Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!amdahl!apple!voder!pyramid!prls!philabs!ttidca!woodside
From: woodside@ttidca.TTI.COM (George Woodside)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Jos Vermaseren - Posting GEMDOS ... (illegality)
Message-ID: <2873@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: 8 Jul 88 13:21:32 GMT
References: <4730@killer.UUCP> <376@mfgfoc.UUCP> <11767@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: woodside@ttidcb.tti.com (George Woodside)
Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica
Lines: 46

In article <11767@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> tom@Mills.UUCP (tom erbe) writes:
>Greg Onufer writes:
>
>"Write a program to output the assembly (with labels, comments, etc)
>"but using the contents of the ROM to produce the actual assembler
>"code.  Everybody who bought an ST has the ROMs (maybe a few people
>"still loading from disk?).... their ROMs plus labels and comments
>"doesn't constitute a crime, does it?
>
>But when one uses this program, one is copying the ROMs.  Does the software
>license from Atari (is there one?) governing the system software allow
>making copies for one's personal use?  If it does, then this program should
>be legal.  If not, well, forget it.
>


I'm not a lawer, and I don't even play one on tv :^).

However, there was a program which performed exactly this process on the
CP/M operating system a few years ago. You pruchased the program, and ran
it on your operating version of CP/M. It wrote an assembly source file
which, when re-assembled, would re-create the configuration you were
running at the time. Of course, it didn't include dis-assembly of the
custom part of the BIOS (for you old hackers who remember writing CP/M BIOS
drivers. De-blocking sure was fun, wasn't it?).

The package, as purchased, included a dis-assembly comment file, and a
driving program which read the code present in the machine. It added
the text from the comment file to the code generated from dis-assembling
the operating system to provide the assembly source file.

This program, while not sold by Digital Research, was on the market for
a couple of years. I don't know if Digital Research ever went after the
authors of the program, but it seemed to eventually fade away from lack
of sales, after the first initial onslaught.

In any event, such a task for the ST ROM's would be a major investment in time
and effort. And, by the time it was completed, the new ROMs would be available,
right :^) ? 




-- 
*George R. Woodside - Citicorp/TTI - Santa Monica, CA 
*Path:       ..!{philabs|csun|psivax}!ttidca!woodside