December 7, 2018 • 33 mins
What is abandonware? Can you acquire abandonware legally? What does copyright law have to do with abandonware? In this episode, Jonathan and Chris break down the basics of abandonware, how it occurs and what it means for software users.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
how Stuff Works in a love all things tech. And
it's Friday, which means it's time for a classic episode.
This one originally published on December twelve, two thousand eleven,
(00:28):
and it's called tech Stuff Looks for abandoned Ware, where
Chris and I talk about the concept of abandoned ware
and what that actually means. I hope you enjoy the
silence of a falling star lights up the purple sky,
and as I wonder where you are, I'm so lonesome
I could cry. Very nicely done, thank you. Today we
(00:49):
think Hank would have done it that way, Hank. So
today we're going to talk about abandoned ware. Yes, we
we've had requests to talk about abandoned ware, and this
is UM and we've talked about abandon were in the past,
just not as a dedicated topic. Yeah, we've also talked
about vaporware, which is a totally different thing, UM, if
(01:09):
you might wonder what the differences are. Vaporware is when
a company has announced or information is leaked out that
a company is working on a particular product, but that
probably never seems to actually go to market. Oh I
thought it was the kind of software that every once
in a while just make you feel light headed. I'm
already got a headache. I've already got a headache. So
(01:30):
that's different. I'll tell you what that means, and you'll
like it because you like that kind of humor. Uh.
The but no, the the abandoned ware is when a
company has produced a piece of well product mainly, but
we usually talk about in terms of software, and more
frequently than not, we talked about in terms of games,
(01:51):
although that's not the only kind of abandoned ware. But
the company produces this the the But then technology continues
to evolve over time, and yeah, no, it's crazy, right,
So they things like computers. Let's let's say a computer
it gets so advanced that it can no longer run
older software. Yeah, I'm aware of that. Yeah, where you
(02:14):
get to a point where you know, if software has
been produced before a certain point, your computer is not
really able to run it anymore because things have changed
so dramatically. And then companies will sort of stop supporting
this old software that they produced years ago. Okay, so
if they no longer provide any support or they've discontinued it,
(02:36):
that's abandoned. Where if a company creates some software that
is you know, it hits the market and then that
company ceases to exist, that software may be considered abandonware
because now there's no there's no place you can buy
it anymore because the company that was in charge of
it is gone. This can happen through an acquisition or
a merger where certain divisions get dissolved or merged into
(02:59):
other divisions that as a result, pieces of software no
longer have a kind of a a a shepherd really
to keep the software going. So what happens to that software?
What happens if you want to have access to that software?
How can you do it? Are there legal ways of
getting at it? And uh, it's a little complicated. Yeah.
(03:21):
The uh, the in the context we brought it up
in before, we were talking about the multiple machine or
multiple arcade machine emulator. Name, Um, you coax the blues
right out of the horn. Sorry name name yes? Um?
Not a n T I yes? Um? So yeah, name
(03:44):
is for those of you who don't know, basically, a
way of uh running the programs that old arcade mean,
while actually not necessarily old that arcade machines would run
in their cabinets on a home computer. Right now, keep
in mind that arcade machine, the software for those machines
was built specifically for the hardware inside the arcade machine.
(04:06):
You wouldn't opening up an arcade cabinet and find a
a computer in there, right, It wouldn't look like a computer.
It would look like a whole bunch of different chips
wired together. And uh yeah, and and so it's hardwired
into the the hardware, like you know, you don't have
you don't put a disc in at least not most
(04:28):
arcade games. I know there are a few that run
on laser disc, but that's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about like it's reading directly from a chip.
A similar example would be when you if you ever
played console games that used cartridges. The cartridge had the
ROM on it, right, and the console just had the
the technology to read the ROM and then translate that
(04:50):
into a game. So for a computer, you would have
to create an emulator, something that could create an environment
similar to the hardware that you would find inside that
arcade machine in order for you to run the rom
on a computer. And sometimes this would work well and
you would have a pretty uh similar experience as to
(05:10):
if you were sitting in front of an arcade machine
and playing it. And in some cases it doesn't work
so well because the computer's architecture and the arcade architecture
are so different that the game stutters or just runs
really slowly. Yeah, So then you have, uh the question
you you're able to run this uh software and on
(05:31):
your home computer, and you have something like say Kangaroo,
and you want to play Kangaroo on your home computer,
and you go, wait a minute, Atari still exists. I mean,
truth is it's a different Attari technically, but they own
the copyright for that stuff. Now you know. That's one thing.
Then on the other hand, you have something like say Defender,
(05:55):
and then you say, okay, well who owns the stuff
that Williams used to make? Or Robotron for that matter.
Um okay, So that's that's one version. Um My. My
other example was was going to be I was gonna
ask you if you thought that if I brought my
copy of Deluxe Video Construction Set to Electronic Arts for Miamiga.
(06:19):
Do you think they'd support it, or cement for that matter,
from Maxis before it was acquired by Electronic Arts. I
don't think so. But the thing is, the question is
you know I can legally use that software because I
still own the disks for sim AT even though I
never really had enough memory in mi Amiga to run it.
You wouldn't be able to distribute it. I can't distribute it,
but I legally can run that all I want to. Now,
(06:42):
for something like Maime the in in some cases the
manufacturer is still around, in some cases it's a different
version of the manufacturer who legally owns the copyright, and
in other cases the manufacturer is gone and it's hard
to identify who, if anybody, owns the copyright. And this
(07:06):
actually is it presents some seriously thorny legal issues, right,
So let's let's clear things up a little bit here. Uh,
if there is an old piece of software, it's available
online and there hasn't been any express permission from the
copyright holder that that software can be distributed, distributing that
(07:29):
software is illegal. Yes, it violates copyright. Now, that being said,
copyright is one of those things that only works if
you exercise your right to the copyright. In other words,
the copyright owner would have to pursue action against anyone
distributing that content. So if you are if you come
(07:50):
across an old game from the the late eighties, let's say,
and it's an old doss based game on the little
from the late eighties, and you wanted to you love
this game and you want other people to explore this
game and experience this game, and there is no way
to buy the game because the game, the company doesn't exist,
or the company still exists but no longer markets this
(08:13):
game or supports it. Then you might feel, well, what's
the harm? I mean, no one's no one's trying to
make money off of this. No one is losing money
off of this because there's no way to legitimately get
ahold of this. Why is there an issue? And it's
all because of that copyright, and the copyright holder may
choose to not pursue action. It doesn't mean that it's legal.
