Apple II DOS Source Code Released 211
gbooch writes "The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, is not just a museum of hardware, but also of software. The Museum has made public such gems as the source code for MacPaint, Photoshop, and APL, and now code from the Apple II. As their site reports: 'With thanks to Paul Laughton, in collaboration with Dr. Bruce Damer, founder and curator of the Digibarn Computer Museum, and with the permission of Apple Inc., we are pleased to make available the 1978 source code of Apple II DOS for non-commercial use. This material is Copyright © 1978 Apple Inc., and may not be reproduced without permission from Apple.'"
Re:They printed off assembler (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever your complaints about your job, at least debugging your code doesn't involve stepping through assembly on a pencil and paper virtual machine.
That was how I wrote my first published game back in the 80's. I have no complaints. Everything was new back then and even though the "wheel hadn't yet been invented", programming was still exciting and it was some of the most fun coding I have ever done.
Re:They printed off assembler (Score:5, Insightful)
I like to imagine every new programmer has that amazing sense of euphoria as they begin to uncover all the major algorithms for themselves, and begin developing a sense of just how much is possible with programming.
Then it's your job. To give the end-user some uninteresting but necessary layer of data connectivity.
Re:What took so long? (Score:5, Insightful)
", I just wish there was a popular 8-bit machine out there for the young'ns to get them started.
That's like saying people need to learn to drive on a model T.
My kids had no problem getting started on modern hardware.
Listing were used like tablets today ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever your complaints about your job, at least debugging your code doesn't involve stepping through assembly on a pencil and paper virtual machine.
Back then it was actually easier to read through large amounts of code, flipping between different sections, etc when it was on paper.
...
The listing wasn't used for paper and pencil emulation, we had quite nice integrated editors and debuggers to see what was going on (ex. the LISA 6502 assembler). The listings were for reading and understanding. These lists were used somewhat like tablets today. You can take the listing anywhere, flop down on the couch and start reading,
Re:Game disk images in licensed emulator bundles (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright should end after 10yrs max. Whatever paltry profits apple may stand to gain from hording things like this to themselves pale in comparison to the lost history if such things are destroyed before they're ever released to the public.
Re:Legacy Support (Score:5, Insightful)
Some sort of virtual machine is the correct way to do legacy support. In some cases full virtualization is the answer, in others, a thinner layer that looks like the old OS to the application and like a modern app to the outer OS might be more appropriate.
The MS approach of keeping the severely broken APIs around forever is NOT the answer.
Re:Then versus now (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Atari DOS source code was published (Score:3, Insightful)
IIRC, the change occurred in the mid to late 90's, as software and hardware got complex enough that a lot of it started being subcontracted, and storage got large enough that you could store the entire set of plans digitally, making both the plans and the documentation much more mobile. However, the shift really began in the mid 80's, when the increasingly complex manuals started being "available" instead of provided by default.
Some examples include the Apple IIGS being the first Apple-based PC (as opposed to Mac or Lisa) that didn't come with schematics; a few years earlier, the Mac came out with the full manual, but no schematics and a sealed case. By the time the IIGS stopped being sold, all Apple products came with a "getting started" manual, but the detailed information was only available via digital format, or by an "Inside Macintosh" subscription. Then, with the advent of the iMac, Apple stripped it back even further -- by this point, they'd separated information out between what a developer would need and what a "user" would need.
Back in the early days of personal/hobby computers, there was no "user" -- the person behind the keyboard cooperated with those who had made the base hardware and software to create solutions to problems.
So, I guess you could argue that the real fall of the old school access to information started as "applications" replaced "programs" on computers, and ended when most computer brands came in a model where the warranty was void if the case was opened. I'd say the transition range was roughly 1983-1996.
Re:Game disk images in licensed emulator bundles (Score:4, Insightful)
With productivity and efficiency supposedly increasing, the rate of innovation supposedly increasing, the costs of distribution going down, and reach of distribution increasing, when copyright and patent terms are changed shouldn't it be for the shorter instead of longer?
Copyright terms that last more than a century prove something is wrong.
Re:They printed off assembler (Score:3, Insightful)
As I've said numerous times: kids shouldn't be learning mathematics without the most powerful way to directly apply it: Programming. Seriously, #1 complaint teaching a kid math more advanced than long division: "I'll never use this in the real world" -- Change that. Make the way algebra is taught to be via computer programs and kids could actually DO STUFF by applying their knowledge immediately. That's how I'm able to turn any kid fluniking out in math into the head of the class.
I learned BASIC on an Apple IIe by accident: I put in floppy upside down, it booted to a prompt so I started entering commands -- Imagine an 8 year old entering "list" and seeing page after page of source code race up the screen, then discovering how to change the lines of code and edit the software. That's what happens without ANY teachers involved, think if we taught kids number lines and linear equations, etc. all with the most amazing graphing calculators on the planet?
Folks would grow up knowing how to manage basic "data connectivity" themselves, and the ones who really were into programming would have far more interesting jobs.