Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-08 Thread Rugxulo
Hi,

On Sun, Dec 8, 2013 at 3:04 PM, TJ Edmister damag...@hyakushiki.net wrote:
 On Sat, 07 Dec 2013 23:29:14 -0500, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote:

 BTW, NT 4.0 (1996?) didn't support either of those

 NT4 does support LFNs.

Not in DOS apps, I meant, no Win9x-era int 21h, 71xxh, AFAIK.

 It supports FAT12/16 and NTFS out of the box, and
 with a patched system file it will support FAT32 also (same goes for
 NT3.51)

Is the patch officially part of some service pack or is it third-party?

 The service packs are free, but the full releases are not. Admittedly,
 it's not that cheap anymore (something like $199 upgrades, on
 average??, IIRC), but there's no other choice (if you want to run
 modern Windows software). Blame all the developers who refuse to
 restrict themselves to a common denominator, so everyone is constantly
 having to upgrade the OS just to support userland stuff. Even latest
 IE won't run on anything less than Win7.

 It's not necessarily even the developers' fault, except that they use
 Microsoft's compiler, and hence Microsoft gets to determine the minimum OS
 version that things built with their compiler will run on.

You'd think XP's APIs would be good enough for anything reasonable,
after all these years, but no.

 But XP is almost dead.

 XP is still widely used. Who actually still needs support from MS for a
 12-year-old product for any reason other than to say they have it (in
 other words, ass-covering)? Surely if someone has been using it this long
 then it is getting the job done?

Eventually various projects are going to stop supporting it. The same
thing happened with Win9x and Win2k. It's not technical reasons, it's
not lack of time, it's just apathy. They don't want it to work, thus
it won't work. I don't know why, but most developers are very rigid.

 Yeah, modern computing is a mess.

 Maybe if we wish really hard, all the folks who have been making such
 messes will forget about desktop computing in favor of consumer
 electronics (tablets/phones) and the desktop will become better for it.

Doubt it.

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Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-08 Thread Louis Santillan
With all this talk of really old NTs, is there a reason ReactOS wouldn't
work for some of you?
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Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-08 Thread TJ Edmister
On Sun, 08 Dec 2013 17:13:29 -0500, Rugxulo rugx...@gmail.com wrote:


 It supports FAT12/16 and NTFS out of the box, and
 with a patched system file it will support FAT32 also (same goes for
 NT3.51)

 Is the patch officially part of some service pack or is it third-party?


I checked the site where I found it and it says the author is unknown.  
http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/winnt351.htm


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Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-07 Thread Karen Lewellen
Greetings jack,
I certainly agree with your stance here.  I have been using one ms dos 7.1 
package since at least 2007 or so easily and effortlessly.  I have helped 
others find it as well.
I am not sure where the .bg country code is, but I could not connect to 
the 
site when I tried it before writing this note.  it may be that they dislike 
low graphics browsers like lynx, or that they are now getting lots of 
traffic.
I need, no demand smiles reliability, so  skip buts myself.
I have not used ms dos 6.22 for a grand while though, my need for much 
larger drives, the one I use for backup is over 30 gig, made the 7.1 door 
more practical.  I do wonder sometimes though if I could accomplish  a bit 
of both worlds.
What stands out for you in dos 6.22 over the later 7.1 edition of ms dos?
Most important of all, hear hear on using what you desire.  It is why 
there is a personal in pc after all.
Karen

On Sat, 7 Dec 2013, Jack wrote:


 Rugxulo,

 Re: your recent posts, I will summarize my feeling as follows:

 LZ-DOS and other copies of V7.10 MS-DOS are still available.

 You may not consider it reliable, and Dennis may have some odd
 problem accessing it, but that website http://ms-dos7.hit.bg
 did give me, on 5-Dec-2013, a working 2-diskette copy of V7.10
 which I was able to install on my system (up to the point of
 writing IO.SYS and MS-DOS.SYS, which I did not do since I want
 to continue with V6.22 MS-DOS).   I again accessed the exact
 URL shown above a moment ago, while writing this E-Mail, and I
 again had no problem with it.   Others can try doing the same.

