Die polnische Softwarefirma Mirage hat in den 90ern viele Spiele herausgegeben. Viele davon gibt es jetzt frei downloadbar auf der Homepage.

Eine wahre Fundgrube

http://www.mirageinteractive.com/retroattack.html

Oder kuckst Du hier :
http://idiology.com/8b/bacardi/Mirage/mirage.html

Bunsen hat geschrieben:Die polnische Softwarefirma Mirage hat in den 90ern viele Spiele herausgegeben. Viele davon gibt es jetzt frei downloadbar auf der Homepage.

Eine wahre Fundgrube

http://www.mirageinteractive.com/retroattack.html

Please note that ANG software still has the rights for Europe exept for Poland. It is no problem if you download the software, but the originals can still be bought at webshop.atarimuseum.nl

Hm,

das wäre wirklich schade, wenn man diese tollen Games nicht für die Bibliothek bekommen könnte. Daher habe ich diese Mail an Mirage Software geschickt, um den Sachverhalt zu klären. Bin gespannt auf die Antwort.

------------------------------------------

Dear people at Mirage Interactive,

We at ABBUC (www.abbuc.de) realized that you are offering besides games for other systems your great games for the 8-bit ataris via your webpage as downloads.

On the other hand we got e-mail from ANG software from The Netherlands mentioning that they have the rights for Europe and still are selling it (please see latest threat at http://www.abbuc.de/modules.php?name=Fo ... pic&t=1577).

What we like to know is, if this is true. Currently, we are collecting and providing everything around the ATARI 8-bit computers to keep it in the scene and avoid to loose all those treasures from this great aera of home computers. We are putting a lot of efforts into that. It is hobby and we are not making money out of it.

If there are no legal issues we would like to incorporate your atari 8-bit software in our PD library.

Please answer soon.

Best Regards
--
Gx & Good Byte

Walter Lojek

ABBUC PD library

You are a very fast writer....

In the message I tried to explain that ANG has the rights for Europe exept Poland. But we do NOT mind if you download the games. No problems.

You can though still buy the originals with original packaging at atarimuseum.nl. I think for the collectors a great opportunity!

Please note that the Sikor Soft titles in the webshop are absolutely NOT public domain or freeware.

Dear Fred_M,

Of course I am a very fast writer and, on behalf of my hobby working for ABBUC, there is quite some experience concerning rights for ATARI stuff ...

If ANG does not mind, please state here that there is no legal problem on your side to agree with the mirage games being into the public domain.

The issue is not only downloading from a Polish webpage but incorporating it into our PD library and providing them on disk and as downloads.

People being interested in the original packages will still by it.

Best Regards

Dear Walter,

I can not do that right away and it is not my decision, but the decision of the rightful owners (John Maris and Kaj de Vos). As I have written in a personal mail, to end the discussion about the legal rights we hope to see the reply of Mirage.

I have this discussion also with Michael Current, we hope that Mirage acknowlidge the rights of ANG and then we decide what to do with it.

Again, we will NOT act to downloading or copying, but we want to make the decision ourselves. I hope you can understand that.

ANG has always a warm heart for the Abbuc, we have given truckloads of atari items to the club. Please let us decide for ourselves.

Greetings,
Fred Meijer
(former employee of ANG Software, director of Stichting Pokey and atarimuseum.nl)

Dearest Fred,

Your answer is more than welcome and I think this is good that you provided some more details. Of course the decision is yours.

On the other hand as mentioned earlier I have quite some experiences with "right holders" and what mainly happens is:

1. "right holders" insist on their rights, often only sharing them when revenue is possible (Synapse, ATARI, OSS, ECA, etc. etc. )
2. they disappear
3. nobody knows who has the rights, since the contracts are often 'lost' too
4. no chance to get software or hardware for ABBUC to put it into the community (e.g. as public domain) on a safe legal basis
5. overall loss for the community

Therefore I would appreciate more detailed answers like yours on such topics, since it is helpful to start the discussion and to come to a hopefully satisfying solution for ABBUC.

It is really a pity, but especially big companies having had rights on ATARI 8-bit software & hardware - even ATARI (Infogrames) - do not know their exact rights and therefore do not share it. Over the last decade I contacted on behalf of ABBUC many former big players for ATARI 8-bit products. And in the end there were not many results. This was the reason why I immediately reacted on your posting stating that ANG still has the rights for Europe except Poland.

Michael Current for sure has the same problems. He referred to that on our occational contacts. And all the other preservers around the world on all classic (home)computer system share more or less the same.