(08:36):
It just means the copyright holder is allowing the that
material to be distributed. Said, wouldn't you know what I
picked a bad example for a video game was just
its kangaroo? Really Attari it was distributed by Atari, but
actually it was a product by Sun Electronics. Did you
wear like little boxing gloves in that game and you
had to box stuff as a kangaroo? I vaguely remember
(08:58):
playing that. It was it was it was very Donkey
Kong like because you climbed up to the top and
had to find your Joey, you know, the baby kangaroo. Right.
So anyhow, so substitute Centipede for what I said before.
Chris and I will be back to talk a little
bit more about abandonware in just a second, but first
let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Anyway,
(09:26):
So getting back to copyrights. Now, a copyright, the term
of a copyright right now lasts for in the United States,
last for seventy five years from the creation of the work,
unless it's a work for higher right years, right, So yeah,
a work for higher would be last even longer, and
most of these, I guess would be considered work for high,
(09:46):
which is why I brought it up. That's a good point.
So in other words, this is software that is going
to be is still protected by copyright and will be
for pretty much our lifetime, right, I mean, some of
us might get really lucky to maybe the Singularity will hit,
and it won't, that won't be a problem. But at
that point, who's playing video games? But if you wanted
(10:07):
to play Space War, you're probably in fairly decent shape
because that was created so much earlier than this stuff. Yeah,
the games that were created in the eighties. Um, even
our our younger listeners would have problems with this all
the way through. So by legal definition, strictly, going by that,
(10:27):
it is not there's no real recourse unless the copyright
holder gives permission for distribution or releases the copyright into
the public domain. Now at that point, you know, it's
weird to call the software abandoned ware, because abandonware really
means this software that doesn't have really any support or
(10:51):
or access through legitimate channels, So it's not like it's
abandoned where that point is just public to main work,
so it becomes more like shareware in a way. But
a copyright holder does have that option. Uh, And in
some cases you you see companies take advantage of old, old,
(11:11):
old libraries of content and repackage them and and market
them again, which would mean that you wouldn't want to
host those abandoned ware games on your site, for example,
because they are actually making money from this old content
and there are legitimate ways to get hold of it.
A good example of that as Atari, because you've got
(11:34):
the old Atari games that get repackaged occasionally as an
app for a smartphone or tablet device. Also, you get
some console games that will occasionally come out. They'll be
like the best of and it will be whatever the
old company was. Like, you can even get a version
of the I you really want it. Yeah, but that's
a little oh new one. They're making new ones now,
(11:56):
is that on thinking? I'm not sure the Dreamcast was.
Somebody told me recently that they saw a new quote
unquote new packaged with some of the early games. That's
basically a relieve the past. That's the whole retro thing.
But they're there hundreds and hundreds of computer titles, PC titles,
(12:18):
Windows titles, do space titles even that, Uh, well, we'll
probably never re emerge. And so the question comes, well,
what's the best way of handling this. There are a
lot of sites out there that are dedicated to abandoned ware,
and these sites are the really the ones that are
(12:38):
more legitimate, and I used the phrase loosely because again
we're talking about violating copyright one way or the other.
But the ones that are more concerned with offering people
the chance to play games that are the equivalent to
being out of print or otherwise unavailable, um, they're very
much about not hosting what are also called wares Wares
(13:01):
would be kinds of software that's essentially pirated or duplicated
that's readily available on the market today. Basically the copy
protection has been cracked and you can use it. You know,
when I say freely, I don't mean you're allowed to
use it. I mean you don't have to code. So.
But but the more the more legitimate abandoned ware sites
(13:23):
will only host games that you cannot get through any
other means unless you were defined like someone selling an
old copy. But you know that you wouldn't be able
to go to the publisher and buy it because sometimes
the publisher doesn't even exist. Well, um, there are there
are people out there who, in some of them are
content creators, who say there should be a more streamlined
(13:46):
way too for for companies to release abandoned ware so
that there isn't this, uh, this legal barrier, especially considering
the fact that software changes much more rapidly than say, print,
and uh. One of them is Greg Castickian. Now do
you know who? Have you ever heard of? Greg Castickian.
He's a He's a game designer who designs not just
(14:07):
computer games but also role playing games. His name is
really familiar to me, and I'm gonna go ah as
soon as you say, well, he's He's designed a lot
of stuff. Most of it is kind of has a
has sort of a satirical or otherwise humorous uh slant
to it. For example, he created an role playing game
(14:28):
called Tune back in nineteen four where you played as
a cartoon character within a cartoon episode. Every single adventure
was modeled after the idea of a seven minute cartoon episode,
and you would have the capabilities of a cartoon character,
and you would have friends and enemies within the cartoon,
and you could do these outlandish things. It was hilarious.
(14:50):
He also created a game called Paranoia, which was all
about a post apocalyptic uh society where you live in
a a essentially like a a biodome kind of thing,
and a computer controls everything, but the computer is crazy
and paranoid and thinks everyone is out to get him,
and pretty much everyone is out to get him. And
(15:10):
then but anyway, they hope because al right, the whole
purpose of the game was to create this idea of paranoia. Well,
this guy, who created several different computer games as well,
said that actually, have a quote. Software is about as
ephemeral as you can get, yet preserving it is essential.
Illegal abandoned ware sites are providing a critical service to
(15:31):
game designers and scholars and gaming enthusiasts. They do, not, however,
provide a lasting and satisfactory solution to the problem because
they are illegal. So he was maintaining the point of
these old games that exist are important, and they're important
culturally because some of them were what helped usher in
(15:52):
the era of personal computers in the first place. I mean,
you know, personal computers were great for productivity, but there's
no denying that video games. Computer games really drove the
industry as well. And as the the technology advances, our
ability to access those old games decreases, and he says,
that's that's a shame. There should be a way to
preserve that. And also, as he points out, game designers,
(16:15):
you know, some of these old games are very primitive
when it comes to the graphics or the sound, But
a lot of them had very innovative gameplay or very
compelling storylines and are great lessons for game designers to
to learn from. Sure, you know, I would argue the
old Ultimate series, for example, is a very valuable series
(16:38):
for people who want to create a storyline that spans
several episodes and has a very kind of deep um
and and immersive quality to it. Now, I should also
had that the Ultimate Series has regularly been released in
packages where you could buy it legitimately, So don't go
out there and start piotying games, look and make sure
(17:00):
or first before that, make sure there's a legitimate way
of getting it, and go that way before ever going
with abandoned ware route. But but yeah, as a producer
of games, he was pointing out that this is a
valuable service that abandoned weare sites are giving us that
without it, we would lose these games. And you know,
(17:22):
unless some company was like, hey, we need to roll
out another product or we're not going to hit our
revenue this year, what titles do we have in the
vault that we could package together hastily and then shove
out the door. And occasionally you see that happen. Well,
it would be nice if some of the people who
own the copyrights to these would release these these programs
(17:42):
in some form um. You know, the the app stores
for the mobile devices have proven that, you know, even
even software that costs one or two dollars for a
copy of it can still make a decent amount of money.
