In fact, I see parallels with a concept called “micro-investing” (among other names) that I have recently become interested in. I was amazed that there were people developing these incredibly cool (and important) pieces of software, and then pretty much trusting to the community for enough payment to make it possible to continue developing MORE programs, games, etc. I recall the first time someone explained the concept of shareware to me–and how “revolutionary” it sounded. Mainly because, as a writer and artist, and a guy inspired by the early BBS system, I can relate to the inherent need to feel inspired and accepted by one’s own peers–especially if the medium you are working within is not a part of the “normal” economic model. I also found one particular thing you said (roughly paraphrased: “I did it for the mail”) to be very moving.
Pkware sucks series#
Though I had heard parts of the story presented in the series of documentaries that included “Compression”, I found your story to be very inspiring in a strange way. It was very liberating to know that we could make our own way using the tools and examples of computer pioneers such as yourself. My own generation (in the alternative music genre, for example) was very much influenced by DIY ethics. The idea that like-minded people could interact over vast, invisible distances was a source of fascination and inspiration to me. I’ve always been more of an artist than a technician, but I suppose one of the elements I saw in the world you and your contemporaries were developing was some undefined nexus where the worlds of art and science met, shook hands, and began working together. As silly as this may sound to you, these concepts (and the reality they presented) were revolutionary to me. In 1992, my girlfriend’s dad introduced me to BBS systems, FIDOnet and shareware. I suppose I had fantasies of hacking databases and becoming some William Gibsonesque “cyberspace cowboy”–though, as I said, I wasn’t really very technically-oriented. This computer had a (now laughably primitive) Hercules Graphics Card and a modem somewhat slower than a donkey cart.
To become a part of your world, I had to wait for another birthday gift: my first IBM XT clone, in 1988, before I went away to college. But my REAL interests were in the “online” applications emerging.
I was lucky enough to attend a summer workshop using Apple II’s at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, where I learned to program BASIC. Like many geeky, gawky teens that live in small, rural places, I didn’t have many REAL friends. When my family moved to rural Alabama the following year, computers became a kind of surrogate companion for me. In truth, I just wanted to play a better class of video games than I could using the family Atari 2600…and I think I also wanted to be Matthew Broderick’s character in ‘Wargames’. My own promises and lies–with the salesmanship of TI’s celebrity spokesman, Bill Cosby–convinced my parents a computer would do wonders for my education. My first computer (being from a lower middle-class family) was a TI-99/4A, which was an extremely extravagant birthday present in 1982, when i was 12. I just wanted to take a few minutes of your time to thank you for all you’ve meant to computer BBS enthusiasts. For me, bulletin board systems, FIDOnet, shareware–all of it–was a big part of my life in my late teens and twenties. I was born in 1969, so I grew up with computers, video games and technology. Being a card-carrying geek by some definitions, I am also something of an anomaly: I’ve been greatly influenced by computers and technology (particularly the whole idea of networked communications and file sharing), but without having any real technical ability myself.
I suppose this email may seem a bit odd, considering we’ve never met but, in a way, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to write you. I used to love to go to the post office, with Irene. She’d drive back, and I’d go through the letters.” “…the bulk of the payments were individual $35 payments, from people regular people. It inspired me to write a letter to the doc’s protagonist/antagonist, Thom Henderson. The film covers an old, mostly forgotten controversy: SEA vs PKWARE computer compression “shareware”. But it is, like any good story, a human story. Laugh all you want, but this was an interesting and moving piece of work.
Pkware sucks software#
Tonight I saw a short but moving documentary on a subject that many folks might think would be the most boring subject on earth: digital file compression software in the early days of the Internet.
0 kommentar(er)
