Re: Looking for some Zenith Z100 software

Herb Johnson <herbrjohnson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I hate to post anything that would seem to be rude to Andrea. She is a
person of good will.

Thanks Herb :)
But I have to correct you: I know it may sound ridiculous but actually I
am a male. In Italy you will never find a girl named Andrea, only males
get that name here. Also, remember that if a female Andrea will ever
study greek, she may find out that her name has an inappropriate
meaning: in fact it comes from greek Andros, that means "male". You can
still find it with its real meaning in words such androginy and so on.

and she kindly lists my Web site as a relevant link.

Of course, and I noticed you also linked my page. Thanks :)

But as I've already posted, I have for some years offered a set of
Z-100 system disks to "the community". They are created ON a Z-120,
and include format and other programs, as I posted in this thread a few
days ago. However, what I offer is NOT FREE. I charge for my time, my
space (for manuals, computers), my Web expenses, and of course for
shipping and packing costs. I have some free stuff as well, and the
contents of my Web site are freely available yet also require my time
and effort.

You offer a valuable service to the community, that's one of the reason
why I linked your site. Your pages have lots of info.
But in any case I am not interested in buying Z100 disks from you or
from someone else, it's not a matter of money, it's a matter of beliefs,
that's why it seemed I didn't understand your advertising till now.

While I still believe that ancient hardware has a real value and when
you part from it you don't have it anymore, old software is different,
you don't loose it, you just copy it: what you loose is just time and
the price of the disk.
I was and I am ready to pay for shipping charges/disks and a symbolic
fee for the job in the order of 10$ but nothing more, I am looking for
someone who wants to help me, not someone who wants to help me and get
money for that. This is probably the reason why my Z-120 has been turned
off till today and why it will probably stay that way for long, but I
don't mind it, there are more important things.
Maybe someone with my same attitude will make disk-images available
on-line.
This old software is in most of the cases abandonware or has no
commercial value anymore, so nobody gets hurt from those copies, still
getting money for "illegal" disks copies sounds a little strange to me,
don't take it in a bad way Herb, that's just my personal opinion and
since you made yours quite clear, I want to do the same: I'm not saying
you should do it for free.
Of course my time, like yours and everyone's else, has a price in many
cases. You can be sure I would do nothing at work if they weren't paying
me. If I sell an old computer I ask for money, they can be gifts only
for close friends, for a lot of reasons I am not going to list.
But I don't ask money to my family or for friendship, for love, for
writing this post or talking at the bar, and I hope none of us does.
There are some activities that are priceless, in the real sense of the
word and whenever money gets into them, they get somehow spoiled. I
think the same could appy to my retrocomputing hobby, so I don't ask for
money and I look for people that don't ask for money too.

Dealing with old computers is a hobby to me and when I got the chance to
help someone and more important *if* I wanted to do it, I did it for
free: money comes in my pocket from other sources, and I don't want to
feel forced to do anything just because I wrote I will do it for some
money.

In the past I had the chance of helping some italian guys to get some
software that they needed for Apple III and you may know that there is
very very little software available online, so I made disk images and
they are available for the community. They were freely available on my
site but there is no more everything. I kept out some really valuable
data cause if someone wants it, he can get it from me, but has to do
something in exchange not for me but for the community, that's what I
ask.
The other solution i.e. doing real disk copies of this Apple III
software for everyone asking it was going to be too expensive both for
them and for me: getting nowadays unavaliable 5,25'' disks, copying them
on the real machine, testing the disks, go to the post office...too much
hassle and impossible to do for free if not for a strict number of
people: you make disk images only one time, they are more practical and
are forever, for everyone, even for me just in case my real disks fail.
This is my attitude, yours is different, again don't take it wrong, I
still think you are doing a useful service to the community even if it's
not free.

He's been
generous with his time and with his prior work. But that, and similar
freely provided works or archives by others, do not mean that
everything old or out of use should ALSO be free.

That's right, people are different.
Anyway if I get the Zenith software I will make disk images and I will
make them freely available since they are unavailable anywhere today, as
I've already done with my only disk, this is my way of living this
hobby.
If you will want to share this service to the community I will be glad
to send you those files to so that you can host them also on your site.
If you know any reason for not doing that just let me know, I always
appreciate other people's opinions, expecially when those people are
older and have more knowledge than me.

Regards

Andrea



--
http://myretrocomputing.altervista.org/
.

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