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Acorn Arcade forums: News and features: APDL make their PD catalogue available for free download
 

APDL make their PD catalogue available for free download

Posted by Jeffrey Lee on 14:15, 25/3/2010 | , ,
 
APDLAPDL, long-time distributor of Public Domain and not-so Public Domain software, have taken the next logical step from distributing their PD/freeware collection on floppy disc or CD and have begun distributing it online instead. Apart from the obvious advantage to the end-user of being able to access the software immediately, APDL have also decided to forgoe charging any nominal download fees, making the archive truly free.
 
Of course the age of much of the software is likely to make its relevance somewhat limited (especially if it's not 32bit compatible, or even StrongARM compatible) - but by making the archive available free of charge APDL have given Acorn preservation enthusiasts a big helping hand, and for that this move should be applauded.
 
APDL point out that not all the software from their PD/freeware catalogue has found its way online yet, so some patience may be necessary if your favourite bit of software is missing.
 
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  APDL make their PD catalogue available for free download
  This is a long thread. Click here to view the threaded list.
 
David Holden Message #113803, posted by apdl at 12:57, 26/3/2010
Member
Posts: 138
I just uploaded about another 250 discs this morning. Will try to do some more over the next few days.

There are also hundreds of Tracker files in the library which appear on the PD-2 CD. I haven't bothered with these so far but if anyone's interested I'll try to make them available too.
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Jason Togneri Message #113804, posted by filecore at 14:05, 26/3/2010, in reply to message #113803

Posts: 3868
I just uploaded about another 250 discs this morning. Will try to do some more over the next few days.
Just out of curiosity, how many are there in total?
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David Holden Message #113806, posted by apdl at 14:23, 26/3/2010, in reply to message #113804
Member
Posts: 138
2581 disc images. Some of these will be duplicates (e.g. where there are both HD and DD versions) and some will be things that aren't worth preserving. However this doesn't include stuff which was only sold as individual files like Tracker tunes.
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Andrew Poole Message #113807, posted by andypoole at 14:30, 26/3/2010, in reply to message #113803
andypoole
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There are also hundreds of Tracker files in the library which appear on the PD-2 CD. I haven't bothered with these so far but if anyone's interested I'll try to make them available too.
I'd be interested in these. I lost my collection of tracker files when a hard disc died last year unhappy

Andy.
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Martin Bazley Message #113818, posted by swirlythingy at 18:01, 26/3/2010, in reply to message #113807

Posts: 460
There are also hundreds of Tracker files in the library which appear on the PD-2 CD. I haven't bothered with these so far but if anyone's interested I'll try to make them available too.
I'd be interested in these. I lost my collection of tracker files when a hard disc died last year unhappy
I'd definitely be interested.
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Ralph Corderoy Message #113819, posted by ralph at 19:14, 26/3/2010, in reply to message #113803
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Posts: 6
+1 for the Trackers. They're still useful, and on non-RISC OS systems too. Thanks for the effort David.
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Jason Togneri Message #113821, posted by filecore at 19:54, 26/3/2010, in reply to message #113819

Posts: 3868
+1 for the Trackers. They're still useful, and on non-RISC OS systems too. Thanks for the effort David.
Yep, count me in too, and thanks also for the work you're putting in. Your effort will be appreciated by a lot of people, I'm sure!
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Blind Moose Message #113824, posted by Acornut at 20:32, 26/3/2010, in reply to message #113821
Acornut No-eye-deer (No Idea)

Posts: 487
Your effort will be appreciated by a lot of people, I'm sure!
Seconded, or should that be, thirded? grin
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Jason Togneri Message #113825, posted by filecore at 21:37, 26/3/2010, in reply to message #113824

Posts: 3868
Seconded, or should that be, thirded?
No, it should not be. When dealing with discrete human beings, each one can merely 'second' something. I hate seeing 'thirded' on forums and suchlike; it betrays such a shallow grasp of grammar and linguistic function.
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David Holden Message #113826, posted by apdl at 07:06, 27/3/2010, in reply to message #113824
Member
Posts: 138
I didn't think there'd be much interest in the music files but as there obviously is I'll certainly make them available.