And you know, some of these titles are languishing an
obscurity when you know, people might really be willing to
(18:05):
pay one to five dollars for an opportunity to play
it again. It's not really a lot of money for
most people, and they might relish the opportunity to give
it another shot. I think we have the opportunity to
actually see that happen now because digital distribution is a reality, right,
Like Chris and I can both remember a time where
you would go to your local computer store or electronics
(18:27):
store and there would always be that bin of the
old games that that were four three or four generations
behind the current stuff that's up on the shelves, and
you would sort through that ben and just look to
see if there were any hidden gems in there, and
then you find something like, oh, I always wanted to
play that, and you pick it up, and you know,
you might get a copy of Civilization that way. But
(18:48):
that was back in the old day where you would
get like the floppy disks I was thinking you were
talking about during the video game console crash, when you
would go into your corner drugs store and there would
be a bin of really horrible Attari cartridges for you know,
a dollar, the same sort of thing where they were
just unloading their inventory. But those days are are you know,
(19:11):
pretty much disappearing because you get to digital distribution, You
get to the era of the c D really started
to decrease it, but then digital distribution has has taken
a big hit on it too. But that also gives
the opportunity for companies to put potentially put up old
titles for you know, like the same price that you
would have for an app for for a smartphone. So
(19:34):
let's say that you throw up Mule, the old Mule game,
or ARCon ARCon Yeah, put those old us Populus, yes, um,
put these old games up on or battle Chess, these
old games up so that you can buy them for
like cents or whatever and and have you know, maybe
(19:55):
package it with a free emulator if you need it.
Because some of these old games will not on on
your current system unless first put through an emulator. I
have old machines for strictly that purpose. And before before
you write in and say, you know, why do you
want people to spend this money, this property should be free, Well,
that's an option too. It would be really cool if they,
if these companies will released these games into the public domain. However,
(20:20):
I think they might have more incentive if uh they
charged a small price and then they would get something
in return for it. It's sort of like the Chris
Anderson's long tail and the online stores versus the brick
and mortar stores. I mean, if you put that up
for digital distribution, it could stay there virtually forever. You're
(20:42):
still going to be a handful of people that are
willing to fork over a couple of bucks for it. Yeah,
and and I think I think that solution really provides
an elegant approach to this complicated issue because you've got,
for one thing, you know, it gives an incentive to
these companies to share this old stuff that you can't
otherwise get. Um and and people can relive like that
(21:04):
moment from their childhood when they played this one game
that they loved and now they can't they can't get
it anymore. Um. It also gives the the you know,
it gives the fans what they want. It's not prohibitively
expensive if you go with this this micro payment kind
of app approach. Um. And also it tells companies what
(21:26):
people are interested in. If you were to create an
a section of your site, for example, that hosted the
old titles for cheap purchase, and you saw that one
of those titles was getting hit like crazy, people were
just buying it up, you might think, you know, we
could probably do a follow up, like just do an
incredible follow up that is based on the same premise
(21:49):
of this original game, maybe not a remake, but even
perhaps a long awaited sequel and clean up, because we
didn't realize there was this interest in this old title
that we owned. Now, this does not solve the problem
for those titles where the ownership is up in the air,
like no one knows who owns this anymore. Those that's
still you're gonna you're still gonna have that problem where
(22:11):
if there's a title where you're not really sure that
the is the copyright holder of the guy who made
it is it this other company. Is it a company
that bought you know, bought a company that bought a
company that bought a company. That's where you start getting
two issues where these games maybe hopelessly mired in red tape.
That's just it's until you figure out who is the
(22:32):
owner of that copyright and who has the authority to
do this, it will never happen. And that you know,
the abandoned ware approach is pretty much the only way
you're gonna get hold of those games. Um, and it's
not a legitimate way. Yeah, now, okay, this is from
the from the perspective of the law. I'm sorry I
should say that, because sometimes I'm like, hey, you know what,
I love that game. I bought that game, I played
(22:54):
that game. There's no way for me to get it,
and my sense of entitlement is crying out. Before we
get to the end of the episode, I need to
take another quick break and thank our sponsor. Well, this
is where things get interesting. Um. Let's say you have
(23:18):
um an old at and you bought a copy of
Yards Revenge, and you have the machine, and you've got
the the game. It's it's in your basement, it's in
a box. But you got it, it's in storage unfortunately
doesn't work anymore, or you don't have an adapter, and
(23:40):
you really can't play because the machine is dead. But
I know, hey, it's a museum piece. So you hold
onto it and then you find an emulator for your
computer with yours Revenge where you can play the a
version of it. The thing is from what I understand. Again,
keep in mind, I'm not a lawyer, but theoretically, from
what I understand, you're entitled to play that because you
(24:01):
have a copy of the game. You already paid for it,
you have a copy of the game in your possession,
You're legally entitled to play it. Because the reason I
get this is from the disclaimers on the main sites.
They say that if you have a copy of the ROMs, basically,
if you have the guts of the arcade machine, the chips,
then legally you can play it a game. Otherwise you
(24:23):
are that's why they haven't been shut down. Yeah, Otherwise,
you're only supposed to hold onto a ROM up to
twenty four hours, and then after that you're supposed to
delete it. Yes you you Yeah, you as a person
who downloaded the ROM from that site, not not the
sites themselves, But if you own a legal copy of
the ROM, you're supposed to be able to play it
(24:43):
even if the machine that you had it on. Now,
I imagine that's there. There's some probably legal gray area where,
you know, if if the copyright police they don't exist.
But hey, the copyright police come to your house. They
wait a minute. You're is broken. You're not supposed to
play it on your home computer. Are supposed to play
on this machine. You're in trouble man. The thing is,
(25:04):
for one thing, there aren't any copyright police, not specifically
copyright police. And you know, for a lot of people,
this just people aren't gonna bother doing it. I mean,
they're not gonna sue Jonathan because you know that's the thing.