One very sorry example:

OSS made the finest software products for ATARI. When they went out of business it was sold to ICD and fitted perfectly into their products palette. When ICD gave up the ATARI 8-bit product line they sold it to Fine Tone Engineering and then it stopped (in 1995). That's it! No more products and no more development. Only (illegal?) copies.
If one sometimes will dig out what might have been remaining, we will have the same situation like e.g. Compy Shop. A lot of things, but source codes etc. are often missing.

Let's hope for an satisfying answer for the ATARI 8-bit community.

Best Regards

Walter

Dear Walter,

John is thinking about it, i hope that we give a reply soon.

Best regards,
Fred

Hi (c) holder !

I know that Mirage guys were quite happy when they saw my web-site some time ago (before they started to upload the Atari stuff to their web-page). They didn't had any Atari originals at that time and were happy that they could reuse my scans, etc. !

As for the ANG titles:
I'll remove the download of the mentioned games and replace it with a link to atarimuseum.nl. I hope that's ok for you .
(although I can understand you, I don't like it as I think that everybody should be able to play these parts of history. With your decision to bann the downloads all emulator users don't have a chance to play these games !)

BR,
- Mr.Bacardi -

Hello Mr.Bacardi

Emulator users can buy these titles from Atari Museum, turn them into ATR's themself. 10 Euro's for 4 disks (I guess that's one game per disk) isn't much for a game player.

CU Mathy

PS does anybody know if these files (those that CAN be downloaded legally) will run on a system with a BlackBox? If they can, we can burn them onto an Atari 8 bit boot CD (read: boot your XL/XE from a CD when the CD/DVD drive is connected to the BlackBox. See article in next ABBUC magazin. I have NO clue when that will be comming out.

Mathy hat geschrieben:Hello Mr.Bacardi

Emulator users can buy these titles from Atari Museum, turn them into ATR's themself. 10 Euro's for 4 disks (I guess that's one game per disk) isn't much for a game player.

I was thinking of emulator only uers...
How to convert a disk into ATR without having the original 8-bit hardware ?

BR,
- Mr.Bacardi -

How to convert a disk into ATR without having the original 8-bit hardware ?

If they buy the disks they have the right to ask somebody else to turn them into ATR's. Or they could ask Atari Museum is they can get the four games on one 3.5" disk. One 3.5"disk probably is cheaper then four 5.25"disks and a lot easier to get.

:wink:

If somebody is an "emulator only user", this smilie or this one would be better.

CU Mathy

I said in a previous message that the ABBUC Magazin hadn't arrived yet. It did!

CU Mathy

Dear John Maris,

Thank you very much for giving permission to use quite some Mirage Soft for the ABBUC PD library.

As soon as you may change your mind concerning

Titles which may not distributed as public domain are:

Whoops (Original ANG Title)
Whoops II
T34 (Only Published by ANG)
Operation Blood for Lightgun (Original ANG Version)

You can not download these titles from the Mirage-site, because they are copyrighted by ANG Software

please let ABBUC know.

Again, thank you ...

And, btw, sorry that I did not react earlier here, but I have been on a short vacation together with my wife, because we are married for 30 years now.

See, some things even last longer than an ABBUC membership

Walter,

I will tell John that you are happy He is not a regular visitor of this forum.

I am happy that he is respecting the choice of the original copy-holder. I hope that the abbuc will make a lot of people happy.

ANG software is the original copyholder of its own products like Whoops, Whoops II, Operation Blood for the lightgun, T34, Shit, Thinx, Simple Minds, Hack Picture II, Colorfont editor, TML drumeditor, Basicdup, Mines and the Zebuland Utility disk. These titel are not public domain (yet...)

We have a substantional amount of original stock left. We are using the 'earnings' (it is nothing much) to finance trips to the JHV

Greetings,
Fred

Die Downloadseite hat sich geändert...

http://mirageinteractive.com/old/retroattack.html

ANG_Software hat geschrieben:Titles which may not distributed as public domain are:

Whoops (Original ANG Title)
Whoops II
T34 (Only Published by ANG)
Operation Blood for Lightgun (Original ANG Version)

You can not download these titles from the Mirage-site, because they are copyrighted by ANG Software.

I also want to advise Mr. Bacardi to remove these titles from his site, because the distribution is illegal.

I hope that mr. Bacardi will remove these titles from his site. They are still there

greetings,
Fred

Hi Fred,
when did you check my web-site ?
I replaced the download links with links to atarimuseum some time ago...

So please tell me concrete which links are still wrong so I can change them...

BR,
- Mr.Bacardi -