Ask HN: What 1980s/90s-era shareware did you purchase? • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by sersi » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:05 PM UTC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kye_(video_game) It was charityware and me and a friend pooled our pocket money to pay the 20 pounds when we were 10.

But, I pirated the vast majority of shareware I used as a teen (at least the ones with time limits or other limitations). Ironic considering that I released later a shareware myself.

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

#112

Post by mrpippy » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:05 PM UTC

I still have the receipts from when my dad bought GraphicConverter (with a carbon-paper credit card receipt in DM) and ZTerm for Mac back in the mid-90s.

GraphicConverter is still actively maintained today (although that license isn’t still good), and ZTerm lasted (with no changes) to the Intel era.

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

#113

Post by codespin » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:06 PM UTC

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…

Commander Keen was my childhood and then later mIRC scripts were my life. My mind was blown by being able to program something that could interact with real people like mIRC. My love for coding started there.

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

#114

Post by tonymet » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

I'd be interested to hear about creative DRM policies were used. I remember some used a secret hash key that seemed to be easily cracked with cracker apps/software.

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

#115

Post by chungy » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

sersi wrote: post #111

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kye_(video_game) It was charityware and me and a friend pooled our pocket money to pay the 20 pounds when we were 10. But, I pirated the vast majority of shareware I used as a teen (at least the ones with time limits or other limitations). Ironic considering that I released later a shareware myself.

Man, I never completed the main set of that game. Something around level 15 just seemed impossible to me :D

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

#116

Post by allenu » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:09 PM UTC

I 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 money the author made got me to write my own BBS door games and I was able to sell a decent number of copies! I really cut my programming teeth on those games I made (in C and C++).

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

#117

Post by thaddeusmt » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:09 PM UTC

futureshock wrote: post #76

Escape Velocity. Take that Cap’n Hector!

Glad to see this mentioned (twice even!). Ambrosia Software! This was the first game I was really exposed to "mods" and user created content with, too. Takes me back!

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

#118

Post by giantrobot » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:15 PM UTC

What do you mean? I'm Jan Klaassen! You're all welcome!

/s

I am not Jan Klaassen but WinZip thought I was.

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

#119

Post by dietrichepp » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:17 PM UTC

I was a Mac user back in the 1990s… bought some games like Taskmaker, Spacestation Pheta, Avernum (a 2000s remake of Exile from the 1990s). Later on, Carbon Copy Cloner.

I think I may have used a pirated Escape Velocity key.

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

#120

Post by op00to » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 5:17 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #84

strict9 wrote: post #31

Legend of the Red Dragon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Red_Dragon Also WildCat! BBS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat!_BBS

+1 Wildcat! Gods, I loved Wildcat! I also bought all the related sysop stuff. PKZIP, misc dial-up programs (names?), was Eudora shareware?, QEdit, PC-Write, etc. The offline mail reader Silly Little Mail Reader (SLMR) had discount bulk purchases to help BBS hosts (and themselves). So I'd buy 20 licenses and resell them to my regular callers at full price. I miss SLMR every single day. Especially its TWIT filter featu…

Procomm plus!