Russ Perry Jr wrote:
> It has come to my attention that there is a dealer out there who
> believes he has gotten the rights to an encryption method to the
> 7800; actually, it sounds like it might be PICKLOCK.
Are you talking about Video 61? I think it's probably different. For one
thing, PICKLOCK's interrupt vector points into the bottom of the 48K memory
map, requiring a 48K RAM cart or ROM to write games that use interrupts.
It's my understanding that you can only write 8K or 16K 7800 games with the
Dodgeson cart which means that their interrupt vector probably points
somewhere closer to the top of memory. Although I don't think it matters
much, we'll know soon enough if there is any similarity between PICKLOCK and
the Dodgeson monitor cart. We have one on order. ;-)
> The problem is, he's planning to do some stuff and also, having
> rights to this stuff (paperwork from Atari; I know part of the
> story and believe that's legit, though I don't know if it's still
> binding due to the Atari -> JTS -> Hasbro buyouts), he says he's
> prepared to take legal action against infringers.
I see no problem with their making a profit on their own efforts. And
hopefully from the comment I made above, you can figure out that PICKLOCK
did *not* come from the Dodgeson ROM image. That being the case, I don't
think it's infringing on any of their intellectual property, and is
therefore none of their concern.
> On the other
> hand, he's well prepared to make cartridges for people -- sort
> of "license" the code to make game releases, so he's not trying
> to use the courts to keep an exclusive lock on what games are
> released, but DOES want to profit on what he paid for.
This is good. If they're offering a valuable service. But fact is it's
easy enough to make 7800 carts from old 7800 game PCBs. And there are still
plenty of these at O'Sheas.
John
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