 The 2-diskette installation set for V7.10 MS-DOS, available on
 that site, does work well, and it rather STRONGLY suggests its
 installer was written by Microsoft.   From my own experience
 I know that this V7.10 MS-DOS package is virtually identical
 to the one offered by Wengier Wu, which I have used for my own
 tests of UIDE for at least 6 years.   Others can try using the
 installation diskettes from http://ms-dos7.hit.bg, then make
 their OWN conclusion about the availability of V7.10 MS-DOS.

 Based on the above, I still say that LBA capability WAS part
 of later MS-DOS versions, that were and still are available,
 and I still believe the FreeDOS main page comment that LBA
 was unavailable in MS-DOS is NOT quite true!

 I shall not argue legalities with you, nor in fact do I know
 any lawyers.   My own divorce and jury-duty experiences in the
 past have left me NOT WANTING to know any!   Instead of making
 such an issue of legalities, perhaps you should STOP at your
 own statement above:  Honestly, just use whatever you want to
 use, 'whatever works!'   No-argument here, so I will continue
 to use my reliable and SMALL V6.22 MS-DOS.   I hate bugs and
 bloat, of which V6.22 MS-DOS has neither!

 And re: your comment that You can't 'freely' download, modify
 or redistribute any DOS besides FreeDOS, I can only say again
 that the above website most-certainly DID work for me!

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Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-07 Thread Jack

Karen,

 I certainly agree with your stance here.   I have been using one
 ms-dos 7.1 package since at least 2007 or so, easily and effort-
 lessly.   I have helped others find it as well.
 I am not sure where the .bg country code is, but I could not
 connect to the site when I tried it before writing this note.
 It may be that they dislike low graphics browsers like lynx, or
 that they are now getting lots of traffic.

For your info, .bg is Bulgaria.   Given both Dennis's and your
problems with the website I noted, I suspect there could be some
international constraints AGAINST Bulgaria, in some areas!

 I need, no demand smiles reliability, so skip buts myself.
 I have not used ms-dos 6.22 for a grand while though, my need for
 much larger drives, the one I use for backup is over 30 gig, made
 the 7.1 door more practical.   I do wonder sometimes though if I
 could accomplish a bit of both worlds.   What stands out for you
 in dos 6.22 over the later 7.1 edition of ms-dos?

My father was a packrat (saved EVERYTHING), and I am not.   My
total storage, after almost 50 years of software, is only 180-MB
and fits easily on CD-RW disks, of which I have 3 as my backups.
Thus, I do not need FAT32 or long filenames, and I do not need
the bloat that comes with most V7.10 MS-DOS programs.   I also
do NOT like that V7.10 will LOSE a lock drive command for some
reason that I have never understood, and that is a nuisance as
it always occurs when I do not expect it.   So I stay with V6.22
MS-DOS, which is NOT bloated, and has NO lock drive to cause
me any profanity!   My actual Internet vehicle is V4.0 Win/NT,
since there are no good browsers, CD burners, etc., for use with
MS-DOS.   V6.22 or V7.10 helps me there, as Win/NT denies me the
right to deal with some system files.   V6.22 MS-DOS does not!

 Most important of all, hear hear on using what you desire.  It
 is why there is a personal in pc after all.

A pleasure to know you, dear Lady, after all my dealings on this
forum with legalists who FAIL to see that I was only giving an
EXAMPLE of V7.10 still being available!V6.22 MS-DOS and V4.0
Win/NT also save poor-old retirees like me from paying $500/year
tribute to Gates  Co. for their semi-annual collection of new
BUGS, which they call service packs!

BEST wishes,

Jack R. Ellis

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Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-07 Thread Rugxulo
Hi,

On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 1:03 PM, dmccunney dennis.mccun...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net wrote:

 You may not consider it reliable, and Dennis may have some odd
 problem accessing it, but that website http://ms-dos7.hit.bg
 did give me, on 5-Dec-2013, a working 2-diskette copy of V7.10
 which I was able to install on my system ...

