he gets too far into it. 

[hloberg]

3 hours ago, blackbox said:

..... The original text (that is the original unmodified words) is copyright by TI who won't discuss the issue these days- they claim to no longer have any required records. TI will not release copyright as they don't actually know if they have it!

 

Copyrights fall into the public domain if they are not actively being produced or enforced over time. It's a gray area of how long till this happens and what 'enforced' means but more than likely all of the TI99 documents have fallen into the area.

That's why Nintendo is a royal pain with some of their software. They want to keep the copyright enforced so it won't fall into the public domain. And since CaDD has made efforts to enforce and is still actively printing the CYC he would have copyright over his material.

Edited March 4, 2021 by hloberg

[+mizapf]

Depends on the country. In Germany, any works lose their copyright* 70 years after the death of the author, and there is no fair use clause.

 

Many thanks to the publishers for their persistent lobbying. ?

 

For that reason, I did not put my name in the HFDC manual rewrite.

 

*There is another term for it, "Urheberrecht", which is not exactly the same, since the author cannot give away his rights but can allow certain ways of distribution.

[hloberg]

14 minutes ago, mizapf said:

Depends on the country. In Germany, any works lose their copyright* 70 years after the death of the author, and there is no fair use clause.

 

Many thanks to the publishers for their persistent lobbying. ?

 

For that reason, I did not put my name in the HFDC manual rewrite.

 

*There is another term for it, "Urheberrecht", which is not exactly the same, since the author cannot give away his rights but can allow certain ways of distribution.

same here but I think it's 99 years? It's called the Mickey Mouse law. Disney almost lost their copyright over Mickey Mouse because it was running out so the laws were changed. Still, if you don't pursue a copyright in the US within those 99 years it can fall into the public domain. Like I said though, it's a gray area.

An example of this is Star Trek and Paramount/CBS. People had made Star Trek fan films for years and Paramount/CBS just looked the other way. then one day a guy who was making a fan film called 'Axanar' crossed a line and tried to make money off his fan film. Paramount/CBS sued him then put in place guide lines on how a fan film could be made. If they hadn't enforced there copyright then anyone could have made fan films and made money off them and Paramount/CBS would effectively lost power to sue. what it is if you don't enforce it you are effectively saying, 'I don't care'. And the courts usually won't let you to suddenly 'care' years later.

Edited March 4, 2021 by hloberg

[hloberg]

Added Connect 4 to TI cartridge games.

Added Munchman development notes under TI games cartridges docs.

Added Munchman II under 3rd party cartridges & under 3rd party disk the development notes and the disk version.

[hloberg]

I've noticed I am getting hits from Russia and China on TI99resources. I guess I have finally got big enough that the spam bots are noticing me.

[Tursi]

3 hours ago, hloberg said:

Copyrights fall into the public domain if they are not actively being produced or enforced over time. It's a gray area of how long till this happens and what 'enforced' means but more than likely all of the TI99 documents have fallen into the area.

Not in the US either. Trademarks fall into the public domain if they are not being actively used, but not Copyrights.

 

Edit: To clarify, you have to remember the difference. A Copyright is applied to a work. It applies only to that specific creation. A trademark applies to a symbol (which may be words, graphics, places, etc), and that symbol is protected only in the field to which it is actually used.

 

Copyrights are based on duration and can not be automatically lost. If I write a book and put it on a shelf, my copyright on that book is valid in the US until 120 years after I die, whether I push it or not. Corporate works, like the manuals, have 120 years after creation. 

 

Trademarks are based on use, and once they are no longer being used to uniquely identify your company, they are no longer valid.

 

Thus: the "Mickey Mouse" Copyright extensions came about because "Steamboat Willy" was about to fall into public domain after (iirc) 70 years of existing, and Disney didn't want that. They successfully lobbied several extensions. That applied only to Steamboat Willy (and other works of the same vintage), not to Mickey Mouse himself. Mickey is both copyrighted and trademarked, but it's the creations that are copyrighted. It's actually not terribly grey, it's quite well defined. It's less reliably enforced and that leads to a lot of confusion.