However it will be a while as a quick count showed 324 Maestro, 1587 Digital Symphony and 1866 various Tracker files in the catalogue so it will take some time to sort them out.
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Jason Togneri Message #113827, posted by filecore at 07:20, 27/3/2010, in reply to message #113826

Posts: 3868
I didn't think there'd be much interest in the music files but as there obviously is I'll certainly make them available.
The last big thing that RISC OS was commercially viable for was music production (Sibelius in particular) and there are a lot of people from the music community who are famililar with RISC OS - so in a way, I guess it's not really a surprise.
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Blind Moose Message #113828, posted by Acornut at 09:03, 27/3/2010, in reply to message #113825
Acornut No-eye-deer (No Idea)

Posts: 487
Seconded, or should that be, thirded?
No, it should not be.... (bombastic).
Ahh! Sorry, just checked again, should have been, fifthded !! laugh
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Chris Williams Message #113833, posted by diodesign at 15:46, 28/3/2010, in reply to message #113803
diodesign
The Opposition

Posts: 269
A month or so ago I posted a message to suggest that if Dave is serious about RISC OS, he could make copies of his PD CDs available for download for a small fee - I didn't expect him to dump his collection online for free download, a pleasant surprise. There's a serious amount of nostalgia right there, even for people like me who no longer use the OS.
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Jason Togneri Message #113834, posted by filecore at 16:40, 28/3/2010, in reply to message #113833

Posts: 3868
A month or so ago I posted a message to suggest that if Dave is serious about RISC OS, he could make copies of his PD CDs available for download for a small fee
This should really have been the way to go some years back. Sell many at a low per-unit price, or sell very few at a high per-unit price. The last remnants of the Acorn market chose the latter, when arguably the former would have yielded higher commercial success. While I'm happy about this action and hope that things shape up, there's a little bit of too little, too late about it.
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George Greenfield Message #113837, posted by Bucksboy at 17:26, 28/3/2010, in reply to message #113834
Member
Posts: 91
"..there's a little bit of too little, too late about it."
Let's hope not. I've been following the various threads on the ROOL Forum for over a year, and it's quite noticeable how the activity levels are increasing, both in terms of the number of projects and the number of people involved. Whereas the outstanding Jeffrey Lee was a lone voice in the wilderness a year ago, now getting on for a dozen regular posters are pushing various porting and other projects forward, and I think there'd be pretty short odds on at least one Iyonix replacement becoming available as a genuinely usable RISC OS computer before the end of 2010. Of course this does support your main point regarding relative cost.
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Jason Togneri Message #113838, posted by filecore at 17:45, 28/3/2010, in reply to message #113837

Posts: 3868
I think there'd be pretty short odds on at least one Iyonix replacement becoming available as a genuinely usable RISC OS computer before the end of 2010.
Okay, I don't really follow the ROOL stuff (I'm only vaguely aware of the work on Beagleboard, OMAP, IPEGv2 et al) but we've heard this sort of talk before. Whatever the intentions, these things almost invariably seem to get drawn out so thin they vanish, or they get cancelled due to politics/finances/trolling/piracy/whatever. Do you really think it's that realistic?
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George Greenfield Message #113839, posted by Bucksboy at 21:23, 28/3/2010, in reply to message #113838
Member
Posts: 91
Yes.
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David Holden Message #113911, posted by apdl at 07:40, 4/4/2010, in reply to message #113839
Member
Posts: 138
There are also hundreds of Tracker files in the library which appear on the PD-2 CD. I haven't bothered with these so far but if anyone's interested I'll try to make them available too.
Since there seemed to be quite a bit of interest I've just finished uploading all the Tracker, Maestro, Digital Symphony etc. files. Thousands of them.

Have fun.
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Blind Moose Message #113912, posted by Acornut at 12:00, 4/4/2010, in reply to message #113911
Acornut No-eye-deer (No Idea)

Posts: 487
Have fun.
Drool Great stuff! Thanks David,grin:
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Trevor Johnson Message #113914, posted by trevj at 08:45, 6/4/2010, in reply to message #113911
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Posts: 660
Nice one - thanks! This is a really great resource smile
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Anthony Davies Message #114008, posted by adavies at 10:09, 19/4/2010, in reply to message #113914
Member
Posts: 2
Haha, i fond this pretty cool, there are some guys calling themsevles acorn antiques who have put it on the Piratebay, i suppose thats good becos it takes the load of the apdl server!! its at http://thepiratebay.org/user/antiques/
________
Anthony davies
proud riscos user since 1996
riscpc / 4.39 / 2mb vram
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David Holden Message #114016, posted by apdl at 09:02, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114008
Member
Posts: 138
Since someone has spent a lot of time stealing a lot of my stuff and "making it available for posterity" I'd expected this. When I wrote the programs to create all the archives I made sure that quite a lot of them contained garbage and others were deliberately corrupted. Hopefully lots of freetards will grab this 1.3GB torrent and then find out that a lot of the bits they really want either aren't there or are corrupted smile

Of course, now that most people with RISC OS don't bother with virus checking I might have taken the opportunity to introduce a few of those as well.

Anyway, thanks to the activity of this scumbag (yes, I do know who you are) I've now withdrawn the whole thing. Perhaps I'll even name him so you'll all know who to blame.

