A YouTube channel has resurrected a programming language that hadn’t been seen since the 1980s — in a testament to both the enduring power of our technology, and of the communities that care about it.
[…]But best of all, Simpson uploaded the language to the Internet Archive, along with all his support materials, inviting his viewers to write their own programs (and saying he hoped his upstairs neighbor would’ve approved). And in our email interview, Simpson said since then it’s already been downloaded over 1,000 times — “which is pretty amazing for something so old.”
↫ David Cassel
It’s great that this lost programming language, MicroText for the Commodore 64, was rediscovered, but I’m a bit confused as to how “lost” this language really was. I mean, it was “discovered” in a properly listed eBay listing, which feels like cheating to me. When I think of stories of discoveries of long-lost software, games, or media, it usually involves things like finding it in a shed after years of searching, or someone at a company going through that box of old hard drives discovering the game they worked on 32 years ago. I don’t know, something about this whole story feels off to me, and it’s ringing some alarm bells I can’t quite place.
Regardless, it’s cool to have MicroText readily available on the web now, so that people can rediscover it and create awesome new things with it. Perhaps there’s old ideas to be relearned here.
The world of “lost media” considers things lost if, for example, they’re the Mario traffic safety and fire safety films that are preserved in the Japanese library system but they refuse to lend it out to anyone but schools.
Basically, it’s about whether a random Joe with money can get a copy through any avenue less drastic than paying criminals to break into a library or preservation society. eBay listings count because there’s no “Pay me and I’ll get someone who has it to list it tomorrow” channel.
Sigh. I wish I still had my old C64. I should check with my bestie’s widow to see if he still had somewhere amongst his things.
To think that as old and obsolete as the 1980s software is today, it technically remains under copyright. Children born today may go on to live a full life and still not live to see these works enter the public domain. Congress sold out public interests with such insanely long copyright terms.. At least that software still runs, much of today’s commercial software won’t be usable though, either because of DRM-restrictions or online dependencies that cannot be archived. The future might depend on employees leaking the software unencumbered, including server side dependencies.
Alfman,
I agree. We use “gray area” of abandonware, but technically if there are rights owners they can demand for damages.
And I think Disney’s greatest sin was getting their “Mickey Mouse Copyright Act” passed through the congress. And even when most their success was based on public domain works like Snow White or Rapunzel.
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/#:~:text=It%20was%20initially%20set%20to,Mickey%20Mouse%20Protection%20Act%E2%80%9D).
*nod* It really added a sour note to my ability to enjoy one of my childhood oldies radio favourites (I Got You Babe) when I learned what Sonny Bono had gone on to do.
…at least there’s the version with Cher and Beavis and Butthead where they don’t have a high opinion of him.