VERY RARE - FA or Buy It Now - Ralph Babel's "The Amiga Guru Book"!!!

[Iggy]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying; "Those who are good at stealing should do so?'

"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, defraud, cheat steal and on the side, teach gym?" Abbie Hoffman was selling himself and activism, not stealing the hard work of others, and was so happy with his life he later committed suicide.  You can be like him at any time.

Not respecting copyrights has damaged this community far worse the the Gould betrayal of Tramiel and Commodore.

So time to take a stand: Be an adult and act like one, or be like an adolescent acting out in an attempt to prove you can give the finger to the rest of the world.

Well, actually since stealing seems all the fashion in business and in politics, yes that actually is what I'm saying.
You don't actually think that guy was the source for any of the information in that book do you?
If that is a valid business model I'm going to go out and start collecting technical info that I have no part in producing, organize it and re-sell it.

Get over yourself.

If this was a significant issue all the author would have to do is issue take down notices to the servers this stuff is hosted on.

And, btw, are you going to start pretending now that big services like youtube aren't chock full of other people's creative property?

You know, when I was growing up, it used to be completely legal to make a copy of a album (say on cassette) so you could use it in a different device.
So legal, that my local library used to loan out copies they made.

Now that's illegal.

Frankly, somewhere along in our country's history personal freedoms and got tangled up with some poorly thought out ideas about property rights.

And it was not greatly to anyone's benefit.

Do not preach to me son, about growing up. For one thing I'm probably old enough to be your father.
And for another, I remember when young people had more sense than to run around like little Alex P. Keaton clones pulling there hair out going "Oh my God, you're violating the law".

Personally, while I don't smoke pot anymore, people like you make me want to light up a joint and then put it out in your eye.

And yes moderators, that statement IS meant to offend.

Because, sometimes it isn't reasonable to expect someone to respond politely when they have a punk questioning their maturity.

Edit - Ah, screw it. I'm putting myself in the time out corner.
You guys are beginning to get on my last nerve.
You know I can not presume to talk for them, but I think the people that left, did so because there are a significant number of idiots in the remaining community.
And there are time like this, when just being exposed to this kind of trite rubbish makes me feel like the exposure to it is making me dumber through its very contact.
So, to the more pathogenic of you, I bid goodnight.

[sprocket]

@ dan

Not to sound snide (but we all should focus on what we are good at).

So, this is a property rights issue and we are costing this guy money because this was going to be a perennial best seller?

Maybe its the '60s anarchist in me, but for some reason your argument makes me think of Abbie Hoffman's book "Steal This Book".

F'k it.
Freedom of information.

Dude!  This is an important book in Amiga programming circles.
Ralph self published it.  He didn't make a fortune.  No publishing company made anything.
Ralph had publicly talked about a 2nd edition revision as late as 7-8 years ago, but as soon as the scans showed up, it made it easy for him to decide not to bother since he had no reason to believe it wouldn't immediately be scanned too.

Wouldn't it be great if all information were free, sure, but someone has to know enough to put something of substance together, and their time and expertise should be worth enough to make it worth their while.

It's fine for Abbie Hoffman to tell people to steal HIS book, to inflict financial loss on a publishing corporation as a statement that's consistent with his political goals.

When someone is self publishing and supporting a niche platform that needs all the help it can get, it might be nice if others using that platform supported the effort by not pirating his book.  It's the same as pirating software.  If you want to the Amiga to die, keep encouraging piracy.

It makes me tired when some encourage piracy as a political statement about freedom when one of the main impacts of that action is destroying the community they claim to be part of.

[Thorham]

Do you not understand the concept of Copyright?

Sure I do, and I don't have scanned books that I don't have a physical copy of. I use other reference material: http://amigadev.elowar.com/. This would've been taken down very fast if Vesalia had a problem with it. Has been on-line for years now. Also, the autodocs are usually quite sufficient for many things.

then you can have an opinion on whether a scanned version is better than a paper version.

I can, and am legally able in my country, to have ANY opinion I want. No need for YOU to tell me what I may and may not do, thank you very much.

I own a real and valid copy of his book and see no need in a scanned version and I also have a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica.  You know they both have this old thing called an "Index."

It's great for you that you prefer physical copies, and they're great. I wish I had The Art of Computer Programming, but can't afford it right now. However, for reference manuals it's certainly a good thing to have a digital copy for getting to the information you're looking for faster. Don't see how that's so hard to understand.