 Do a ping, whois, traceroute, or nslookup on it.   Tell me what
 you get.

The website doesn't load for me either.

 What do you use as a browser, and how do you reach the Internet?

 DETEST the Internet -- I remember when it was totally free, and
 absolutely NOT as commercial as it is now!   DISGUSTING, to me,
 that almost all news URLs now force you to receive 500K or more
 of damned ADVERTISEMENTS, BEFORE you get one word of news!   My
 system is still dial-up which saves BIG BUCKS for retirees like
 me, and I often ABANDON such miserable websites BEFORE they deign
 to offer me useful items!   I use the Bloody Internet mainly as a
 vehicle for E-Mail.   NO personal website, and I do not want one.

 You need to learn more about the Internet.  For instance, blocking
 those 500K or more of ads is trivial.  I don't see them, because I do.

Let's face it, all modern websites are fairly heavyweight these days.
They're not really trying to target Lynx and w3m and similar browsers.
It's Firefox or IE or Safari (Flash, HTML5 / Javascript) only. They
just assume everyone has fast connections via broadband / DSL / cable
/ satellite.

You pretty much have to have a fast connection just to download
modern things (e.g. Windows service packs, Linux distros, streaming
movies, online video games).

  And sorry, but *something* has to pay for those free services that
 cost actual time and money to provide, and ads are what pays for them.
  Free in this context means Someone *else* pays for it. I don't.

Some content providers are better about it than others. There is a
point where they are clearly hammering the end user too much. I don't
block ads, but it indeed can be frustrating.

 The 2-diskette installation set for V7.10 MS-DOS, available on
 that site, does work well, and it rather STRONGLY suggests its
 installer was written by Microsoft.

 Like I said, it's also available from the last Internet.org crawl
 if others have the same difficulty I did.

I have no idea if such sites (like Archive.org) have government
exceptions or not.

 I remain UNCONVINCED that the above site, or any others with that
 same release of V7.10 MS-DOS, is in fact illegal.

 If Microsoft has not formally released MS-DOS 7.10 as a freely
 available download, it's *not* legal under US law, which is what we're
 concerned with.

Current U.S. law. As far as we know.

 Countries in the former Soviet Union have
 historically not cared about US law in this sort of case, so it's
 probably legal for the Bulgarian site to host the download under
 Bulgarian law.  It's *not* legal to download and use it under US law

Wasn't copyright originally only meant to last 20 years? So it's not
like it was meant to last forever, eventually it was meant to land in
the public domain for the public good. Well, obviously that's not how
things really work, even in fast-moving tech circles (which seem to
deprecate / obsolete / break something every single day). Seriously,
we'll all be long dead if (not when) such things ever expire. Good
luck running Windows 1995 software on Windows 2095!

 There's a lot of abandonware out there that is no longer
 sold/supported but never explicitly cut loose by the vendors, and
 sites that specialize in it.  The legal status is at best murky.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/25/5028974/internet-archives-new-historic-software-collection

But quite honestly, I'm more than just a little skeptical. I think
they're playing with fire. There is no way that somebody somewhere
won't challenge this. (And it wasn't that long ago that Atari /
Infogrames released Atari: 80 Games CD-ROM for Windows, et al.) It's
very very naive to think that this is permitted. Which is a shame
since lots of software is basically thrown away, unable to be used by
anyone. Worse is that binary (and source) compatibility isn't a very
prized trait either. (And no, modern doesn't care about legacy at
all.)

Either buy what already works (commercial software, even if used) or
help develop a free/libre alternative. I don't see any other good
option.

 Whether a vendor will take action will be governed by money.  Taking
 action costs money.  A vendor will do so if they are *aware* of the
 availability of the software on the Internet, and think they see lost
 revenue sufficient to justify taking action.

They don't have to take action, only threaten, which is enough to make
people scared. Even if the claims are baseless, it's enough to force
most people to remove software.

