I think my brother-in-law gave me a free copy of Doom in '93. It turned my gaming world upside-down, and I sent off for the full version and did it again when Doom 2 came out. I was also an early customer for Ultraedit, which I used on personal projects (and at work, against policy) for at least 10 years. Late in the '90s I paid for the QVCS version control system, and later, Enterprise QVCS, which was a multi-user client-server system that I used for personal and consulting projects. Good stuff.
Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
41–50 of 202 posts
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#42Skyglobe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyglobe
It didn't run speedily on the 286 IBM clone that we had, but it was pretty amazing to me at the time (ca. 1993)
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#43Telemate, the amazing terminal program, with its own multitasking (on my IBM PC 5150) text windowing system. It allowed me to write all my school papers while BBSing.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#44I 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 t…
I was a very long time user of TextPad as well. I just had to go look it up and am pleasantly surprised it's still being updated. Though, the copyright on their website still says 2020.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#45I 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 t…
That’s absolutely hilarious.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#46Raptor - Call of the shadows
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#47One Must Fall from Epic Megagames. Took close to two months to arrive iirc
Loved OMF, I played the shareware version so many times. Eventually got a copy of the full version (since it was still a diskette game iirc so easily copied), I did play all of it but it didn't have the feeling of the shareware version, weirdly enough. Kids interact with things differently. There was a sequel at one point, a 3D, 3rd person arena melee variant, but it just didn't work imo. A shame, it was a great fran…
> I did play all of it but it didn't have the feeling of the shareware version, weirdly enough. Kids interact with things differently.
my parents got me those kiosk cds filled with shareware and demos back in the day, also had way more fun pushing the bounds of each small demo than investing in a full story
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#48Telemate, the amazing terminal program, with its own multitasking (on my IBM PC 5150) text windowing system. It allowed me to write all my school papers while BBSing.
Exactly this. It was almost like having your own little DesQview -- windowed floating text editor, DOS shell, scripting language, and a really full-featured dialer, all on three floppies.
(The fourth was a revolutionary display-a-GIF-while-it-downloads program, which would let you bail on the transfer early if the file wasn't shaping up to be what you wanted, or bail at 98% if you were shady and didn't want to use up the download credit because the board only counted completed transfers. It was barely related to the rest of TeleMate and had to be shelled out to, since it took over the display.)
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#49Goldwave and one mp3 song from Smash Mouth https://www.goldwave.com/
I still miss Goldwave's easy expression editor. You could write one line of math and generate all sorts of waveforms, sweeps, etc.
Re: Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase?
#50One Must Fall from Epic Megagames. Took close to two months to arrive iirc
I loved that game! I was probably 4 years old playing that. My dad had to start it up for me. I think he still has a tape of me crying about it being too difficult. Great times.
I never did work out how to do the special attack...