I'm not advocating theft here. Buy a copy and get a digital version somehow. Or just buy the digital copy instead if available. Both options are obviously better than buying second hand, because the author won't see a dime then.

[danbeaver]

Dear Sir Iggy,

Have a good nights sleep, and when that middle finger gets tired, grandpa, try to find a useful purpose to create things you will be remember for, not the deeds that you regret. I believe the saying they use up North is, "Be a Mench."

[nicholas]

1. Go to Google.com
2. Enter "bookname filetype:pdf
3. Click search
4. Profit!

ps I own a printed copy of The Guru Book but the searchable scanned copy is much more convenient at times.

[vidarh]

Dude!  This is an important book in Amiga programming circles.
Ralph self published it.  He didn't make a fortune.  No publishing company made anything.
Ralph had publicly talked about a 2nd edition revision as late as 7-8 years ago, but as soon as the scans showed up, it made it easy for him to decide not to bother since he had no reason to believe it wouldn't immediately be scanned too.

While I can understand that it annoyed him, his response is/was out of all proportion: the book is by most accounts finished. He's had several offers to get it published which would cost him nothing, including questions about whether a bounty could convince him. Whichever option would certainly net him some money, with little to no further work on it, but he's refused our of some combination of principle and insistence of only letting it be offset printed.

His choice of course, but not very rational - he's pretty much thrown away a huge amount of work he's already done while people are *still* regularly begging him to take their money. Even an unfinished draft copy released as a PDF only would get a decent amount of sales.

It's particularly ridiculous because the success of the Amiga is deeply intertwined with piracy - without it, his potential market for his first book would have been far smaller. And as many says here: For reference works, while it's great to have a scanned copy, having a paper copy too is fantastic.

I had the German edition of his first book, and I cherished it (unfortunately it got lost in a move at some point) - it was fantastic. And it probably vastly improved my German... I'd buy the second edition in a heartbeat if he chose to publish it just of out of nostalgia. Even if only a PDF.

Wouldn't it be great if all information were free, sure, but someone has to know enough to put something of substance together, and their time and expertise should be worth enough to make it worth their while.

There are any number of possible business models we choose to not enable because we need to strike a balance. Yet all our experience is that a lot of people put something of substance together even without the guarantee or even chance of an income. And *the vast majority* of authors of books - *especially* technical books - never make a profit on their work even if you account for their time at minimum wage.

If you write for the royalties, you'd be far better off taking a second job working minimum wage and putting your extra income in shares. If you write fiction or certain very specific genre non-fiction books (like self-help books, though a lot of those ought to qualify as fiction) you stand a chance, though extremely tiny, of making it big. If you write technical books, you pretty much don't. If you write technical books for niche systems and do it for the money, you're not very bright.

Most people writing technical books understands this: They write because they care about the subjects, or to create a reputation for themselves. In that case piracy is no big deal, or often helpful.

In Babel's case he seems to have expected to make much more than he did *and* taken personal offence at the thought that his book is not read only from his precious offset-printed paper-book. That's ok. It's his "baby" and his choice. But his expectations appears to have been and be completely out of whack with reality. That substantially diminishes my sympathy.

When someone is self publishing and supporting a niche platform that needs all the help it can get, it might be nice if others using that platform supported the effort by not pirating his book.  It's the same as pirating software.  If you want to the Amiga to die, keep encouraging piracy.

I agree it would be nice. But at the same time, the Amiga would never have reached the heights it did without piracy. While many lost out because of piracy, a huge proportion of the sales people *did* make in the Amiga market would never have happened if the Amiga market did not reach the size it did either. I doubt I'd have bought one without ready access to pirated games and programs, for example, as there's no way I could have afforded enough originals to make it worthwhile.

These days I'm a lot more willing to spend the cash, but then again my salary today is roughly 1000 times my pocket money back then....

[itix]

While I can understand that it annoyed him, his response is/was out of all proportion: the book is by most accounts finished. He's had several offers to get it published which would cost him nothing, including questions about whether a bounty could convince him. Whichever option would certainly net him some money, with little to no further work on it, but he's refused our of some combination of principle and insistence of only letting it be offset printed.

Uh oh, so it is all Babel's fault?

His choice of course, but not very rational - he's pretty much thrown away a huge amount of work he's already done while people are *still* regularly begging him to take their money. Even an unfinished draft copy released as a PDF only would get a decent amount of sales.

