Subj : Shareware Heroes
To   : Ben Collver
From : Abbub
Date : Sat Apr 22 2023 11:07:30

 > I found this interesting tidbit on comp.misc. Unfortunately,
 > the book appears to be a grab bag. No table of contents on the book
 > seller web sites.

I saw that on hackernews (?) I think a week or so back.

I remember my dad would order 'serious' software from a huge shareware
distributor out of Texas (I want to say it was called 'Lonestar'?) that had
big listings of diskettes in the back of Computer Shopper magazine and he'd
always let me pick 4 or 5 disks. It was always a gamble because our computer
at the time was a 286 12 MHz with a Hercules clone monochrome graphics card.
I remember what a 'thrill' is was whenever you'd come across software that
would do something other than the standard text/ascii text modes.

I think the book probably focuses more on the 'creators' of shareware, rather
than the distributors. I may or may not have already mentioned this on here,
but one of the really big takeaways I've had with this setting-up-an-old-BBS
project is just how much software is pseudo-lost to the ages. I mean, it's
still out there, zipped up and sitting on servers, but a lot of it is
crippled behind registration / serial keys that have been unobtainable for
decades.

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 * Origin: WalledCTTY (21:2/145)

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