 MS is likely not aware of the MS-DOS 7.10 distribution from the
 Bulgarian host, and probably won't care enough to take 

Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-07 Thread Rugxulo
Hi,

On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 6:35 PM, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net wrote:

 I certainly agree with your stance here.   I have been using one
 ms-dos 7.1 package since at least 2007 or so, easily and effort-
 lessly.   I have helped others find it as well.

It might be easier to just tell them to make a bootable floppy via
Explorer. Or use RUFUS to install FreeDOS to USB pen drive.

 I am not sure where the .bg country code is, but I could not
 connect to the site when I tried it before writing this note.

 For your info, .bg is Bulgaria.   Given both Dennis's and your
 problems with the website I noted, I suspect there could be some
 international constraints AGAINST Bulgaria, in some areas!

Not as far as I know. Though again, U.S. politics are horribly
arbitrary and annoying. (I didn't realize FreeDoom was equivalent to
munitions.) IIRC, there are some countries where you're not even
allowed to share software (even via SourceForge), lemme search ...
Cuba, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Iran. (The whole country! Not just
government, not just army, but even common people! No TuxKart for
you!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourceforge#Country_restrictions

 My father was a packrat (saved EVERYTHING), and I am not.   My
 total storage, after almost 50 years of software, is only 180-MB
 and fits easily on CD-RW disks, of which I have 3 as my backups.

It depends on needs. Some people have to test lots of software, so
they have to keep backups of various compilers and OSes, etc. The days
of software being small and self-contained are long gone, so often you
have to download a lot of cruft just to get what you want. Again, a
fast broadband connection is strongly implied, sadly.

Also, and I hate to mention this (as it doesn't interest me and is
frankly way outside the scope of traditional computing), but
multimedia (esp. HD) takes up tons of space, and people often download
(or make their own) movies, songs, etc. It's very very easy to run out
of space with things like that. Heck, even a single modern game takes
several gigs. One single-layer DVD is 4.7 GB (or such), and even
that's (almost) obsolete in favor of Blu-Ray. I have no idea how
many BD layers current consoles use (EDIT: Wikipedia says 16 layer
[400 GB] for PS4), but long story short, it's far more than 180 MB.

Though a lot of content doesn't have to be locally available on hard
drive as most people don't need the full Wikipedia or full Project
Gutenberg or full DJGPP mirror or all sources (20 GB?) to every
software from their Linux distro installed on their system.

 Thus, I do not need FAT32 or long filenames,

FAT32 was only in later versions (OSR2?), so the original vanilla
Win95 didn't support it anyways, IIRC.

LFNs aren't reliant on FAT32, you can use any FAT, though Win95
explicitly doesn't support those at all in DOS mode, so even there
you're stuck to an external driver like DOSLFN.

BTW, NT 4.0 (1996?) didn't support either of those, so only Win2000
fixed that, but at least DJGPP mirrors have a NTLFN driver to somewhat
support LFNs there (which most software these days refuses to live
without):

http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/djgpp/current/v2misc/ntlfn08b.zip
http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/djgpp/current/v2misc/ntlfn08s.zip

 and I do not need the bloat that comes with most V7.10 MS-DOS programs.

Heheh. You can't even download VirtualBox without them forcing both
Windows 32-bit and 64-bit editions in one lump! 100 MB! Pardon me if I
think bloat doesn't really apply to DOS in any form.

 I also do NOT like that V7.10 will LOSE a lock drive command for some
 reason that I have never understood, and that is a nuisance as
 it always occurs when I do not expect it.   So I stay with V6.22
 MS-DOS, which is NOT bloated, and has NO lock drive to cause
 me any profanity!

IIRC, Win95 came on 18 (overformatted) floppies. I guess traditional
MS-DOS only used three to five? So, I'm not saying there isn't some
fluff (esp. if you don't care for GUIs), but it's not that bad. Of
course, I think one guy made a minimal Win95 install in only 5 MB, but
it leaves a lot to be desired. (My current Win7 has a 400 MB
\%windir%\fonts subdir, 517 files, and I don't even actively use any
of them!)