They say that you can sue anybody in America for anything,
but generally people sue people who have money. So so
(25:25):
they're not going to come out. Yeah, they're not gonna
come after Jonathan or me for doing that unless they
really believe that they can prosecute us with good cause
and are going to get something. You know, this worth
putting the time and money into a legal case for
doing this. And and that's even more so for these
companies and organizations that don't exist. And that's why that's
(25:47):
the biggest case I've seen for making abandoned ware and legal.
Basically saying, hey, company X doesn't exist, this is a
great game, I want to play it. I would give
them twenty dollars if they were still around, but there's
no way to pay please. You know, technically, technically it's illegal. Yeah. Yeah,
and the law, by the letter of the law, it's illegal.
(26:07):
And again, if if the copyright holder doesn't pursue any
action against you, then you're in the clear. And in
in almost every single case that's gonna be. That's gonna
be what happens if you if you run an abandoned
ware site, you might occasionally get a takedown notice from
a copyright holder, and then of course you should very
much adhere to that if you don't want to encounter
(26:29):
legal difficulties. It used to have pants and if you
have them, suit off of you. Yeah. By the way,
it gets drafty. Here's here's a pop quiz. Hot shot,
so hot shot. Yeah, the guy who the guy who
made Yards Revenge, he made another very famous Atari game.
Do you know what it was? Who was the main
Yards Avenge. It was Howard Scott Warsaw, the actual game
(26:52):
designer who don't e t the extraterrestrial. I don't blame him.
He was something very quickly, but yes, one of the
yards Revenge was one of the games that was considered
to be a big hit with his Hardy twenty six hundred,
followed by a game that that often people credit as
(27:16):
killing not just the Autori, but the video game industry,
the home video game industry as a whole in nine three.
He was just following orders. That was just some trivia
for all of you guys. So lest you think we
are telling you to run out and download all the
abandoned where you want and play it, we're not telling
you to do that because that would be illegal. What
we're telling you is there's some awesome games that are
(27:38):
out there, and some of them are hosted on abandoned
ware sites, and man, those games are neat and you
know what, I'm pretty sure the copyright holders wouldn't come
after you, But don't do it. If you don't really
go back and redo that you if you do that,
it would be technically ill. Yes, it is technically illegal,
(27:58):
whether or not a shame, whether or not. It's unethical
is another question. Unethical and illegal are two different things. Yeah,
and unethical that's a weird question too. Yeah, because again,
if there's if there's no one to pay, then those
games essentially are forgotten. They're gone. You might as well
do the same thing, like this book came out in
(28:19):
nineteen eighty, we're locking it away in this library and
you have no access to the library. In fact, no
one has any access to the library, and it's it's
gonna stay there in the library. So you could have
access to it if we opened up the door, but
we're not gonna see That's that's an issue, right because
then you're like, well, what's the point of it even
existing if no one can use it? So yeah, there's
(28:41):
there is an the ethical and the ethical standpoints different
from the legality standpoint. This is definitely a technology issue too,
because if you really want to read Beowulf, there's a
copy in print somewhere, probably it's a local bookstore, possibly
in a used bookstore. It's not even gettingto that. But
it's also the thing is you can find a copy
(29:02):
of it. You can download it for free on the
internet because it's out of copyright I'm pretty sure it's
in the public domain, I would think. But the thing
about it is for the technology behind these games, you
know that that is one of the issues behind it.
And there's there's the other thing too. Uh. In case
you're saying, well, you're just talking about games, really, do
(29:22):
you want to you want to download a copy of
physicalc so you can run that? Really? Yeah, that's the
the other part of that. I mean, people don't Adobe
won't necessarily support Photoshop three. Um, you could probably find
a copy of it somewhere out there, but you know,
I would consider that to an effect abandoned where too,
because they've moved so far beyond that point. It's been
(29:44):
on a print for so many years, you're on your own. Um.
But legally, if you've downloaded a copy of it, a
cracked copy of it online, you'd be in the same boat.
But the reason we're talking about games predominantly is because
that's the stuff that people go back to. Ye. The
reason that people in a lot of cases keep old
gaming machines around just because every once in a while
that nostalgia thing hits. But I don't think you find
(30:06):
it for something like a spreadsheet or work for a
legacy issue, in which case that could be In some
cases that's that's an issue too. But I think I
think it's used more abandoned wears more in the minds
of a lot of people for games simply because there's
that nostalgia and retro factor. Yeah, I'm thinking back to
(30:26):
some of the games I I used to love to
play that I would I would really enjoy seeing an
updated version of that game, or or having the ability
to play the old one again, like um Tie Fighter. Yeah,
and now that one has a double whamy against it, right,
because it's a licensed game, not just a not just
not just the fact that you've got the software and everything,
(30:47):
but you've got the actual content that's all. Yeah, that's
a much more complex situation. Well, it was LucasArts. It
was Lucas Arts, so great game, fantastic game. Wish that
they would come out with a new one. And then
there's hint, Well you've seen you've seen the success of
the Monkey Island franchisees it's renewed and Island and Oregon
Trail as it has popped up on Facebook and and on. Yeah,
(31:12):
but I mean that's the funny thing about some of
the stuff. Um can be updated and refreshed and people
and added dimension things that she couldn't do thirty years ago. Um,
there's no there's some such good reason to update and
keep these things around, right and and again, like I said,
if they took my approach where they host that abandoned
(31:33):
where they reclaimed the abandoned ware and host it for
super cheap, they might be able to find out what
trends people are really gravitating toward, and that could help
them design their next game. It's all part of Jonathan's
plot to take over the world. Look, there's certain games
I want to play, and I'm desperately trying to get
them to back my plans so that I can. I
can shut shut. I'll hand over the money. I am
(31:55):
more than happy to purchase this game. Well, that wraps
up abandoned ware for the time being. Of course, we're
seeing software getting abandoned all the time. Things just sometimes
peter out, So I'll probably do a follow up on
this in the future. But if you've got any suggestions
for topics I should tackle, make sure you let me
know about them. Go visit our website, It's tech stuff
podcast dot com. You'll find all the different ways to
(32:17):
contact me there. I greatly appreciate hearing from you guys,
and I look forward to it. Also, don't forget to
visit t public dot com slash tech stuff. That's where
you can find the merchandise store. Every single purchase you
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(32:38):
to you again really soon. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot
com
Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
how Stuff Works in a love all things tech. And
it's Friday, which means it's time for a classic episode.
