• ikt@aussie.zone
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      4 hours ago

      remembering the good old days of limewire and kazaa: metalica_seek_and_destory.mp3.exe

  • Thorry@feddit.org
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    14 hours ago

    For people who don’t know, software used to come in those kinds of boxes you can see in the background. These were often high quality thick cardboard, which opened up in unique and different ways. Most had a sleeve around the box with the logo and marketing blurbs, some had those printed directly onto the box. Inside were floppies (size depending on the era) or later CDs. Something like Windows 3.11 with Office was over 50 1.44MB floppies (3½-inch), so the box was big and heavy.

    Also most contained a literal book, often hundreds of pages. Paperback with thin pages, double sided to cram as much info in there as possible. Since there was no internet, only sneakernet, the books were all we had to get stuff working and troubleshoot it. Most software back then was also complicated to setup and use, so the books were required. We went to physical stores to buy the software, which was expensive as well. So for the price you wanted the box and books to be good.

    I remember many times you couldn’t buy the software in the shop, you would fill in a form and they would order it for you. Then later you could pick it up or sometimes they would send it over to your office or home. This was usually very expensive, so picking it up was the better option. Sometimes this was because we would like to pre-order the latest release, often weeks or even months in advance. Or because the store simply wouldn’t have as many in stock, or not the specific version you needed. Windows 95 was something else, which they announced people could just buy in the store. Pre-order not required, the stores would have plenty of stock. And to their credit, they did.

    Games came in neat boxes as well, but to my recollection they were often lesser quality and didn’t have much in the way of documentation. But the art on the boxes was often a lot nicer to look at. And some games came in really neat boxes, making it a feature.