Date   : Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:13:05 +0100
From   : afra@... (Phill Harvey-Smith)
Subject: making replica acorn cards

On 19/04/2011 11:59, stuart wrote:
> I have been following some of the chat on this list about obtaining old
> Acorn cards, and I have a question. Why not just make some replica
> cards? And by that I mean exact copies down to track layout, IC
> placements and artwork.

IMHO, if you are going to do that you may as well update the design, for 
example with the 32K RAM card to use a single 32K SRAM.

I'm not really one for slavishly copying the past when a logical clone 
makes much more sense. This is one of the reasons that my Atom upgrades 
used more modern components, I can do in 3 chips what the original 
design does in about 15.

> Are these cards still under copyright? Does somebody actually bother
> with the idea of piracy of these cards? Or is it just that the chips
> are too hard to find?

In some cases the chips are harder to find / more power hungry than more 
modern replacements.

As for copyright/patent/trademark then possibly posibly not and if they 
are still covered, finding out who actually owns the rights could be 
somewhat challenging.

Cirtainly no one has come after me for the AtomClone, though there was 
an uncomfortable moment when Steve Fuber asked me about copyright, but 
his oppinion seemed to be that it should be available. Dunno about 
Sophie Wilson, I wasn't actually there when she was looking at the 
clone, but other reports are that she was somewhat perplexed that people 
still wanted to play with this stuff....

> I would be more than happy to get any number of old Acorn designs into
> a format that would allow people to send them off to places like PCB
> pool, but would people want this?

Possibly, I did wonder about building a System clone, main problem seems 
to be getting a eurocard backplane for a sensible price.....

Also choose your PCB package wisely.....my personal preference is Eagle 
but others may have different opinions on this....

Cheers.

Phill.