If he owns up and apologises I might consider re-instating it but for now it's gone. Perhaps I might change my mind and make it available again when he grows up, reaches puberty and discovers girls (or more likely, given his social skills, sheep).
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vanpeebles Message #114017, posted by vanpeebles at 09:08, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114016
Member
Posts: 198
So you put viruses in the ones on your website?
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Andrew Poole Message #114018, posted by andypoole at 10:32, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114016
andypoole
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Since someone has spent a lot of time stealing a lot of my stuff and "making it available for posterity" I'd expected this. When I wrote the programs to create all the archives I made sure that quite a lot of them contained garbage and others were deliberately corrupted. Hopefully lots of freetards will grab this 1.3GB torrent and then find out that a lot of the bits they really want either aren't there or are corrupted smile
Well of the few I downloaded in the last few weeks (I'd probably have looked through it more, but I don't have that much free time these days), none of them seemed broken or corrupted. A few zipfiles were missing here and there, though.

Of course, now that most people with RISC OS don't bother with virus checking I might have taken the opportunity to introduce a few of those as well.
Yeah, but since versions of RISC OS > 3.5 (IIRC) run the vprotect module by default, they'll get a warning of any naughtiness in there. Anyone still using anywhere near that old an OS probably doesn't care much by now anyway.

Given that threat, though, maybe I should make a note to not buy anything from APDL in future for fear of being sold corrupt or virus ridden software. One does have to wonder why companies like to inconvenience legitimate users just to try and combat "piracy". It's usually the case that legit users get far more inconvenience for going about things the "right" way than the pirates do.

Shame I never got round to looking through the trackers/etc unhappy

Just my 2p.

Andy.
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Philip Webster Message #114019, posted by pwx at 11:31, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114016
Member
Posts: 227
I think the question of whether viruses were deliberately added to some of the downloadable files by Mr Holden needs answering.

If viruses were added then it needs to be made clear which parts of the archive were infected, for the sake of any users that may have downloaded the files with no intention of spreading them via p2p networks.
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Rob Kendrick Message #114020, posted by nunfetishist at 11:41, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114016
nunfetishist
Today's phish is trout a la creme.

Posts: 524
When I wrote the programs to create all the archives I made sure that quite a lot of them contained garbage and others were deliberately corrupted.
You mean, your program has a bug? smile

Of course, now that most people with RISC OS don't bother with virus checking I might have taken the opportunity to introduce a few of those as well.
According to Martin Hansen, RISC OS is virus free! Also, two wrongs don't make a right. And distributing viruses is illegal, where copyright infringement is simply a civil matter, so you'd be wronger.

If he owns up and apologises I might consider re-instating it but for now it's gone. Perhaps I might change my mind and make it available again when he grows up, reaches puberty and discovers girls (or more likely, given his social skills, sheep).
And that sort of language is /so/ likely to get people to agree with you, isn't it?
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Chris Evans Message #114021, posted by CJE at 11:51, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114019
CJE Micros chap
Posts: 228
I think the question of whether viruses were deliberately added to some of the downloadable files by Mr Holden needs answering.
I'm sure you are missunderstanding what Dave said, he said "... now that most people with RISC OS don't bother with virus checking I might have taken the opportunity to introduce a few of those as well." I read that as IF he'd known they were going to be pirated he'd have done that, not that he has.

Also I read it that the "quite a lot of them contained garbage and others were deliberately corrupted" was referring to the CDs not the web downloads!

Anyway I'm sure it is Dave (quite justifiably) just having a bit of grumble about Pirates.

[Edited by CJE at 11:52, 20/4/2010]
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Rob Kendrick Message #114022, posted by nunfetishist at 11:52, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114021
nunfetishist
Today's phish is trout a la creme.

Posts: 524
Anyway I'm sure it is Dave (quite justifiably) just having a bit of grumble about Pirates.
Yeah, especially given his built his business by selling other people's work.
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Philip Webster Message #114023, posted by pwx at 12:33, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114021
Member
Posts: 227

I'm sure you are missunderstanding what Dave said, he said "... now that most people with RISC OS don't bother with virus checking I might have taken the opportunity to introduce a few of those as well." I read that as IF he'd known they were going to be pirated he'd have done that, not that he has.
[Edited by CJE at 11:52, 20/4/2010]
Even so, deliberately introducing viruses would still have affected the innocent users who downloaded the archives without the intention of infringing copyright by redistributing over p2p. For anyone to think that deliberate virus infection is a legitimate course of action under any circumstances is a serious cause for concern in my opinion. It is both immoral and criminal.
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Andrew Hodgson Message #114024, posted by Andy_Hodgson at 13:32, 20/4/2010, in reply to message #114023
Member
Posts: 65
Whatever David's reasons are for his statement, what he has done is affect his business. People are going to unsure as to the quality of the software he is selling.
Grumbling and complaining about what a small percentage of people may or may not have done, is not the best way of conducting business.
I mean just ask that person that tried to revive Acorn, what an idiot he was.

Oh wait...
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Acorn Arcade forums: News and features: APDL make their PD catalogue available for free download