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Keyboard Emulator
Tiger-Heli:
--- Quote from: SirPoonga on March 20, 2003, 07:27:55 pm ---
--- Quote from: slinger on March 20, 2003, 06:34:18 pm ---If I see anyone do that I'll take action, this is free and should not be sold or commercially produced.
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How would you do that? Is your plans copywrited?
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Ok, this is getting interesting! Let me play devil's advocate and throw out some hypotheticals here. I will use the buttonbox as an example. (And I have neither the ability nor the time to act on any of these, so don't worry about me).
I looked on the buttonbox site and didn't see anything saying the plans were copyrighted nor did I see anything saying that it was not legal to sell his products without permission.
Now the questions -
Hypo 1 - I don't understand circuitry design although I have taken some courses in it. However, it seems pretty clear how the buttonbox is wired. I am looking to build a similar device with two microprocessors and double the inputs. I can see how to adapt the button box design to do this, but don't know if I would need dual timer chips, dual capacitors, etc. But assuming I figured that out, at what point does it become my product to build and sell if I want to, and not a modified ButtonBox. Remember ButtonBox has never mentioned a dual microprocessor unit and nothing on their page even suggests that it is possible, that part was totally my idea. OTOH, all the design and component layout for each half of the circuit is strictly ButtonBox and I couldn't reproduce it (without referring to their schematics) if I tried.
Hypo 2 - Let's say I build a ButtonBox for my own use. It's costs me $25 in parts and 2-3 hours in time. My plans change, and I realize that I will need an encoder with more inputs, so I sell it to buy a KE-72. I get $30 from someone on the Buy/Sell/Trade board. Did I rip anyone off? Should I send part of the $30 to the ButtonBox designer? If so, how much should his cut be? Keep in mind I only made $5 for my 2-3 hours of labor on it.
Hypo 3 - I buy components in bulk and hire legal sweatshop workers to make them and offer them on a website for $30.00. This is the same as Hypo 2 above, except now it is a business, and now hopefully, I am making $10-$15 per board instead of the $5 each shown above. Am I now cheating the ButtonBox designer? Even though he's said he does not sell ready-made boxes and has no plans to either? Again, what would be a fair cut for him?
Hypo 4 - The guy that was selling the ButtonBox with a Jamma adapter for $100 Euros. Where is the illegality or the unethicalness of selling these? Some people mentioned that he couldn't legally make a profit or even sell them without the developer's permission, but remember, the developer put his plans on a website and said "here is how to build one of these", with no restriction (AFAICT) on the use of the plans. And, like in Hypo 1, it isn't a straight copy b/c the ButtonBox doesn't use a Jamma connector. I agree it was a rip-off, because the professionally made J-PAC sells for $57 and the components for the ButtonBox J-PAC couldn't have cost much over $30. So let's say he sells the same product for $50.00. Is it still Illegal? Immoral? What if the price was $30.00? The real question is "Is it wrong for him to sell the product at all, or just that he was charging so much for it that you would be silly to buy it?"
Well, hopefully this should stir up some good debate!!!
Please post your opinions!!!
SirPoonga:
--- Quote from: slinger on March 19, 2003, 10:55:41 pm ---
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Could you give suggestions or point to a howto to transfer your plans to pc board:)
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Load the board into Winboard print it out on a transparency, place this over your presensitized board, expose it to florecent light for 5min/side then develop and etch, drill and populate.
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so let me see if it is this easy.
Goto your site, figure out how to get the circuit to board. Then get all the parts listed, solder them on in the right spot. No programming, or anything?
Tiger-Heli:
--- Quote from: SirPoonga on March 21, 2003, 12:09:46 am ---
--- Quote from: slinger on March 19, 2003, 10:55:41 pm ---
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Could you give suggestions or point to a howto to transfer your plans to pc board:)
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Load the board into Winboard print it out on a transparency, place this over your presensitized board, expose it to florecent light for 5min/side then develop and etch, drill and populate.
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so let me see if it is this easy.
Goto your site, figure out how to get the circuit to board. Then get all the parts listed, solder them on in the right spot. No programming, or anything?
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No it's not, he mentions software to download on his site. And there's an RS232 connection on that PC board. And earlier in the thread he said to send some command over the serial port to bring up the menu.