 

The fan Star Trek films infringed on trademark (although the use of stock elements such as phasers, the Enterprise, etc, would also touch on copyright, but it's the trademark that Paramount had to act on). A lot of fan stuff slides under the radar because companies don't like suing their fans (usually), so as long as they can tell the judge "well, we didn't know", they can pretend to look away. As soon as something gets big enough that it's unreasonable to expect they couldn't know, they have to step in or risk losing their rights to the mark. Losing the rights to control the Star Trek name would not mean that for instance the Star Trek movies fall into public domain, however, it affects their ability to control the franchise.

 

In the US especially, there are some pretty toothy laws that are easier to enforce for Copyright than Trademark, especially the very well known DMCA, and so that's usually the angle people will push first, especially since the usual violation is a copyright violation anyway.

 

IANAL, probably all incorrect anyway.

 

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by Tursi

[hloberg]

1 hour ago, Tursi said:

Not in the US either. Trademarks fall into the public domain if they are not being actively used, but not Copyrights.

 

Edit: To clarify, you have to remember the difference. A Copyright is applied to a work. It applies only to that specific creation. A trademark applies to a symbol (which may be words, graphics, places, etc), and that symbol is protected only in the field to which it is actually used.

 

Copyrights are based on duration and can not be automatically lost. If I write a book and put it on a shelf, my copyright on that book is valid in the US until 120 years after I die, whether I push it or not. Corporate works, like the manuals, have 120 years after creation. 

 

Trademarks are based on use, and once they are no longer being used to uniquely identify your company, they are no longer valid.

 

Thus: the "Mickey Mouse" Copyright extensions came about because "Steamboat Willy" was about to fall into public domain after (iirc) 70 years of existing, and Disney didn't want that. They successfully lobbied several extensions. That applied only to Steamboat Willy (and other works of the same vintage), not to Mickey Mouse himself. Mickey is both copyrighted and trademarked, but it's the creations that are copyrighted. It's actually not terribly grey, it's quite well defined. It's less reliably enforced and that leads to a lot of confusion.

 

The fan Star Trek films infringed on trademark (although the use of stock elements such as phasers, the Enterprise, etc, would also touch on copyright, but it's the trademark that Paramount had to act on). A lot of fan stuff slides under the radar because companies don't like suing their fans (usually), so as long as they can tell the judge "well, we didn't know", they can pretend to look away. As soon as something gets big enough that it's unreasonable to expect they couldn't know, they have to step in or risk losing their rights to the mark. Losing the rights to control the Star Trek name would not mean that for instance the Star Trek movies fall into public domain, however, it affects their ability to control the franchise.

 

In the US especially, there are some pretty toothy laws that are easier to enforce for Copyright than Trademark, especially the very well known DMCA, and so that's usually the angle people will push first, especially since the usual violation is a copyright violation anyway.

 

IANAL, probably all incorrect anyway.

 

 

thanks for clarifying. I did get them mixed up.

[+Ksarul]

The LOGO Manual is up on the Hexbus site as a scan that Ernie did a number of years back. He scanned the commercial version of the book, but the contents are identical to the TI manuall, IIRC. Only the covers and a few lead-in pages are different.

[hloberg]

2 hours ago, Ksarul said:

The LOGO Manual is up on the Hexbus site as a scan that Ernie did a number of years back. He scanned the commercial version of the book, but the contents are identical to the TI manuall, IIRC. Only the covers and a few lead-in pages are different.

I always forget to check his site. He has such a good collection of books & manuals.

[hloberg]

Well, just checked the TI list of TI games on disk, not that many at all. Already have Munchman-on-disk, Adventure disk, TOD, need to post TI-Invaders-on-disk, TI-Trek & golden oldies. Tombstone City-on-disk is with the E/A.

Others I haven't seen such as Bingo, Draw Poker & Speak-n-Spell(?).

[hloberg]

Next big thing, I guess, will post the educational software which there is a lot. Except, does anyone actually care about that stuff any more?

[Nick99]

51 minutes ago, hloberg said:

Next big thing, I guess, will post the educational software which there is a lot. Except, does anyone actually care about that stuff any more?

Yes.

[hloberg]

8 hours ago, Nick99 said:

Yes.

then I'll guess I'll post some. Coming soon.

On the slate for now is TI-Trek, Oldies but Goodies and I'm putting together that LOGO package with the McGraw-Hill book. Be a week or so.