 My actual Internet vehicle is V4.0 Win/NT,
 since there are no good browsers, CD burners, etc., for use with
 MS-DOS.   V6.22 or V7.10 helps me there, as Win/NT denies me the
 right to deal with some system files.   V6.22 MS-DOS does not!

Good browsers? Depends on what you need. These days, they are almost
OSes in their own right, using Flash, Javascript, HTML5, and a billion
other plugins. It's a far cry from where HTML started twenty years
ago. So no, compared to Firefox or Chrome, nothing is any good. But
having said that, Georg's build of Dillo or Mikulas' build of Links
are more than just a little impressive, even with known limitations.
But a major problem is a heavy lack of (modern) packet drivers.

IIRC, there is no free/libre (nor maybe even freeware) 

Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-06 Thread Jack
 It's really too bad, though,  that MS won't make it official and release
 the MS-DOS source as public domain, or at least one of the various
 open-source licenses.

Surely you JEST!, my friend [are joking]!   Gates  Co. are charter
members of the U.S.A.'s All we want is MONEY! brotherhood!

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Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-06 Thread Rugxulo
Hi,

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 2:50 PM, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net wrote:

 Note on the FreeDOS main page that there are comments about FreeDOS
 offering LBA large-disk capability (48-bit disk addressing, not 24-
 bit CHS), which MS-DOS did not have, and which the main page says
 was unavailable except with DOS Windows.

 NOT quite true!

FreeDOS lets you access FAT32 file systems and use large disk support
(LBA) — a feature not available in MS-DOS, and only included in
Windows 95 and newer.

 From having written and tested UIDE, I know that LZ-DOS and Wengier
 Wu's V7.10 MS-DOS both use LBA disk addressing.

 Luchezar Georgiev offered his multi-DOS boot diskette, which has an
 LZ-DOS option.

Presumably Bulgaria and China (and others) have laxer laws than the
U.S. (which enforces copyright until 70 years after owner's death).

 LZ-DOS is really V7.10 MS-DOS as a VER command
 will show.   Also, Wengier Wu of the China DOS Union offered a full
 MS-DOS V7.10 system, with the complete set of MS-DOS utilities plus a
 good system-installation scheme.   There may also be others.

Yes, AFAIK, LZ-DOS is just a compressed MS-DOS kernel (LZ for
Lempel-Ziv, I suppose). But it's probably not legal to download by
U.S. residents.

But just for clarity, ver is part of the shell, and if the shell is
clueless, it might just assume one particular DOS. I've never tried,
but I'm pretty sure using the DR-DOS COMMAND.COM would always say
DR-DOS 7.03 even atop MS-DOS or FreeDOS kernels or similar. IIRC,
set VER=3 would make it even say DR-DOS 3.03!

So this is not entirely conclusive. Presumably you'd have to find
explicit bugs or features in a particular kernel in order to truly
identify it (esp. if it is compressed and hacked with internal strings
modified). For trivia's sake, this is why most of us never knew that
ArrowSoft Assembler 2.00 was really MASM 4.0 in disguise.

 I believe Lucho's or Wengier's V7.1 MS-DOS systems can still be down-
 loaded from Internet sources.   They are NOT bundled with Win/95 or
 any other DOS Windows system.   Lucho's and Wengier's systems provide
 an independent V7.1 MS-DOS, which is still very useful.

Of course we all know that Win9x came with MS-DOS bundled. That was by
design. It was also by design that Win95's GUI portion was not
separate, i.e. even though PC-DOS and DR-DOS could run Win 3.1 just
fine, they could not (easily, directly) run Win95. I'm pretty sure
it's well-established that MS wanted to control the standard and
focus more on their own proprietary Win32 APIs than on older,
compatible APIs (e.g. DOS, that was fully supported by various
competitors, e.g. IBM, DR/Novell/Caldera). So DOS was only there until
they could replace it, e.g. XP [NT]. Although even XP will die soon
(no more security fixes after April, MSVC doesn't target it anymore,
etc.), but I doubt they'll ever give it away!

