Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full • Hacker News Board

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#121

Post by virtue3 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 6:39 AM UTC

ryanjshaw wrote: post #114

mewse-hn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There were some who believed that making the shareware disc easily-crackable was an intentional stroke of genius. I doubt it. I would believe that the id guys weren't too choked about the lost revenue after the fact, but the business guys probably believed the scheme would work (especially since they contracted a company that said "yes, this will work"). Aside from that, the shareware cd was incredible marketing -…

Surely anybody who could download the keygen could just as easily download the pirated game? Only difference is time and dialup costs, but neither of those would’ve pushed somebody into the buy category.

it would have been like 520 hours to download 500mgb. Assuming it didn't break at some point.

That was pretty tough in that day and age. Especially from pirate sites.

mIRC had some good servers but getting someone to keep a direct connection with you for that long was problematic too.

And then if you didn't have a dedicated phone line for the modem...

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#122

Post by orhmeh09 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 6:51 AM UTC

danielheath wrote: post #101

beloch wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uncompressed audio tracks may have been necessary to get acceptable performance. e.g. GTA 1 came with some PCM tracks on the CD. If you didn't like them, you could pop in a different CD and get different music on the radio in-game. Playing mp3's was, in the early to mid-90's, actually pretty intensive. There were still a decent number of 386's around that could barely run a mp3 player in a Linux console-only setup. Y…

Back in the day, my 200mhz Pentium remained just-barely usable while listening to WinAmp, but there was noticeable latency.

I never noticed any problems, but I did have the mmx version. It wasn't fast but never did the playback stutter , even with dreamweaver and several browser windows

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#123

Post by xg15 » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 6:52 AM UTC

> The packaging was actually pretty high quality for a shareware product. On my copy, a sticker on the front clarifies this is the "Shareware version" with instructions to call 1-800-669-9342 (or 1-800-ID-GAMES) to unlock the full game.

> The phone number is still active today. However you don't reach the unlock center since CompUSA went out of business. The Superstore chain closed between 2007 and 2008. Instead of an unlock operator we get an automated message to sell us elderly stuff.

I remember how stuff like that presented an insurmountable obstacle as a kid. Buying stuff in the store, sure, but calling phone numbers or writing letters to companies? No way.

I like how it has come full circle today, with the phone number being inaccessible once again...

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#124

Post by Lorkki » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 7:07 AM UTC

virtue3 wrote: post #121

ryanjshaw wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely anybody who could download the keygen could just as easily download the pirated game? Only difference is time and dialup costs, but neither of those would’ve pushed somebody into the buy category.

it would have been like 520 hours to download 500mgb. Assuming it didn't break at some point. That was pretty tough in that day and age. Especially from pirate sites. mIRC had some good servers but getting someone to keep a direct connection with you for that long was problematic too. And then if you didn't have a dedicated phone line for the modem...

If I remember correctly, actual pirated copies would have been maybe tens of megabytes, since they didn't include the CD audio. But that would still have been a hefty modem download.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#125

Post by vanviegen » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 7:16 AM UTC

virtue3 wrote: post #121

ryanjshaw wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely anybody who could download the keygen could just as easily download the pirated game? Only difference is time and dialup costs, but neither of those would’ve pushed somebody into the buy category.

it would have been like 520 hours to download 500mgb. Assuming it didn't break at some point. That was pretty tough in that day and age. Especially from pirate sites. mIRC had some good servers but getting someone to keep a direct connection with you for that long was problematic too. And then if you didn't have a dedicated phone line for the modem...

According to the article: the game was 22MB and only the first 32kB of the .exe were encrypted.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#126

Post by stevekemp » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 7:18 AM UTC

beloch wrote: post #91

mook wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, in the early days of DVDs I recall a game that came with uncompressed 48kHz audio. Compress it to mp3 (which the game naively accepted if you had the correct Windows filters) and it fits in a CD.

Uncompressed audio tracks may have been necessary to get acceptable performance. e.g. GTA 1 came with some PCM tracks on the CD. If you didn't like them, you could pop in a different CD and get different music on the radio in-game. Playing mp3's was, in the early to mid-90's, actually pretty intensive. There were still a decent number of 386's around that could barely run a mp3 player in a Linux console-only setup. Y…

And don't forget to engage your "TURBO" button, to make the playback slightly better!

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#127

Post by zorked » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 7:20 AM UTC

beloch wrote: post #91

mook wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, in the early days of DVDs I recall a game that came with uncompressed 48kHz audio. Compress it to mp3 (which the game naively accepted if you had the correct Windows filters) and it fits in a CD.

Uncompressed audio tracks may have been necessary to get acceptable performance. e.g. GTA 1 came with some PCM tracks on the CD. If you didn't like them, you could pop in a different CD and get different music on the radio in-game. Playing mp3's was, in the early to mid-90's, actually pretty intensive. There were still a decent number of 386's around that could barely run a mp3 player in a Linux console-only setup. Y…

For reference: I had a 486 DX2 66 MHz, and I played MP3s by decoding them in batch to PCM and then playing that as it couldn't really do that in real time. Perhaps only if you didn't do anything else and the MP3 was low bitrate enough and ideally mono.

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#128

Post by vanviegen » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 7:22 AM UTC

Espressosaurus wrote: post #104

danielheath wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the day, my 200mhz Pentium remained just-barely usable while listening to WinAmp, but there was noticeable latency.

Yeah, I remember an mp3 rating >50% CPU time on one of those early pentiums we had

Yeah. Seeing that made me very happy, being the proud owner of a dual CPU (no, not dual core!) AMD K6. :-)

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#129

Post by zorked » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 7:24 AM UTC

ColdStream wrote: post #107

mook wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, in the early days of DVDs I recall a game that came with uncompressed 48kHz audio. Compress it to mp3 (which the game naively accepted if you had the correct Windows filters) and it fits in a CD.

When Metal Gear Solid 4 released on Ps3, they used uncompressed audio. I think part of it was just to show off how much storage Blu Ray had. The game Titanfall on PC has the audio in it twice, compressed and decompressed. The decompressed was for machines with dual core or less so that there was enough overhead to keep the game running.

Why would it play the compressed version if it had the decompressed audio right there though?

Re: Quake Shareware, a CD-ROM just a little too full

#130

Post by lukwoz » Tue, Aug 18, 2026, 7:27 AM UTC

"Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity. And never attribute to stupidity what you can attribute to time pressure. -- Fab's Razor".

Surfacing this gem of a razor here, as it's buried deep in the (fantastic) blog post. Indeed, all too often, what we attribute simply to stupidity/ignorance, as per the classic Hanlon's razor, is actually downstream of market/client/management/deadline etc. pressure.