This one originally published on December twelve, two thousand eleven,
(00:28):
and it's called tech Stuff Looks for abandoned Ware, where
Chris and I talk about the concept of abandoned ware
and what that actually means. I hope you enjoy the
silence of a falling star lights up the purple sky,
and as I wonder where you are, I'm so lonesome
I could cry. Very nicely done, thank you. Today we
(00:49):
think Hank would have done it that way, Hank. So
today we're going to talk about abandoned ware. Yes, we
we've had requests to talk about abandoned ware, and this
is UM and we've talked about abandon were in the past,
just not as a dedicated topic. Yeah, we've also talked
about vaporware, which is a totally different thing, UM, if
(01:09):
you might wonder what the differences are. Vaporware is when
a company has announced or information is leaked out that
a company is working on a particular product, but that
probably never seems to actually go to market. Oh I
thought it was the kind of software that every once
in a while just make you feel light headed. I'm
already got a headache. I've already got a headache. So
(01:30):
that's different. I'll tell you what that means, and you'll
like it because you like that kind of humor. Uh.
The but no, the the abandoned ware is when a
company has produced a piece of well product mainly, but
we usually talk about in terms of software, and more
frequently than not, we talked about in terms of games,
(01:51):
although that's not the only kind of abandoned ware. But
the company produces this the the But then technology continues
to evolve over time, and yeah, no, it's crazy, right,
So they things like computers. Let's let's say a computer
it gets so advanced that it can no longer run
older software. Yeah, I'm aware of that. Yeah, where you
(02:14):
get to a point where you know, if software has
been produced before a certain point, your computer is not
really able to run it anymore because things have changed
so dramatically. And then companies will sort of stop supporting
this old software that they produced years ago. Okay, so
if they no longer provide any support or they've discontinued it,
(02:36):
that's abandoned. Where if a company creates some software that
is you know, it hits the market and then that
company ceases to exist, that software may be considered abandonware
because now there's no there's no place you can buy
it anymore because the company that was in charge of
it is gone. This can happen through an acquisition or
a merger where certain divisions get dissolved or merged into
(02:59):
other divisions that as a result, pieces of software no
longer have a kind of a a a shepherd really
to keep the software going. So what happens to that software?
What happens if you want to have access to that software?
How can you do it? Are there legal ways of
getting at it? And uh, it's a little complicated. Yeah.
(03:21):
The uh, the in the context we brought it up
in before, we were talking about the multiple machine or
multiple arcade machine emulator. Name, Um, you coax the blues
right out of the horn. Sorry name name yes? Um?
Not a n T I yes? Um? So yeah, name
(03:44):
is for those of you who don't know, basically, a
way of uh running the programs that old arcade mean,
while actually not necessarily old that arcade machines would run
in their cabinets on a home computer. Right now, keep
in mind that arcade machine, the software for those machines
was built specifically for the hardware inside the arcade machine.
(04:06):
You wouldn't opening up an arcade cabinet and find a
a computer in there, right, It wouldn't look like a computer.
It would look like a whole bunch of different chips
wired together. And uh yeah, and and so it's hardwired
into the the hardware, like you know, you don't have
you don't put a disc in at least not most
(04:28):
arcade games. I know there are a few that run
on laser disc, but that's not what we're talking about here.
We're talking about like it's reading directly from a chip.
A similar example would be when you if you ever
played console games that used cartridges. The cartridge had the
ROM on it, right, and the console just had the
the technology to read the ROM and then translate that
(04:50):
into a game. So for a computer, you would have
to create an emulator, something that could create an environment
similar to the hardware that you would find inside that
arcade machine in order for you to run the rom
on a computer. And sometimes this would work well and
you would have a pretty uh similar experience as to
(05:10):
if you were sitting in front of an arcade machine
and playing it. And in some cases it doesn't work
so well because the computer's architecture and the arcade architecture
are so different that the game stutters or just runs
really slowly. Yeah, So then you have, uh the question
you you're able to run this uh software and on
(05:31):
your home computer, and you have something like say Kangaroo,
and you want to play Kangaroo on your home computer,
and you go, wait a minute, Atari still exists. I mean,
truth is it's a different Attari technically, but they own
the copyright for that stuff. Now you know. That's one thing.
Then on the other hand, you have something like say Defender,
(05:55):
and then you say, okay, well who owns the stuff
that Williams used to make? Or Robotron for that matter.
Um okay, So that's that's one version. Um My. My
other example was was going to be I was gonna
ask you if you thought that if I brought my
copy of Deluxe Video Construction Set to Electronic Arts for Miamiga.
(06:19):
Do you think they'd support it, or cement for that matter,
from Maxis before it was acquired by Electronic Arts. I
don't think so. But the thing is, the question is
you know I can legally use that software because I
still own the disks for sim AT even though I
never really had enough memory in mi Amiga to run it.
You wouldn't be able to distribute it. I can't distribute it,
but I legally can run that all I want to. Now,
(06:42):
for something like Maime the in in some cases the
manufacturer is still around, in some cases it's a different
version of the manufacturer who legally owns the copyright, and
in other cases the manufacturer is gone and it's hard
to identify who, if anybody, owns the copyright. And this
(07:06):
actually is it presents some seriously thorny legal issues, right,
So let's let's clear things up a little bit here. Uh,
if there is an old piece of software, it's available
online and there hasn't been any express permission from the
copyright holder that that software can be distributed, distributing that
(07:29):
software is illegal. Yes, it violates copyright. Now, that being said,
copyright is one of those things that only works if
you exercise your right to the copyright. In other words,
the copyright owner would have to pursue action against anyone
distributing that content. So if you are if you come
(07:50):
across an old game from the the late eighties, let's say,
and it's an old doss based game on the little
from the late eighties, and you wanted to you love
this game and you want other people to explore this
game and experience this game, and there is no way
to buy the game because the game, the company doesn't exist,
or the company still exists but no longer markets this
(08:13):
game or supports it. Then you might feel, well, what's
the harm? I mean, no one's no one's trying to
make money off of this. No one is losing money
off of this because there's no way to legitimately get
ahold of this. Why is there an issue? And it's
all because of that copyright, and the copyright holder may
choose to not pursue action. It doesn't mean that it's legal.
