Practically all PCW users will know Locoscript because one version or another was supplied with each PCW, but there has been a vast amount of commercial software written to run under CP/M Plus. Indeed new software is still being written. Software has been available in the past to cover practically any subject you can name, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable software today. Some suggestions for locating software are:
Details of "PCW Today" can be found
by going to their website. (use the link on my Weblinks page)
"The Discdrive" is published by the British Amstrad PCW Club. For more info
about the club go to John King's website. Use the link on my weblinks page.
When buying commercial software for good money (anything over a fiver) you should make sure that user instructions are supplied. However, there is a lot of software discs about that have become separated from their manuals and this will pose a problem. To try to solve it try the methods discussed in the section on Public Domain Software below.
Copying and distributing commercial software
Copying commercial software discs and giving or selling them is piracy and illegal. When a software house has spent a considerable amount of money in developing a title it is totally unfair to deny them the chance to profit from it. Piracy only leads to programmers shutting up shop and abandoning the PCW. In general, the terms under which software is sold only grants a licence to use the software; the software and copyright remains with the publisher. Some publishers only grant a licence to the initial purchaser and therefore imply that registered software ie second user software must not be resold.
However, in my opinion a different state of affairs applies to software for
"Classic computers" where the mass of commercial software has been abandoned
by its publishers and cannot be bought new. I also think that software publishers
have a moral duty towards obsolete machine users. Some publishers and authors
have put their redundant software into the public domain which is the decent
thing to do, but most have not. By abandoning their software I believe that
they have forfeited their rights over that software, morally if not in law.
Some software publishers, once they have released a new version of a product,
refuse to support older versions even when the older version suits the user
better.
I don't sell software now but when I did I operated a policy which is as far as possible on the side of law and order bearing in mind my remarks above. I sold mostly second-hand obsolete or obsolescent original software but always made sure that it worked and that it has a user manual or instructions. I only sold copies in what I considered an emergency, for example where a user had failed to back up the master disc and which had become corrupted, so now had a manual but no software. Incidentally I think that a good manual, particularly for complex software, is the best safeguard against piracy. Copying a disc, even if protected, is easy with the right methods, but reproducing a decent manual is uneconomic.
Many present PCW users are starting to learn computing on machines given to them or purchased at boot sales. Such machines often don't have even start-up discs and in most cases these aren't available new now. In this circumstance, a copy may be their only salvation. If you are in this situation SD Microsystems can provide original Locoscript discs. They can also sell a wide variety of software legally because they hold the copyrights. Contact SD Microsystems through their website, accessible through my Website Links page.
I would never copy and distribute commercial software which currently has a proprietor; if someone asks me for such a program I refer them to the correct source.
Leafing through old copies of PCW magazines dating back to 1985 it is amazing how much software has come and has now gone. It would be a labour of love if someone, perhaps a magazine as a central focus, could compile a list of software and it's present state of ownership. Innumerable software firms have sunk without trace, but maybe an advertising campaign would locate at least some of them who might be prepared to allow a third party to remarket their products. Other products for whom no owner comes forward after a reasonable time could be declared fair game.
Ron King
Andover, England
Email.......ron@king27.freeserve.co.uk