Re: Cnet Article on Abandonware

["Paul Grammens" <grammens@svn.net>]

Eric Shepherd <sheppy@sheppyware.net>
>
> Yes, that's true.  However, DOOM was the most successful example of this
at
> the time; Wolfenstein 3D and Commander Keen came before the Internet was a
> major player in distribution of software.  DOOM came during the sudden
> explosion of people joining the Internet, so that I would guess that more
> people downloaded copies of the shareware DOOM than bought it on disk.
>
> Certainly more people played the shareware version of DOOM than the First
> Encounter of Wolfenstein 3D.
>
> At any rate, id Software pioneered the "shareware demo as sales hook" era
of
> computer gaming, and it has worked marvelously well for them.
>

Pre-internet, id shareware was spread by BBS's, shareware disk sellers, and
then from friend to friend.  There were lots of BBS's around here, a listing
had half a page. Some were even part of national and international networks
that spread mail, news, and files every night when phone rates were lowest.
One local BBS called "Cracker's Paradise" was an official distributor of id
shareware.  Somehow they got software from id as it was released. These BBS
networks  had most of the functionality of the internet, except web
browsing. The local Mac BBS was close, it had a graphical interface.

But I'm sure you know all about that, I just wanted to take that trip down
memory lane...
-Paul