Apple Barrel

hardware: Keyboard,

display: text

Apple Barrel is a collection 25 applications including 9 games and a terrible instruction manual that attempts to be more entertaining than the games (that's not a very high bar to begin with). The manual includes apocryphal information. It comes on disk and cassette and the manual has complete listings of each application's code with hand written notes for the numerous errors in the printing. At the beginning of the manual the copyright is explained in fine print and includes an unusual no profitable use clause. Some of the applications are utilities designed for profitable use. Later in the manual in the midst of poor humor, there is a long explanation that encourages users to modify the code and include the code in their derivative works. This long explanation makes no mention of copyright or profitable use. Taken together, there is a coherent copyright statement to be discerned that is not contradictory in itself, but it takes more effort than should be necessary. Because of this effort and the profitable use for tools clearly designed for it, this game is tagged as having a vague license. I have a suspicion, and no proof, that everything on the disk is actually Public Domain that the publisher has claimed as their own.

Apple Barrel II is a different version of the package by a different publisher. It differs in the software it provides but not the games. Although, I cannot verify the games are not updated in some way, the same games provided by both packages. Thus, this entry applies to both.

zerothis # 2021-02-04 12:51:05