Paul Vigay software

Now that Paul is gone (RIP), its software is lost in space.
There is no way to download it from France, with any web browser or any operating system.

Is there a way to ask the right people if it’s possible to put this software in a safer place? And perhaps to relicence it in GPL to help the community?

I could manage hosting, updates, etc, on RISCOS.fr website. For free of course. But I need authorization and files.

Thanks.

Not sure what you mean with ‘no way to download it from France’. I’m not in Britain either and I can download Paul’s software (on the vigay.com site) without any problems. And judging by the list of items under “What’s New”, that site is still being maintained.

http://www.vigay.com/software/index.html
Last update was 2009 02 17… 3 days… before he dies.
The website is not maintained (as RISCOS.org).

Each click for a download brings me now to a “NON RISC OS web browser detected” (even on RISC OS), followed by a code, that seems not to work anymore.

70 less software for the RISC OS 32 community.

I just tried. No problem from firefox on a Windows vista machine. You do need to enter an anti-spam code though.

Each click for a download brings me now to a “NON RISC OS web browser detected” (even on RISC OS), followed by a code, that seems not to work anymore.

Just downloaded SiteMap using a PC running Firefox.
Random choice of file.

Not tried on a RO browser but as I recall the code is only for non-RO browsers.

The code and the downloads works here.

Last update was 2009 02 17… 3 days… before he dies.

Look at the main page vigay.com (that’s the one I mentioned). Most recent date under “What’s New” is a little over two months ago. This site is being maintained.

Most recent update on riscos.org: April 2013.

that seems not to work anymore.

Works like a charm. Tried it before I wrote my previous message, of course.

There is no way to download it from France, with any web browser or any operating system.

Just downloaded ArcLink5. Went to a page with an anti-spam code because I’m not using a RISC OS browser (I wonder if it understands NetSurf can be RISC OS? ;-) ). Entering the code, download appears, and then the software arrives.
Location: Brittany/Loire-Atlantique, via Orange France ADSL.

And perhaps to relicence it in GPL to help the community?

That’s a minefield. As he is dead, the copyright should – I think – pass to his surviving family. Was he married? Do these people care or understand what the significance is? Would they even want this to be dragged up now?
I say this because people cannot just arbitrarily “relicence” anything. Only the copyright holder, whoever that is, can do this.

Somebody is still maintaining the site. Perhaps this somebody might like to tone down the anti-PC messages as they kind of don’t hold true any more. RISC OS kicked ass over Windows 3.1×. RISC OS held its own against Windows95. Then? Let’s just say I’m not using RISC OS right now, nor will I later to watch Noragami.
Anyway, isn’t the definition of “best” simply the one that does the things you want in the simplest fashion? For animé, internet, and such – I find Windows “best”. For programming assembler, I find ARM (esp. with RISC OS) “best”. For writing documents, both are equally “best” as both run OvationPro so frankly I don’t care much (unless I need squiggles in which case Windows wins).
Suffice to say – “It will not work on Windows, Mac OS, Linux or any other inferior operating system. […] If you want the best computer platform around, then buy an ARM based, RISC OS powered computer.” – is a laughable anachronism from a time long long ago.

It’s a shame about Disc Commander. That might be an interesting tool to develop further if it was open-sourced. As it is, it is shareware with a demo on Paul’s site which links to Digital Phenomena Ltd; which links back to Paul’s version…

I have inherited (with full knowledge and permission from his family) all Paul’s old software (including sources), but not access to all his servers, so whilst there might be issues with some people having difficulty getting to it, if people have specific requests please feel free to contact me at a.m.conroy@owlart.co.uk

I did plan on trying to update them etc., but trying to make sense of someone else’s code in your spare time whilst fitting everything else in just didn’t happen. Maybe I’ll try and get all the latest versions (when I can even sort out what is the latest from the tangle of sources I have) up on !Store but people will still need unlock codes from me.

Regarding the vigay.com site, I don’t think it’s being actively maintained beyond that necessary to keep it online, Paul had various scripts which update news etc. automatically I believe, which are still functioning, making it look like it’s more active than it really is. The family wishes were that as many of his sites as possible should be maintained in the form that they were, rather than being taken down or changed radically.

Yes, that was what I was thinking: automatic updates. I confirm that here, from Iyonix with Netsurf, or from PC with Chrome, IE or Firefox, I get every time a form with a password and then the message “invalid IP”. Nothing else. No download.

ISP: Alice/France.

