Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?

I remember paying for Opera, twice, back in the early days of the Web when it stood head and shoulders above the competition.

I am still happy to make a contribution for useful software, e.g. WinSCP.

Goldwave and one mp3 song from Smash Mouth

https://www.goldwave.com/

I used sled.com — Sam’s Little Editor - for years while a university student - and years later tracked down the author to pay him.

Bought every single boxed product that Borland put out: TurboC, TurboDebugger, TurboAssembly, TurboPascal, TurboC++

Bought 3 versions of OS/2 — back when I thought it might win over Windows. Oops

I used a Windows editor called TextPad for about 20 years. Maybe there are better editors out there, but it's what my boss used at one job, and I got used to it, and it worked fine for my needs.

20 years in, I thought, come on, I mean I work in software, I can easily afford this ($200 or something). So I paid, and felt good about doing so. I don't know why I didn't do it earlier really!

But I was absolutely so used to the 20 years of multiple-times-per-day muscle memory of clicking away the nag panel on startup telling you to pay. So I uninstalled the program and reinstalled it without typing in the registration code, even though I'd paid, so I could get back to the "workflow" that I was used to...

http://www.ThePalace.com in either 1994/95. That website looks like it's straight out of the 90s.