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

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

#72

Post by weinzierl »

adrianmsmith wrote: post #27

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 t…

I liked Textpad as well, and - besides other things - used it to write ANSYS files.

When I got Internet access at work, I downloaded the ANSYS syntax file from the Textpad website and to my surprise they were written by my boss at the time. syntax

This made me think that the Internet must be a small world too, and for some time it maybe really was. Good times!

EDIT: I checked it out and for sure... drumroll! The file is still there:

ANSYS APDL Contributed by Randolf Mock and Markus Michel

https://www.textpad.com/addons/syntax

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

#75

Post by Tor3 »

I purchased a license for the shareware XV, for gif/png/tiff/jpg etc, by John Bradley. Over the years I've added a few patches. I still use it more than any other tool for looking at my photos.

I also paid for Mup (for writing music scores) back when it was still shareware. I'm using it all the time still.

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

#77

Post by randombits0 »

myself248 wrote: post #55

TeleMate - I might still have the original floppies somewhere. I still miss how easy this thing made file transfers; there's simply nothing like it in the modern era. Commander Keen and Jazz Jackrabbit -- we played the hell out of these and it was only right to register them. Additional levels, whoah! PKZip 2.04g -- back when software could just be "finished". mIRC -- I sunk way too many hours of my life into mIRC sc…

I, too, contributed to Phil Katz’s ultimate demise from alcohol abuse. Did you get the red, plastic key/coin holder? I call mine my PKZip license.

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

#78

Post by shever73 »

Trumpet Winsock in the 90s...it was the only way for me to connect to the Internet.

Commander Keen

AsEasyAs - the Lotus 123 compatible DOS spreadsheet

As a result, I remember getting lots of badly-printed shareware catalogues every month. Most of the games I bought in the late 80s and early 90s were full-price from Inter-mediates / Special Reserve or whatever they ended up calling themselves.

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

#80

Post by TacticalCoder »

As teenagers we were pirates sailing the high digital seas, our rooms filled with stashes of 5"1/4 and 3"1/2 floppies. Buying neither shareware (btw as teenagers in Europe we had no idea how we'd even buy sharewares) nor commercial games (these you'd just go to a shop and buy them).

However one day, when Ultima V came out, I decided I'd buy it: I had been playing Ultima III and Ultima IV so much, it seemed right to buy Ultima V. But I was not on the C64/C128 anymore, I had an Amiga. So I broke my wallet and bought the Amiga version of Ultima V.

Turns out: the port of Ultima V to the Amiga was particularly bad.

So I borrowed my neighbour's C128D (nice machine: my C128 had a little issue) and... Played a pirated version of Ultima V for the C64 (I'd use the C128 in C64 mode), which was way better than its Amiga port.

Aye.

P.S: semi-seriously though: I remember it was hard to buy US shareware from Europe in the eighties/nineties. My parents didn't even have credit cards back then (it was all still "cheques" and lots of tiny local currencies).

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