(08:36):
It just means the copyright holder is allowing the that
material to be distributed. Said, wouldn't you know what I
picked a bad example for a video game was just
its kangaroo? Really Attari it was distributed by Atari, but
actually it was a product by Sun Electronics. Did you
wear like little boxing gloves in that game and you
had to box stuff as a kangaroo? I vaguely remember
(08:58):
playing that. It was it was it was very Donkey
Kong like because you climbed up to the top and
had to find your Joey, you know, the baby kangaroo. Right.
So anyhow, so substitute Centipede for what I said before.
Chris and I will be back to talk a little
bit more about abandonware in just a second, but first
let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Anyway,
(09:26):
So getting back to copyrights. Now, a copyright, the term
of a copyright right now lasts for in the United States,
last for seventy five years from the creation of the work,
unless it's a work for higher right years, right, So yeah,
a work for higher would be last even longer, and
most of these, I guess would be considered work for high,
(09:46):
which is why I brought it up. That's a good point.
So in other words, this is software that is going
to be is still protected by copyright and will be
for pretty much our lifetime, right, I mean, some of
us might get really lucky to maybe the Singularity will hit,
and it won't, that won't be a problem. But at
that point, who's playing video games? But if you wanted
(10:07):
to play Space War, you're probably in fairly decent shape
because that was created so much earlier than this stuff. Yeah,
the games that were created in the eighties. Um, even
our our younger listeners would have problems with this all
the way through. So by legal definition, strictly, going by that,
(10:27):
it is not there's no real recourse unless the copyright
holder gives permission for distribution or releases the copyright into
the public domain. Now at that point, you know, it's
weird to call the software abandoned ware, because abandonware really
means this software that doesn't have really any support or
(10:51):
or access through legitimate channels, So it's not like it's
abandoned where that point is just public to main work,
so it becomes more like shareware in a way. But
a copyright holder does have that option. Uh, And in
some cases you you see companies take advantage of old, old,
(11:11):
old libraries of content and repackage them and and market
them again, which would mean that you wouldn't want to
host those abandoned ware games on your site, for example,
because they are actually making money from this old content
and there are legitimate ways to get hold of it.
A good example of that as Atari, because you've got
(11:34):
the old Atari games that get repackaged occasionally as an
app for a smartphone or tablet device. Also, you get
some console games that will occasionally come out. They'll be
like the best of and it will be whatever the
old company was. Like, you can even get a version
of the I you really want it. Yeah, but that's
a little oh new one. They're making new ones now,
(11:56):
is that on thinking? I'm not sure the Dreamcast was.
Somebody told me recently that they saw a new quote
unquote new packaged with some of the early games. That's
basically a relieve the past. That's the whole retro thing.
But they're there hundreds and hundreds of computer titles, PC titles,
(12:18):
Windows titles, do space titles even that, Uh, well, we'll
probably never re emerge. And so the question comes, well,
what's the best way of handling this. There are a
lot of sites out there that are dedicated to abandoned ware,
and these sites are the really the ones that are
(12:38):
more legitimate, and I used the phrase loosely because again
we're talking about violating copyright one way or the other.
But the ones that are more concerned with offering people
the chance to play games that are the equivalent to
being out of print or otherwise unavailable, um, they're very
much about not hosting what are also called wares Wares
(13:01):
would be kinds of software that's essentially pirated or duplicated
that's readily available on the market today. Basically the copy
protection has been cracked and you can use it. You know,
when I say freely, I don't mean you're allowed to
use it. I mean you don't have to code. So.
But but the more the more legitimate abandoned ware sites
(13:23):
will only host games that you cannot get through any
other means unless you were defined like someone selling an
old copy. But you know that you wouldn't be able
to go to the publisher and buy it because sometimes
the publisher doesn't even exist. Well, um, there are there
are people out there who, in some of them are
content creators, who say there should be a more streamlined
(13:46):
way too for for companies to release abandoned ware so
that there isn't this, uh, this legal barrier, especially considering
the fact that software changes much more rapidly than say, print,
and uh. One of them is Greg Castickian. Now do
you know who? Have you ever heard of? Greg Castickian.
He's a He's a game designer who designs not just
(14:07):
computer games but also role playing games. His name is
really familiar to me, and I'm gonna go ah as
soon as you say, well, he's He's designed a lot
of stuff. Most of it is kind of has a
has sort of a satirical or otherwise humorous uh slant
to it. For example, he created an role playing game
(14:28):
called Tune back in nineteen four where you played as
a cartoon character within a cartoon episode. Every single adventure
was modeled after the idea of a seven minute cartoon episode,
and you would have the capabilities of a cartoon character,
and you would have friends and enemies within the cartoon,
and you could do these outlandish things. It was hilarious.
(14:50):
He also created a game called Paranoia, which was all
about a post apocalyptic uh society where you live in
a a essentially like a a biodome kind of thing,
and a computer controls everything, but the computer is crazy
and paranoid and thinks everyone is out to get him,
and pretty much everyone is out to get him. And
(15:10):
then but anyway, they hope because al right, the whole
purpose of the game was to create this idea of paranoia. Well,
this guy, who created several different computer games as well,
said that actually, have a quote. Software is about as
ephemeral as you can get, yet preserving it is essential.
Illegal abandoned ware sites are providing a critical service to
(15:31):
game designers and scholars and gaming enthusiasts. They do, not, however,
provide a lasting and satisfactory solution to the problem because
they are illegal. So he was maintaining the point of
these old games that exist are important, and they're important
culturally because some of them were what helped usher in
(15:52):
the era of personal computers in the first place. I mean,
you know, personal computers were great for productivity, but there's
no denying that video games. Computer games really drove the
industry as well. And as the the technology advances, our
ability to access those old games decreases, and he says,
that's that's a shame. There should be a way to
preserve that. And also, as he points out, game designers,
(16:15):
you know, some of these old games are very primitive
when it comes to the graphics or the sound, But
a lot of them had very innovative gameplay or very
compelling storylines and are great lessons for game designers to
to learn from. Sure, you know, I would argue the
old Ultimate series, for example, is a very valuable series
(16:38):
for people who want to create a storyline that spans
several episodes and has a very kind of deep um
and and immersive quality to it. Now, I should also
had that the Ultimate Series has regularly been released in
packages where you could buy it legitimately, So don't go
out there and start piotying games, look and make sure
(17:00):
or first before that, make sure there's a legitimate way
of getting it, and go that way before ever going
with abandoned ware route. But but yeah, as a producer
of games, he was pointing out that this is a
valuable service that abandoned weare sites are giving us that
without it, we would lose these games. And you know,
(17:22):
unless some company was like, hey, we need to roll
out another product or we're not going to hit our
revenue this year, what titles do we have in the
vault that we could package together hastily and then shove
out the door. And occasionally you see that happen. Well,
it would be nice if some of the people who
own the copyrights to these would release these these programs
(17:42):
in some form um. You know, the the app stores
for the mobile devices have proven that, you know, even
even software that costs one or two dollars for a
copy of it can still make a decent amount of money.
