Disclaimer

It is assumed that all software and materials in this archive are either in the public domain or are no longer commercially available (sold or supported by any company). If you are the copyright owner for any product listed here and wish to have it removed from this archive, or if you are a publisher and are still selling and/or supporting a product listed here, please email me and I will remove the product and all files related to it.


Archive Philosophy

Some Background: After my basement was flooded, I called Microsoft asking for the cost of replacement diskettes and manuals for Microsoft Word for DOS version 5.0. I got the answer that they officially stopped supporting it, and that replacement materials are no longer available. A call to Sierra for a replacement copy of Silpheed produced a more troublesome answer: the representative I talked to had never heard of Silpheed. I was prepared to pay full retail price for a replacement at this point, but their website had no information at all on Silpheed, and their toll-free sales number had no knowledge that Silpheed even existed either. In tracking down a third company, Epyx, for a replacement California Games diskette and manual, I found that Epyx went out of business around 1992. I felt that I had been abandoned by companies that I had paid money to in exchange for the use of their product. It is for these reasons and others that I created this "abandonware" archive: as a resource for owners of old software that companies were unwilling/unable to support.

Most companies that created PC software in the mid to late eighties are either not in business today or are not currently supporting their old products. The original owner of such "abandoned" software--software that is no longer sold or supported--is essentially an abandoned customer.

If the manual or diskettes of a software product are lost or damaged, and the company that produced the product is no longer in business or no longer supporting their old products, the owner has nowhere to turn to. I started this archive to offer a remedy to that unfortunate situation. The philosophy behind this archive is ultimately customer support: To give the original owners of old software the replacement manuals, diskettes, etc. needed to continue to use the software they have originally purchased. With that in mind, please read the following very carefully:

It is illegal to download any software or materials from this archive if you did not originally purchase the software!

Copyright infringment is a very serious offense in the United States and other countries. Copyrights can last up to 75 years *after* the demise of the copyright holder, so if you are copying materials from this archive that you did not orignally pay for, you are breaking the law.

To meet the definition of "abandonware" (and be included on my site), a software product:

  1. Must be 5 years old or older, and
  2. Must NOT be sold or supported by any company (or be in the public domain).

This site framework document (/abandonware/disclaimer.shtml) is part of Trixter's Abandonware. Comments? Email me.