BTW, you can still make a DOS floppy in modern Windows via Explorer
[embedded inside DISKCOPY.DLL]. I tested this a few weeks ago atop
Win7 64-bit with my USB floppy drive. It's basically MS-DOS 8.00
(from WinME), but it has no SYS.COM, so you can't install to hard
drive.

 Pundits can say, as they wish, that V6.22 MS-DOS is the last true
 DOS officially released by Microsoft, and that there may be licensing
 issues over using V7.0+ MS-DOS.   But, Microsoft has never gone-after
 V7.0+ MS-DOS providers, like I doubt they ever will.   DOS is dead!
 has been their position since at least 1995 (maybe even 1987, as that
 was when they began writing Windows/NT).   I and others who work with
 V7.0+ MS-DOS should have few worries about it, 18 or 26 years later.

I would not trust never gone after as a reliable source. We don't
know who they've gone after, and certainly the U.S. is a fiercely
litigious society. It's not worth the risk. And I seriously seriously
doubt that anybody would sympathize with us if we did. It's safer to
just search eBay or old shops than download illegally.

 I believe the FreeDOS main page should be made a bit more ACCURATE!

Just use the free DOS, i.e. FreeDOS. Don't waste time with MS-DOS.
Yes, I realize that's a bit biased. I'm not saying all the other DOSes
aren't good. Some have different advantages, weaknesses, bugs, etc.
Honestly, just use whatever you want to use, whatever works! I know
plenty of people still prefer MS-DOS (or DR-DOS) over FreeDOS.

But outside of explicit permission, you can't freely download,
modify, or redistribute any DOS besides FreeDOS. This is its whole
reason for existing. (Though I don't advocate anyone write software
that only runs on FreeDOS, that is not universally helpful.)

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Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-06 Thread Rugxulo
Hi,

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net wrote:

 Wengier Wu's MS-DOS 7 variant has a licensing issue ...

 So what??, as I noted in my prior post.   At least 18 years have
 gone by since Gates  Co. declared DOS is dead!, and no lawyers
 I know of have EVER gone-after any V7.10 users and providers!

I'm only halfway joking, but how many lawyers do you know of,
exactly?? So your experience is limited, like most of us. Absence of
proof is not proof. Like I said, China probably has different laws, so
there's less of a risk to them than us.

Just because it isn't sold directly anymore isn't enough of a reason.
That's not how copyright works. I don't know who came up with the
current scheme. Certainly it will change a billion more times because
nobody is ever happy, but as is, it's certainly not giving us a lot of
leeway.

 I am not recommending that FreeDOS advertise or support ANY other
 DOS variants -- I am simply saying that V7.10 MS-DOS is in fact still
 available, as at-least the website I note above should prove to you.

Not a reliable source. The built-in DOS floppy image I mentioned
earlier, even in modern Windows, is a more official source. But that's
(AFAIK) only available to current Windows licensees, so you can't
redistribute it.

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Re: [Freedos-user] LBA And FreeDOS.

2013-12-06 Thread Rugxulo
Hi, (yet another inane response from me)

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Jack gykazequ...@earthlink.net wrote:

 It's really too bad, though,  that MS won't make it official and release
 the MS-DOS source as public domain, or at least one of the various
 open-source licenses.

How would that be better than what we already have with FreeDOS? The
kernel and BASE are already GPL or similar open source, but we still
don't get jack squat help from any other free/libre groups. They don't
care at all, they're too busy chasing whatever other goals. A
free/libre license isn't enough to attract volunteers.

 Surely you JEST!, my friend [are joking]!   Gates  Co. are charter
 members of the U.S.A.'s All we want is MONEY! brotherhood!

If all they wanted was money, they'd still sell it. Maybe it's still
on MSDN, I have no idea.

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