Slicks 'n' Slide, still my gold standard for multiplayer 2D racing, Super Cars 2 on Amiga is the only one that came close: https://www.slicksnslide.com
I loved Super cars 2
Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
161–170 of 202 posts
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#162I was hoping to be surprised to see WinRAR on many people's list, and as of right now I see exactly zero people purchased WinRAR as I sadly expected. I didn't purchase it either.
Winrar was one of the first pieces of software I paid for as soon as I got my first paycheck!
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#163PC-Write, which had nice macro keybindings for programming. Ctrl-I tab tab to insert an entire if-then-else with comment lines at the appropriate indentation level. Cat-themed user manual. :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-Write Catalogs from Public Brand Software and the Boston Computer Society.
PC-Write was the best! I bought it in person at one of the West Coast PC Faires and met the primary programmer (forget his name right now).
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#164Not exactly the same, but something that got me a couple weird looks at the time was paying almost $100 for RedHat Linux (6.1, Cartman) in 1999. I'd wanted to use Linux for a couple years (I thought it looked hacker-ish and had watched _The Matrix_ in theaters not long before that). But my PC didn't have a CD writer. My 4.3GB HD didn't have enough free space to download the ISOs. And I didn't have internet access. So…
Maybe you stuck with it because you had paid for it ;)
Oh, if _only_ I stuck with, say, 1% of the hobbies that I paid a non-trivial amount of money to start...
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sharewares got me into coding tbh. As a teenager growing up in India, paying $20+ for a video game was too big of an ask (That was on the order of 1000 rupees at the time and would pay for 20+ meals at a decent restaurant) and there was no way to pay for it even if I wanted to, as my parents did not have credit cards at the time. So I learned to "crack" shareware, first by patching using hex editors and then using de…
Ha ha another student of fravia and +orc?
Haha! I had completely forgotten about that site. I have definitely used those tutorials!
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#166Jacaranda Jim! What an awesome text adventure. Written by Graham Cluley who went on to do awesome things.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#167I was hoping to be surprised to see WinRAR on many people's list, and as of right now I see exactly zero people purchased WinRAR as I sadly expected. I didn't purchase it either.
> "Nobody registers WinRAR." So let's register WinRAR! It's notorious for its infinite 40-day trial so I've been curious what activating it is actually like. I also wonder how old of a version of WinRAR can be activated using a 2021 registration key! Let's find out with Windows XP, 98, 95...
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#168Jazz Jackrabbit and Gazillionaire Deluxe - Played these for hours on end.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#169I was into BBSes in the early to mid-90s as a teen, but was still pretty cheap, so only purchased a small handful of shareware: 1) Telemate - Probably the best software to call BBSes and download files. 2) Blue Wave (mail reader) - I got hooked on FidoNet, so needed a good mail reader. 3) Legend of the Red Dragon - I ran a BBS too so I absolutely needed this door game. Interestingly enough, reading about how much mon…
> 3) Legend of the Red Dragon - I ran a BBS too so I absolutely needed this door game.
My person favourite was TradeWars 2002:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Wars
Still seems to be playable online:
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#170Escape Velocity. Take that Cap’n Hector!
EV: Nova was the first shareware game I ever paid for. Also how I learned to use ResEdit. The Ship Variants mod was the best! There was nothing quite so overpowered as a Type IV Modified Valkyrie, a ship that was basically impossible to capture in stock without a massively larger ship or small fleet. It had most of the cargo capacity of a stock (Type I) Mod. Valkyrie, but about 3-4x the weapons mass, filled with missile launches and an ion beam (unheard of on a 2-day jump ship), and with room to spare for a medium laser.