I understand that Paul’s family wants to keep the websites ‘as is’. But they will die, as the software that is on it. Because the web evolves and hardware too. Should we say ’it’s lost’ or should we try to keep the websites for historical issue AND extract the things that can be usable and let someone else, on another site, to make them a new place?

The same could be said for other projects: AppBasic, YouMustBeJoking, etc.
Today, for 1 software made, 10 titles are lost.

Andrew:

I have inherited (with full knowledge and permission from his family) all Paul’s old software (including sources),

Well, that’s good to know.

I did plan on trying to update them etc., but trying to make sense of someone else’s code in your spare time whilst fitting everything else in just didn’t happen.

Oh, been there, done that. I rather suspect the way a person writes code is almost like a fingerprint, and it’s the dumbest little things that can throw you off. I once spend two days reformatting a program that put the ‘{’ at the ends of lines, and used no indentation whatsoever. It was a horrible job, but once it was done, I could finally read the program!

Would you consider releasing the sources for things that don’t need unlock codes? Maybe some of us could be willing to work on a “pet project” instead of dropping the lot on your lap? Think of it like distributed processing. ;-)

David:

I get every time a form with a password and then the message “invalid IP”. Nothing else. No download.
ISP: Alice/France.

I wonder if your ISP is doing something weird with IP addresses?
There probably isn’t much we can do without seeing the script on Paul’s site to understand why it is rejecting your IP address.
Do you know what your WAN IP address is? [not the 192.168.×.x one] If not, pop over to http://www.heyrick.co.uk/blog/ and read it off the top right. Maybe knowing what address you have been allocated could shed some light on this?

But they will die, as the software that is on it.

Oh, wow. A little ray of sunshine, you! :-P

Didn’t you notice Andrew saying that he has taken on the software? So it isn’t “lost”, just… in stasis.

Today, for 1 software made, 10 titles are lost.

Probably nothing compared to how many the 26/32bit issue wiped out, and the subsequent unaligned-loads issue. It might be less of a problem if this stuff happened in Acorn’s time and people just were expected to upgrade (as with Windows, etc); but happening this much later on… there’s a lot of stuff that will require tricks and pseudo-emulation to get working… when all it might need is a few tweaks and rebuilding.
You know, I’d love to have Zarch running natively on the Pi. Wouldn’t that be something…

I wonder if your ISP is doing something weird with IP addresses?
There probably isn’t much we can do without seeing the script on Paul’s site to understand why it is rejecting your IP address.

Let’s guess. Because it relies on old lists of servers, made when free.fr was blacklisted by mistake, just because free = nest of spammers (free.fr as nothing to do with a free email service). Alice is Free in France, so they share the same set of IP address.

You know, I’d love to have Zarch running natively on the Pi. Wouldn’t that be something

There’s some benchmarks of it running natively on the Pi here

Let’s guess. Because it relies on old lists of servers, made when free.fr was blacklisted by mistake

Could be your IP address belongs to one of the previously unallocated ranges. If there’s an old bogon list on Paul’s site…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogon_filtering

These days all ranges have been assigned, so bogon filters should no longer be used.

There’s some benchmarks of it running natively on the Pi here

Running under an assisted emulation/compatibility layer != running natively.

The clue is in the wording “Native: 714 fps”

The clue is in the wording “Native: 714 fps”

I wasn’t aware that anybody had disassembled and 32-bitted Zarch (or, indeed, has the sources to do it properly). I wonder where the native timings come from?

Especially re. “It’s impressive to see how well the StrongARM scales, considering it’s seeing 10,000 Data Aborts every second with self-modifying support enabled.”.

Oh, and:
(Pi) “Native: 285 MHz”
So basically you take off, whizz around the entire map twice and then crash into a tree…in the time it takes to blink? (^_^)

Could be your IP address belongs to one of the previously unallocated ranges. If there’s an old bogon list on Paul’s site…

Yes, probably…

I’m interested in the Psion link application. Not sure if it will work on a Pi though.

I’m interested in the Psion link application. Not sure if it will work on a Pi though.

“The DTR and RTS handshaking lines are both raised when the PLP is enabled and dropped when it is subsequently disabled. However, only the DSR line should be monitored to detect activity.”
[http://www.thouky.co.uk/software/psifs/plp.html]

The ARM boards don’t tend to provide more than RxD and TxD on their serial ports… :-(

The ARM boards don’t tend to provide more than RxD and TxD on their serial ports… :-(

However, if you find a serial board ad-on the does do the handshake…