I used TropeTrainer to study for my bar mitzvah! Brings back memories. A shame it's gone now. I wonder if the source code was ever in any sort of repo online, or if it was only ever on the guy's computer, in truth.
So, speaking from an ethical standpoint - and I mean purely philosophically, not in terms of legalities - what would be wrong with reverse engineering this program and finding a way to get it running again, for those who paid for it? If it's just a matter of spoofing a couple web requests and maybe bypassing some activation checks, I suspect it could be done.
I was thinking the same thing. It's effectively within the realm of abandonware at this point. (edit: I guess someone released a new version about a year ago but it's not as good?)
People have been reversing stuff like DOS games recently [1], I don't really see any reason why this program couldn't be done the same. I think the legality is kind of just handled by not packing in the binaries along with the code. Personally I don't know a deep lot about reverse engineering, but it sounds like an interesting challenge to try to learn it.
So, speaking from an ethical standpoint - and I mean purely philosophically, not in terms of legalities - what would be wrong with reverse engineering this program and finding a way to get it running again, for those who paid for it? If it's just a matter of spoofing a couple web requests and maybe bypassing some activation checks, I suspect it could be done.