For those who aren't familiar with this particular chapter in Apple II history:<p>- "Copy-2-Plus" was the ubiquitous disk copier/disk utility software for Apple II computers in the mid to late 80s. The makers of Copy-2-Plus, Central Point Software, had a distribution deal with VTech, makers of a popular legal Apple II clone, the "Laser 128".<p>- The Laser 128 was a legal clone because because VTech provided a clean-room implementation of the Apple II firmware that was, for the most part, not super buggy. They also legally licensed Microsoft BASIC. The Laser became very popular in the late 80s as VTech was able to undercut Apple's pricing while extending the hardware in ways that Apple was unwilling to do.<p>- At some point in the late 80s, the source code to Copy-2-Plus went missing. In order to keep the lights on, Central Point Software had to re-implement their premier product from scratch.<p>- In the early 90s, a dead hard drive shows up in dumpster of a hardware recycler. This hard drive apparently contained a copy of the Copy-2-Plus source code that went missing in the late 80s, as well as the code for VTech's Laser 128 firmware and Microsoft BASIC.<p>- By fluke, a worker at this recycler happens to notice something about this dead hard drive, fixes it, and discovers all of this missing and/or notable Apple II source code.
For anyone else like me that was unaware, "gaylord" is a genericized term for a bulk box. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_box" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulk_box</a>
Can someone who did professional development on the Apple II at the time comment on what it was like? I was doing x86 DOS/Win/Unix development in the mid 90s for a Fortune 500 company, and even there we used some janky home-grown version control system that, if I recall correctly, required us to ftp our changes to some server somewhere. I know Apple had Projector[0] for Mac development with MPW (Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop[1]). Was there any sort of source control for the Apple II?<p>I have to admit it’s somewhat ironic that a company that made disk copying software didn’t have a backup copy of their source code.<p>[0] <a href="http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.14/14.06/VersionControlAndTheDeveloper/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.14/14.06/Ve...</a>
[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Programmer's_Workshop" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Programmer's_Worksho...</a>
Whenever these tales arise, I can't help but read them. I know that they're not particularly relevant to anything I do or even have done. Even so, it's like watching an archeological dig.
Loading quite slow for me, so just in case: <a href="https://archive.ph/AuO4O" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/AuO4O</a>
As someone who wasn't introduced to computers until the early 2000s, there's so much jargon in the story that I don't understand that it's a bit difficult for me to follow it.<p>¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