And you know, some of these titles are languishing an
obscurity when you know, people might really be willing to
(18:05):
pay one to five dollars for an opportunity to play
it again. It's not really a lot of money for
most people, and they might relish the opportunity to give
it another shot. I think we have the opportunity to
actually see that happen now because digital distribution is a reality, right,
Like Chris and I can both remember a time where
you would go to your local computer store or electronics
(18:27):
store and there would always be that bin of the
old games that that were four three or four generations
behind the current stuff that's up on the shelves, and
you would sort through that ben and just look to
see if there were any hidden gems in there, and
then you find something like, oh, I always wanted to
play that, and you pick it up, and you know,
you might get a copy of Civilization that way. But
(18:48):
that was back in the old day where you would
get like the floppy disks I was thinking you were
talking about during the video game console crash, when you
would go into your corner drugs store and there would
be a bin of really horrible Attari cartridges for you know,
a dollar, the same sort of thing where they were
just unloading their inventory. But those days are are you know,
(19:11):
pretty much disappearing because you get to digital distribution, You
get to the era of the c D really started
to decrease it, but then digital distribution has has taken
a big hit on it too. But that also gives
the opportunity for companies to put potentially put up old
titles for you know, like the same price that you
would have for an app for for a smartphone. So
(19:34):
let's say that you throw up Mule, the old Mule game,
or ARCon ARCon Yeah, put those old us Populus, yes, um,
put these old games up on or battle Chess, these
old games up so that you can buy them for
like cents or whatever and and have you know, maybe
(19:55):
package it with a free emulator if you need it.
Because some of these old games will not on on
your current system unless first put through an emulator. I
have old machines for strictly that purpose. And before before
you write in and say, you know, why do you
want people to spend this money, this property should be free, Well,
that's an option too. It would be really cool if they,
if these companies will released these games into the public domain. However,
(20:20):
I think they might have more incentive if uh they
charged a small price and then they would get something
in return for it. It's sort of like the Chris
Anderson's long tail and the online stores versus the brick
and mortar stores. I mean, if you put that up
for digital distribution, it could stay there virtually forever. You're
(20:42):
still going to be a handful of people that are
willing to fork over a couple of bucks for it. Yeah,
and and I think I think that solution really provides
an elegant approach to this complicated issue because you've got,
for one thing, you know, it gives an incentive to
these companies to share this old stuff that you can't
otherwise get. Um and and people can relive like that
(21:04):
moment from their childhood when they played this one game
that they loved and now they can't they can't get
it anymore. Um. It also gives the the you know,
it gives the fans what they want. It's not prohibitively
expensive if you go with this this micro payment kind
of app approach. Um. And also it tells companies what
(21:26):
people are interested in. If you were to create an
a section of your site, for example, that hosted the
old titles for cheap purchase, and you saw that one
of those titles was getting hit like crazy, people were
just buying it up, you might think, you know, we
could probably do a follow up, like just do an
incredible follow up that is based on the same premise
(21:49):
of this original game, maybe not a remake, but even
perhaps a long awaited sequel and clean up, because we
didn't realize there was this interest in this old title
that we owned. Now, this does not solve the problem
for those titles where the ownership is up in the air,
like no one knows who owns this anymore. Those that's
still you're gonna you're still gonna have that problem where
(22:11):
if there's a title where you're not really sure that
the is the copyright holder of the guy who made
it is it this other company. Is it a company
that bought you know, bought a company that bought a
company that bought a company. That's where you start getting
two issues where these games maybe hopelessly mired in red tape.
That's just it's until you figure out who is the
(22:32):
owner of that copyright and who has the authority to
do this, it will never happen. And that you know,
the abandoned ware approach is pretty much the only way
you're gonna get hold of those games. Um, and it's
not a legitimate way. Yeah, now, okay, this is from
the from the perspective of the law. I'm sorry I
should say that, because sometimes I'm like, hey, you know what,
I love that game. I bought that game, I played
(22:54):
that game. There's no way for me to get it,
and my sense of entitlement is crying out. Before we
get to the end of the episode, I need to
take another quick break and thank our sponsor. Well, this
is where things get interesting. Um. Let's say you have
(23:18):
um an old at and you bought a copy of
Yards Revenge, and you have the machine, and you've got
the the game. It's it's in your basement, it's in
a box. But you got it, it's in storage unfortunately
doesn't work anymore, or you don't have an adapter, and
(23:40):
you really can't play because the machine is dead. But
I know, hey, it's a museum piece. So you hold
onto it and then you find an emulator for your
computer with yours Revenge where you can play the a
version of it. The thing is from what I understand. Again,
keep in mind, I'm not a lawyer, but theoretically, from
what I understand, you're entitled to play that because you
(24:01):
have a copy of the game. You already paid for it,
you have a copy of the game in your possession,
You're legally entitled to play it. Because the reason I
get this is from the disclaimers on the main sites.
They say that if you have a copy of the ROMs, basically,
if you have the guts of the arcade machine, the chips,
then legally you can play it a game. Otherwise you
(24:23):
are that's why they haven't been shut down. Yeah, Otherwise,
you're only supposed to hold onto a ROM up to
twenty four hours, and then after that you're supposed to
delete it. Yes you you Yeah, you as a person
who downloaded the ROM from that site, not not the
sites themselves, But if you own a legal copy of
the ROM, you're supposed to be able to play it
(24:43):
even if the machine that you had it on. Now,
I imagine that's there. There's some probably legal gray area where,
you know, if if the copyright police they don't exist.
But hey, the copyright police come to your house. They
wait a minute. You're is broken. You're not supposed to
play it on your home computer. Are supposed to play
on this machine. You're in trouble man. The thing is,
(25:04):
for one thing, there aren't any copyright police, not specifically
copyright police. And you know, for a lot of people,
this just people aren't gonna bother doing it. I mean,
they're not gonna sue Jonathan because you know that's the thing.
