An Apple II Tale
For those who aren't familiar with this particular chapter in Apple II history:<p>- "Copy-2-Plus" was the ubiquitous disk copier/disk utility software for Apple II computers in the mid to late 80s.  The makers of Copy-2-Plus, Central Point Software, had a distribution deal with VTech, makers of a popular legal Apple II clone, the "Laser 128".<p>- The Laser 128 was a legal clone because because VTech provided a clean-room implementation of the Apple II firmware that was, for the most part, not super buggy.  They also legally licensed Microsoft BASIC.  The Laser became very popular in the late 80s as VTech was able to undercut Apple's pricing while extending the hardware in ways that Apple was unwilling to do.<p>- At some point in the late 80s, the source code to Copy-2-Plus went missing.  In order to keep the lights on, Central Point Software had to re-implement their premier product from scratch.<p>- In the early 90s, a dead hard drive shows up in dumpster of a hardware recycler.  This hard drive apparently contained a copy of the Copy-2-Plus source code that went missing in the late 80s, as well as the code for VTech's Laser 128 firmware and Microsoft BASIC.<p>- By fluke, a worker at this recycler happens to notice something about this dead hard drive, fixes it, and discovers all of this missing and/or notable Apple II source code.