ThomH wrote: ↑Fri Mar 23, 2018 7:10 pm
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Actually, thinking on that, I guess I'd need to change two lines so that it wasn't looking in UNIXy places for the Oric system ROMs, and if I'm doing that I might as well support bundling of a default configuration file so that you can launch it directly from the executable rather than from a shell script or batch file. It'd be a ten-minute job.
I agree that this would be ideal from a non-technical user standpoint.
But still, note that some of the PC games I got from GOG are actually not packaged in a single executable, the individual files, including the DosBox executables and config files are accessible individually. Now, this might be the result of Mac applications being actual folders disguised as executables but maybe they do the same on Windows? I have not verified that.
ThomH wrote: ↑Fri Mar 23, 2018 7:10 pmFollow-up question though: wouldn't bundling the Oric ROMs into your Steam/GOG product be problematic? Especially as Microsoft probably technically retains some sort of ownership, and are still very much active.
Isn't the copyright on the Oric boot screen referencing only Tangerine and not Microsoft?
But indeed, if MS still retains copyright to part of the ROMS, including them in any software package without their approval would be copyright infringement. This said, MS are probably not considering their BASIC or 8 bit code as very valuable market wise so I would not be surprised if they were willing to grant generous licensing terms.
It would definitely be worth trying.
If someone can confirm that there is still MS copyrighted code in the ROMs and wants to try, I would suggest trying to get ahold of the ex-XBOX manager which "ported" Halo to the Atari 26000, he very likely still retains good contacts at Microsoft and would certainly be the right kind of person to ease them into giving it a good thought.
Note that whichever company holds the rights to Tangerine assets would also likely hold the copyrights to the parts of the ROMs which are not held by Microsoft. They would have to be found (likely arduous), contacted (easier), and convinced (I think this could work worth trying).