They say that you can sue anybody in America for anything,
but generally people sue people who have money. So so
(25:25):
they're not going to come out. Yeah, they're not gonna
come after Jonathan or me for doing that unless they
really believe that they can prosecute us with good cause
and are going to get something. You know, this worth
putting the time and money into a legal case for
doing this. And and that's even more so for these
companies and organizations that don't exist. And that's why that's
(25:47):
the biggest case I've seen for making abandoned ware and legal.
Basically saying, hey, company X doesn't exist, this is a
great game, I want to play it. I would give
them twenty dollars if they were still around, but there's
no way to pay please. You know, technically, technically it's illegal. Yeah. Yeah,
and the law, by the letter of the law, it's illegal.
(26:07):
And again, if if the copyright holder doesn't pursue any
action against you, then you're in the clear. And in
in almost every single case that's gonna be. That's gonna
be what happens if you if you run an abandoned
ware site, you might occasionally get a takedown notice from
a copyright holder, and then of course you should very
much adhere to that if you don't want to encounter
(26:29):
legal difficulties. It used to have pants and if you
have them, suit off of you. Yeah. By the way,
it gets drafty. Here's here's a pop quiz. Hot shot,
so hot shot. Yeah, the guy who the guy who
made Yards Revenge, he made another very famous Atari game.
Do you know what it was? Who was the main
Yards Avenge. It was Howard Scott Warsaw, the actual game
(26:52):
designer who don't e t the extraterrestrial. I don't blame him.
He was something very quickly, but yes, one of the
yards Revenge was one of the games that was considered
to be a big hit with his Hardy twenty six hundred,
followed by a game that that often people credit as
(27:16):
killing not just the Autori, but the video game industry,
the home video game industry as a whole in nine three.
He was just following orders. That was just some trivia
for all of you guys. So lest you think we
are telling you to run out and download all the
abandoned where you want and play it, we're not telling
you to do that because that would be illegal. What
we're telling you is there's some awesome games that are
(27:38):
out there, and some of them are hosted on abandoned
ware sites, and man, those games are neat and you
know what, I'm pretty sure the copyright holders wouldn't come
after you, But don't do it. If you don't really
go back and redo that you if you do that,
it would be technically ill. Yes, it is technically illegal,
(27:58):
whether or not a shame, whether or not. It's unethical
is another question. Unethical and illegal are two different things. Yeah,
and unethical that's a weird question too. Yeah, because again,
if there's if there's no one to pay, then those
games essentially are forgotten. They're gone. You might as well
do the same thing, like this book came out in
(28:19):
nineteen eighty, we're locking it away in this library and
you have no access to the library. In fact, no
one has any access to the library, and it's it's
gonna stay there in the library. So you could have
access to it if we opened up the door, but
we're not gonna see That's that's an issue, right because
then you're like, well, what's the point of it even
existing if no one can use it? So yeah, there's
(28:41):
there is an the ethical and the ethical standpoints different
from the legality standpoint. This is definitely a technology issue too,
because if you really want to read Beowulf, there's a
copy in print somewhere, probably it's a local bookstore, possibly
in a used bookstore. It's not even gettingto that. But
it's also the thing is you can find a copy
(29:02):
of it. You can download it for free on the
internet because it's out of copyright I'm pretty sure it's
in the public domain, I would think. But the thing
about it is for the technology behind these games, you
know that that is one of the issues behind it.
And there's there's the other thing too. Uh. In case
you're saying, well, you're just talking about games, really, do
(29:22):
you want to you want to download a copy of
physicalc so you can run that? Really? Yeah, that's the
the other part of that. I mean, people don't Adobe
won't necessarily support Photoshop three. Um, you could probably find
a copy of it somewhere out there, but you know,
I would consider that to an effect abandoned where too,
because they've moved so far beyond that point. It's been
(29:44):
on a print for so many years, you're on your own. Um.
But legally, if you've downloaded a copy of it, a
cracked copy of it online, you'd be in the same boat.
But the reason we're talking about games predominantly is because
that's the stuff that people go back to. Ye. The
reason that people in a lot of cases keep old
gaming machines around just because every once in a while
that nostalgia thing hits. But I don't think you find
(30:06):
it for something like a spreadsheet or work for a
legacy issue, in which case that could be In some
cases that's that's an issue too. But I think I
think it's used more abandoned wears more in the minds
of a lot of people for games simply because there's
that nostalgia and retro factor. Yeah, I'm thinking back to
(30:26):
some of the games I I used to love to
play that I would I would really enjoy seeing an
updated version of that game, or or having the ability
to play the old one again, like um Tie Fighter. Yeah,
and now that one has a double whamy against it, right,
because it's a licensed game, not just a not just
not just the fact that you've got the software and everything,
(30:47):
but you've got the actual content that's all. Yeah, that's
a much more complex situation. Well, it was LucasArts. It
was Lucas Arts, so great game, fantastic game. Wish that
they would come out with a new one. And then
there's hint, Well you've seen you've seen the success of
the Monkey Island franchisees it's renewed and Island and Oregon
Trail as it has popped up on Facebook and and on. Yeah,
(31:12):
but I mean that's the funny thing about some of
the stuff. Um can be updated and refreshed and people
and added dimension things that she couldn't do thirty years ago. Um,
there's no there's some such good reason to update and
keep these things around, right and and again, like I said,
if they took my approach where they host that abandoned
(31:33):
where they reclaimed the abandoned ware and host it for
super cheap, they might be able to find out what
trends people are really gravitating toward, and that could help
them design their next game. It's all part of Jonathan's
plot to take over the world. Look, there's certain games
I want to play, and I'm desperately trying to get
them to back my plans so that I can. I
can shut shut. I'll hand over the money. I am
(31:55):
more than happy to purchase this game. Well, that wraps
up abandoned ware for the time being. Of course, we're
seeing software getting abandoned all the time. Things just sometimes
peter out, So I'll probably do a follow up on
this in the future. But if you've got any suggestions
for topics I should tackle, make sure you let me
know about them. Go visit our website, It's tech stuff
podcast dot com. You'll find all the different ways to
(32:17):
contact me there. I greatly appreciate hearing from you guys,
and I look forward to it. Also, don't forget to
visit t public dot com slash tech stuff. That's where
you can find the merchandise store. Every single purchase you
make goes to help the show. We've got stickers, t shirts,
tote bags, all sorts of different stuff with lots of
different designs, So please check that out and I'll talk
(32:38):
to you again really soon. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot
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