🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep28.111751.13586@NeoSoft.com> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>I think what he's getting at is that you can't buy those ROMS unless you get a
>Mac wrapped around them. If you're getting an upgrade or a replacement, you
>have to send the old ones back.

One thing I'm puzzled no one has tried doing is buying copies of
MacWorks Plus from Sun Remarketing, which (somehow or other) got
rights to it from Apple. They sell a lot of old Mac equipment,
including the Lisa (Mac XL), which is what you use MacWorks on.
It is a complete ROM image, fully compatible with the version of
the ROM in a Mac Plus (which is still reasonably compatible with
most software). Back when I owned a Lisa, I looked at the load file
format, and I think it would be pretty easy to write a bootstrap
loader that would work with a (legally, reasonably cheaply bought)
copy of MacWorks. Note that it also comes with a copy of the Mac
system software. It would probably work on any 680x0 machine, with
only minimal patching, although something with memory mapping would
probably be necessary (020 with MMU or 030 and up). The Lisa had a
homegrown MMU, and that might be the only significant patching required.

Now, this wouldn't be freed software, but it could vastly undercut
Apple's monopoly on their ROMs. I'd also think that someone could
come up with most of what is in the ROMs, and make it compatible
with most programs (possibly with the exception of Microsoft and
Apple programs, notorious for using undocumented features). Before
System 7, many/most programs came with versions of the system on
the distribution disk, and that's where a lot of the "Apple look and
feel" is (in the system software, and in the applications that are
designed to run on a Macintosh). They surely can't claim they are
violating their own supposed copyrights.
-- 
Steve Peltz
Internet: peltz@cerl.uiuc.edu	PLATO/NovaNET: peltz/s/cerl