RandyT:
--- Quote from: Tiger-Heli on March 20, 2003, 11:04:04 pm ---Ok, this is getting interesting! Let me play devil's advocate and throw out some hypotheticals here. I will use the buttonbox as an example. (And I have neither the ability nor the time to act on any of these, so don't worry about me).
I looked on the buttonbox site and didn't see anything saying the plans were copyrighted nor did I see anything saying that it was not legal to sell his products without permission.
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Obviously, I AM NOT A LAWYER, so take my comments with the usual "grain of salt" :)
From the source code:
; You can use this code as you see fit, but you cannot sell anything
; that uses this code (or parts of it) without my permission.
Now, this isn't exactly a legal copyright statement, but it probably would offer some protection.
--- Quote ---Now the questions -
Hypo 1 - I don't understand circuitry design although I have taken some courses in it. However, it seems pretty clear how the buttonbox is wired. I am looking to build a similar device with two microprocessors and double the inputs. I can see how to adapt the button box design to do this, but don't know if I would need dual timer chips, dual capacitors, etc. But assuming I figured that out, at what point does it become my product to build and sell if I want to, and not a modified ButtonBox. Remember ButtonBox has never mentioned a dual microprocessor unit and nothing on their page even suggests that it is possible, that part was totally my idea. OTOH, all the design and component layout for each half of the circuit is strictly ButtonBox and I couldn't reproduce it (without referring to their schematics) if I tried.
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Even individual subroutines can be copyrighted (in some cases, even patented!). In the example you gave above, it would probably depend on how much of the code you used "verbatim" to achieve your goals.
--- Quote ---Hypo 2 - Let's say I build a ButtonBox for my own use. It's costs me $25 in parts and 2-3 hours in time. My plans change, and I realize that I will need an encoder with more inputs, so I sell it to buy a KE-72. I get $30 from someone on the Buy/Sell/Trade board. Did I rip anyone off? Should I send part of the $30 to the ButtonBox designer? If so, how much should his cut be? Keep in mind I only made $5 for my 2-3 hours of labor on it.
--- End quote ---
Any use or distribution of copyrighted materials not sanctioned by the copyright holder is not allowed. This goes for any purposes not specifically allowed by copyright law. You can condition it any way you want, but it always boils down to that.
--- Quote ---Hypo 3 - I buy components in bulk and hire legal sweatshop workers to make them and offer them on a website for $30.00. This is the same as Hypo 2 above, except now it is a business, and now hopefully, I am making $10-$15 per board instead of the $5 each shown above. Am I now cheating the ButtonBox designer? Even though he's said he does not sell ready-made boxes and has no plans to either? Again, what would be a fair cut for him?
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You would have to discuss that with the copyright holder. Whether it is a business or not has no bearing on the situation.
--- Quote ---Hypo 4 - The guy that was selling the ButtonBox with a Jamma adapter for $100 Euros. Where is the illegality or the unethicalness of selling these? Some people mentioned that he couldn't legally make a profit or even sell them without the developer's permission, but remember, the developer put his plans on a website and said "here is how to build one of these", with no restriction (AFAICT) on the use of the plans. And, like in Hypo 1, it isn't a straight copy b/c the ButtonBox doesn't use a Jamma connector. I agree it was a rip-off, because the professionally made J-PAC sells for $57 and the components for the ButtonBox J-PAC couldn't have cost much over $30. So let's say he sells the same product for $50.00. Is it still Illegal? Immoral? What if the price was $30.00? The real question is "Is it wrong for him to sell the product at all, or just that he was charging so much for it that you would be silly to buy it?"
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You still have the copyrighted code to contend with. If the individual made a professional board of his own design and layout that was compatible with the programmed ATMEL (heck, the blank ATMEL could even be provided so the individual could just DL the code and program it through the board), they would probably be ok selling it. You definitely can't distribute the code without permission from the author. But again, I'm no Lawyer, so don't take this as legal advice. :)
RandyT
seaner:
I've done the same, with 56 inputs (many more possible of course). Works like a charm, but the cost to do the PCB and all of the screw-down headers wound up jacking to cost up a fair bit.
My design was to build an 8x8 (wound up only doing 7x8) matrix switch with diodes. Worked first time. The PS/2 protocol was the trickiest part of the whole thing. I haven't coded up a host-side stack (to interface to another keyboard), but I did put a second ps/2 jack on the board just in case I decide to run pass-thru in the future.
I'm curious to know what route you took.
I'll put my plans up this weekend if anyone is interested.