🚀 go-pugleaf

To: coco@pucc.princeton.edu
Reply-To: m.j.knudsen@att.com

>Frank Swygert (FARNA Systems, publishers of 68' micros) obtained permission
>to reproduce Tandy's COPYRIGHTEN technical reference manual schematics in
>his "Tandy's Little Wonder" book just by asking.  It can be done.

Say, is that book still for sale?  I bought one at last year's ChicagoFest,
then walked away without picking my copy up off the table.  It was
right near the door... Maybe this Spring!

I don't know how things are now, but for a while the biggest
problem we all had with Tandy as the Coco was dying was that there
really wasn't any one person in charge of Coco stuff, so nobody
would go out on a limb and say "yes, you can copy that" or "we'll
sell you the rights to our OS9-L2 enhancements for $1000" or
anything else.  In fact, the Coco III probably stayed in
production longer cuz nobody had the authority/balls to kill it,
and there was one guy who loved the Coco and kept it alive
whenever the topic came up.

I know that some music publishers will let you make, say, 20
copies of one of their out-of-print pieces for your choral group
if you send them ten bucks or so.

In some cases Tandy may not even want to bother their legal and
bean-counting staff to get an answer to your request to copy a ROM
or whatever.  In that case I say go ahead and do it, but don't get
other folks or FTP sites mixed up in it.

Actually, Microsoft owns the rights to the BASIC ROMs, and Tandy
had to pay them a hefty royalty (up to $40) per Coco sold.  I hear
Tandy seriously considered bringing out the Coco 3.5 with nothing
but a boot ROM in it to cut out that cost.