From: "Moose"
To: comp.emulators.apple2
Subject: Campaign to Preserve ORIGINAL versions of ancient Apple ][ Games
Date: Tuesday, 10 October 2000 14:08

Over 20 years after first touching my first Apple ][ keyboard, and 18 years
after owning my first Apple ][, I must admit that I still love the quirky
little machine and the software that it ran.

The emulators and sites like Asimov are great, because we can be confident
that the Apple ][ will never be forgotten.

However, one thing that has always niggled at me is that many of the old
Apple ][ games on Asimov and other sites display "cracker" messages /
greetings when they load.  It is a shame that the games are being preserved
in this "unpure" state, and IMHO it would be a muich better if copies of the
original games - without all of the cracker greets - could be preserved
instead.

Does anybody agree with this ?

Wouldn't you rather see the game running under emulation as you remember it,
rather than having a cracked version running with messages like "Thanx to
the Pir8 and Lord dArKnEss" on the intro screen ?

Wouldn't this be a better testament / memorial to the original developers of
the software than the cracked / hacked versions ?

I have an Apple ][c, a PC, the transfer software, the required serial cable
to link the machines together to transfer disk images, and some spare time
to do some transferring, and I am prepared to help use these to work towards
building a "pure" software repository for ancient Apple ][ games that have
not been sold or supported for well over 10 years.

If anyone else is interested in helping, or has any comments on this, please
contact me.

Mike