ARJ, maybe a Zip program, misc. BBS software, and IIRC, I sent in a payment for ZModem or some terminal program that used ZModem, but that got returned to me unopened.
Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
171–180 of 202 posts
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#172Not 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…
I did a similar thing, but it was Mandrake. I bought it primarily to save having the multi-gb download over 56k.
I remember doing a lot of fighting with '3dfx' drivers, X, and network drivers. I only had one PC, so I had to run to a friend's house to google [edit: search for things on altavista] things, then I'd bash my head against my keyboard all evening.
I found debian soon after that, and though I've jumped around a little, I run debian still today.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#173I 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: * http://wiki.classictw.com/index.php?title=Jumpgate * http://www.tradewars.com/default.html
I remember TradeWars 2002. I was never into strategy games all that much, but did play a bit of Global War and later Falcon's Eye.
I was surprised to find that several BBS door games are still available for sale, such as Barren Realms Elite:
* https://www.johndaileysoftware.com/products/bbsdoors
Apparently, the above company acquired several BBS door game IPs and continues to make them available today for purchase!
I also stumbled upon one of my own games on archive.org, available to play in the browser (albeit single user only):
* https://archive.org/details/msdos_Enigma_of_Ashrella_The_199...
In my case, I still occasionally have people emailing me for registration codes, but I point them to free codes I published years ago.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#174VGA Planets. Such a great game, advanced to its time! It was a Civilization-like game, but in space, with lots of pop culture references, complex like Dwarf Fortress, and turn-based. Each turn was uploaded to a BBS or Usenet, and a host put all the players' turns together every few days, then sent the turn files back. So fun.
For me it was a similar game, Stars![0] I got the shareware demo along with several other games on a floppy included with some computer magazine I randomly purchased at the mall. Got my brother and across-the-street neighbor hooked on it and we'd have days-long hot seat games during the summers. Later on I discovered the actual boxed version and bought it on the spot.
It is probably the oldest game I still play occasionally (it runs fine in Wine). In a weird coincidence, in the 201Xs my best friend and I were reminiscing about old games and it turned out he played it in his youth as well, so we fired up our respective copies and got several PBEM (well s/email/Google Drive) games going.
One of my favorite things about it is tweaking scripts to optimize the game economy each time I get another round of obsession with the game. It will dump detailed game data into TSV specifically for parsing by other tools.
If anyone is interested, you can still get legit software keys for it [1].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!>
[1]: https://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Get_Stars!>
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#175Total Commander (well, it was Windows Commander back then) and I use it daily till today. The best purchase ever.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#176VGA Planets. Such a great game, advanced to its time! It was a Civilization-like game, but in space, with lots of pop culture references, complex like Dwarf Fortress, and turn-based. Each turn was uploaded to a BBS or Usenet, and a host put all the players' turns together every few days, then sent the turn files back. So fun.
Yeah I bought this too. It still exists as a web game, by the way. It was fun but it mainly taught me I lack the fundamental strategic insight for such games.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#177I'm pretty sure I bought golded from Odinn Sorensen (yes 2 n's lol). And frontdoor. Not entirely sure though.
I pirated a lot back then because it was often simply impossible to pay for US based software from Holland. I was too young for a credit card and those hardly existed in Holland anyway in those days.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#178I purchased Kali95 (lost the license)... and one fighting game similar to Mortal Kombat.... forgot the name. Pirated everything else including Windows...
Descent and warcraft 2 on Kali. Good times.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#179PC-Write. Bought the sources, too. PKZIP. Was pretty much required. Quarterdesk Desqview. Used it for 6 months, then switched to Linux. And of course, DOOM .. Wolfenstein .. Spectre VR ..
> PKZIP. Was pretty much required.
Do you recall what the benefit of registering pkzip was? i used it a lot but never bought it (and don't recall using a cracked copy).
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#180BBedit is the only one i remember. Still going strong today!