HP48 application cards image sharable (downloadable)?

[rprosperi]

Some collectors will not share ROM contents because they think it can lessen the value of the (possibly) rare item they paid for, but IMHO that's rather silly. It's a rare individual indeed that wants to actually run vintage s/w and would also consider a non-hardware copy of if valuable in place of a genuine hardware copy.

Others don't share them because it's potentially illegal due to copyright violation, which is a reasonable concern, both legally ans ethically. However many of these cards came from companies which no longer exist at all, so the practical legal risk of doing so is nil.

The generally accepted thing to do is to make your best effort to contact the author and ask for permission to share it; in most cases you can't reach them, and in the odd case you do, it's likely they will allow it; I've never heard of an author in the calculator world refusing to give permission, and I've talked to a lot of people about this. Most authors quite honestly are flattered that people are still interested in their work from 30+ years ago.

If you can't reach the author, the common thing to do is to share it, including a statement confirming you've tried to reach the author to get permission but could not, and that if the author eventually sees this and objects, they should contact you and then you will stop sharing it immediately. IANAL, so I've no idea of the legal stance of this approach, but it seems an earnest and fair approach and you will find used often in vintage calculator and PC communities, as well as many other hobbies.