Uh oh, so it is all Babel's fault?

It's particularly ridiculous because the success of the Amiga is deeply intertwined with piracy - without it, his potential market for his first book would have been far smaller. And as many says here: For reference works, while it's great to have a scanned copy, having a paper copy too is fantastic.

Uh oh, so it is all Babel's fault?

I had the German edition of his first book, and I cherished it (unfortunately it got lost in a move at some point) - it was fantastic. And it probably vastly improved my German... I'd buy the second edition in a heartbeat if he chose to publish it just of out of nostalgia. Even if only a PDF.

But do you actually write software for Amiga anymore? Is this just about nostalgia to you?

There are any number of possible business models we choose to not enable because we need to strike a balance. Yet all our experience is that a lot of people put something of substance together even without the guarantee or even chance of an income. And *the vast majority* of authors of books - *especially* technical books - never make a profit on their work even if you account for their time at minimum wage.

If you write for the royalties, you'd be far better off taking a second job working minimum wage and putting your extra income in shares. If you write fiction or certain very specific genre non-fiction books (like self-help books, though a lot of those ought to qualify as fiction) you stand a chance, though extremely tiny, of making it big. If you write technical books, you pretty much don't. If you write technical books for niche systems and do it for the money, you're not very bright.

Uh oh, so it is all Babel's fault?

Most people writing technical books understands this: They write because they care about the subjects, or to create a reputation for themselves. In that case piracy is no big deal, or often helpful.

Uh oh, so it is all Babel's fault?

In Babel's case he seems to have expected to make much more than he did *and* taken personal offence at the thought that his book is not read only from his precious offset-printed paper-book. That's ok. It's his "baby" and his choice. But his expectations appears to have been and be completely out of whack with reality. That substantially diminishes my sympathy.

It is his own work and he can do whatever he wants with it. I would like to buy his book too. But there is no book to buy and I cant demand anyone to publish book because I would like to see that happen.

[itix]

@ dan

Not to sound snide (but we all should focus on what we are good at).

So, this is a property rights issue and we are costing this guy money because this was going to be a perennial best seller?

Maybe its the '60s anarchist in me, but for some reason your argument makes me think of Abbie Hoffman's book "Steal This Book".

F'k it.
Freedom of information.

As a programming resource wikis are more useful these days. PDF books are really out of date if you want information to be available to everyone.

Unfortunately on Amiga online programming resource are very scarce. There is amigacoding.de and that is it.

[Thorham]

Unfortunately on Amiga online programming resource are very scarce. There is amigacoding.de and that is it.

Oh lord, what a nonsense. Really, one minuscule site is all there is? :roflmao:

[kamelito]

My understanding is that this book is intended to Amiga "Classic" computers and is not relevant to NG ones.

Am I right?

Kamelito

[nicholas]

My understanding is that this book is intended to Amiga "Classic" computers and is not relevant to NG ones.

Am I right?

Kamelito

Yes it's for real Amigas.

[jj]

Support the artisitis/producers/writers not the companies abusing the work of others. Support the small indie publishers of books and music. Dont steal it, buy it.
 
%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! EMI and Amazon and Universal, but do this by not buying things from them, not stealing things. Buy direct where possible.
 
So there

[danbeaver]

You have to love those who blame the victim, "You were raped because you deserve it."

Still Ralph's book is amazing and any Amiga programmer should BUY one.

[olsen]

There is a good quality scan version of it, you can search in it and it has a chapter menu so ther is a good one out there, but as you say nothing beats the original, if I could spare the cash right now I would buy it .

Fun fact: the existance of the scans permanently turned Ralph off the Amiga market. We are the poorer for it, as he was working on a revised edition of his book (which is still very, very relevant today).

Well done, Internet! :-(

[olsen]

My understanding is that this book is intended to Amiga "Classic" computers and is not relevant to NG ones.

Am I right?

No, the book is still relevant. It is not a historic artefact.

[DutchinUSA]

Yes ! It should be DONATED to one of the Amiga programmers who can and will use it :banana:

Ah, I remember programming, sitting behind the monochrome screen typing up a bunch of code in Clipper and ending up with a major headache when it was time to go home, typing pages of code on my MSX-1 and saving it to tape .. those were the days :crazy:

Never again .. *hats off and bow* to programmers