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

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

#61

Post by neural_thing » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:34 PM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #40

pkZip - Phil Katz's archive program. pkzip 2.04g was the bees knees for a very long time. That, plus a stack of floppy disks with labels was my version control system for a decade. Vern Berg(sp?) - LIST.COM - a file viewer, with a hex mode. I ended up writing my own clone, look TurboPower Software - EDWIN - a wonderful text editor, had the ability to record and run macros. I used Borland's SkidKick and Turbo Pascal a…

ACDSee?

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

#62

Post by schrectacular » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:34 PM UTC

TASKMAKER!

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

#63

Post by 0xbadc0de5 » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:38 PM UTC

Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Procomm Plus

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

#64

Post by mmcgaha » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:40 PM UTC

What I should have paid for:

UltraEdit

WinZip

Procomm Plus

mIRC

Forte Agent

Eudora Pro

Paint Shop Pro

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

#65

Post by itslennysfault » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:43 PM UTC

I was hoping to be surprised to see WinRAR on many people's list, and as of right now I see exactly zero people purchased WinRAR as I sadly expected.

I didn't purchase it either.

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

#66

Post by acheron » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:45 PM UTC

itslennysfault wrote: post #65

I was hoping to be surprised to see WinRAR on many people's list, and as of right now I see exactly zero people purchased WinRAR as I sadly expected. I didn't purchase it either.

In the 90s?

Huh, it came out in 1995. I don't think I ever saw it until a couple years into the 2000s. I think I did buy it.

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

#67

Post by acheron » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:49 PM UTC

Bunch of games, mainly from the big names (Apogee and Epic). Only "indie" game I can think of right now is Megazeux, though there might have been others.

Oh, there was one from a local guy that I'm not sure ever spread beyond our local BBSs, and I've never seen a reference to it on the Internet. I keep meaning to upload it to archive.org at some point since I may be the only one in the world who has it.

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

#68

Post by pmontra » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:51 PM UTC

Nothing. I think that the only program I ever bought was some incremental backup software for Windows XP for my laptop at home but that was some years later, in the 2000s. For everything else, free or open source solutions were good enough for me even when I still used Windows.

By the way, I'm using rsnapshot for my backups now.

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

#69

Post by shzhdbi09gv8ioi » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:52 PM UTC

mIRC - after pirating it for years I paid for it in the early 00:s, such great example of free-forever shareware with a persistent design goal. Did enjoy learning simple programming in mIRC scripts on a pirated copy in the 90s as a poor kid.

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

#70

Post by acheron » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 3:52 PM UTC

BTW -- this book is a wonderful look at the shareware games of the era: https://sharewareheroes.com/