Re: Big Red Computer Club

[et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black)]

Michael J. Mahon (mjmahon@aol.com) writes:
> Ernest wrote:
> 
>>Has anyone heard of the Big Red Compuer Club?
>>
>>I found a box with a bunch of there club disks, and I'm debating tossing
>>them out. It looks like everything on them is shareware anyway.
> 
> The BRCC was a legend in its time.
> 
> They published many very useful programs, several of which were
> not PD programs.  One I recall was a nice labelmaking program.
> 
> If you're looking for a home, I'd be glad to help.  ;-)
> 
That whole shareware on disk thing was a rather interest blip in
history.  We didn't get any computer shows here until about 1990,
and it was amazing to see the number of booths devoted to shareware
disks, even if they basically had the same stock. That was the way
to get programs, and even if it wasn't that long ago, it's either
forgotten or newcomers don't even know they existed.

Then a few years later, one could get loads of shareware programs
on CDROMs, and it was the same places selling them at the computer
shows.

I remember paying around five dollars for single disks, for
various computers, because it was the only way I could get the
needed programs.  Never mind that there was only one program I
actually needed on the disk, or that there could only be a handful
of programs on a disk.  They were great because I could get those
programs.

Right as the boom was ending, '94 or  '95, one local electronic
store had a good hook.  They had internet access, still relatively
uncommon at that time, and instead of mass producing disks, they'd
download to disk for a fee.  Around the same price as the shareware
disks, but it would be exactly the needed programs.  It was wonderful.

And then a lot of people got internet access, so they could get the
programs without disks, or paying someone who could put together
the collections.  The boom ended, and you could barely find the shareware
disks.  

The last shareware disks I bought, not all that many years ago,
were at a couple of clearance places, and they were selling for 25 or 50
cents each.  I bought them for the flopppies, without regard for
what was on them.

  Michael