Thank you for preserving history!

edited April 2014 in Software
I just though I would stop in and say thank you for helping to preserve software history and making it available to the world.

It is also refreshing to see an abandonware site that is dedicated to applications and utilities rather than games or the latest "leaked" betas.

You never know when some seemingly boring old utility can shed new light on some part of history. Or even come in useful. It is important that as much of it is preserved as possible.

I've recently been going through a lot of old software looking for examples of certain ways of doing things. It can be quite surprising some times how things that kids these days think are new and novel have been done dozens of times before. There are lessons to be learned from these archives.

Some people's heads might explode if they saw how much better some old applications work compared to their newer bloated, bell and whistle encrusted counterparts. It can also be kind of nostalgic seeing applications that have been used in the past.

It is quite an undertaking maintaining such an archive. I mean, there is more software than out there than any one person can really focus on. (No TRS-80 or Apple II software here, for example) Have been going through my old floppy and CD collection to make sure it is correctly preserved, and just organizing that is a challenge.

BTW, do you folks here take submissions?

Anyway, awesome archive, and thanks again.

Comments

  • While we accept submissions admittedly we're pretty lazy on making them available. That said if you have anything you want to contribute I could probably get something set up here for you to do so with.
  • Welcome to the forums. Can't say I ever expected to see you around here.

    As stitch said, we do take submissions but we are quite lazy in verifying, packaging and uploading them to all three servers. We had a FTP server for submissions up at one point, but since FTP is notoriously insecure and it was filled with crap that never got organized it was taken down quite some time ago.

    That said, again, repeating stitch here, if you'd like to add something to our collection, just get in touch and something can easily be arranged, especially if we know from the get-go what it is and that it isn't virus-ridden crap.
  • I'll get an ftpd set up here shortly.
  • Yea, I don't frequent too many message boards. Too much noise on forums these days... as I can see you all are painfully aware of. :)

    Googling around it is surprising how even some of the old shareware/freeware I used to use is no longer out there. Or if it is, it is buried somewhere.

    Anyway, one thing that got me thinking about here was that I obtained a CD of Corel WordPerfect Office 7 that includes the supposedly uncommon revision of WordPerfect 7 that runs natively under Windows NT 3.51 (And other later NT). The version of WordPerfect 7 you folks have is the original buggy release that ONLY runs under Windows 95. (In their infinite wisdom Corel never offered a patch update for the original release - you had to obtain an entirely new CD!)

    Also been double checking my old collection of floppies. I'd fully expect you to verify anything you might want to post, to make sure it works, and has everything needed to install/run. I had uploaded some of the smaller things over at Vetusware... :roll: they don't verify anything! That site is a spam disaster waiting to happen.
  • It's here and Reddit for myself; the regulars here keep a good SNR but the kiddie waves have been getting annoying =\ I want to get more "content" on the site and have wanted to for like the past 6 months but working as a sysadmin, doing websites on your off time is just outright meh.

    Without divulging your identity (as I see you didn't list your site publicly) I can say your presence here is surprising and welcoming; feel free to make yourself at home here. With that stated I do have another request for you but I'll shoot that off in a PM here shortly. I don't really like the idea of not testing our offerings, which is a good reason why we're so lazy about it here, but I do believe Duff tested most if not all of what we currently offer, minus the betas (but they come from a reputable source, at least for quality control of the downloads, so I'm not really all too concerned).
  • Speaking of contributions, as per this thread: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6229 I have BeOS 5.0 and NT 4 All In One in ISO format. Do you want them?
  • I do but there's an issue; my options are pretty much limited to wsftpd (which blows) unless I want to compile sources (which I really don't)

    [stitch@spongebob ~]$ apk search ftp
    heimdal-ftp-1.4-r11
    lftp-4.3.6-r0
    ncftp-doc-3.2.5-r1
    ncftp-3.2.5-r1
    vsftpd-2.3.5-r2
    vsftpd-doc-2.3.5-r2
    gvfs-obexftp-1.9.1-r4
    ncftp-bookmarks-3.2.5-r1
    lftp-doc-4.3.6-r0
    tftp-hpa-5.2-r0
    php-ftp-5.3.15-r1
  • I can upload it to Rioter's server if that helps at all.
  • If you have some access to that blue, go for it!
  • They're up on his server now in my home folder.
  • BlueSun wrote:
    They're up on his server now in my home folder.

    This is for you, Duff. Unless you have an HTTP URL I can wget I don't think I have an account there.
  • stitch wrote:
    Unless you have an HTTP URL I can wget I don't think I have an account there.

    I used to... *pokes Rioter with a stick*
  • SomeGuy wrote:
    I obtained a CD of Corel WordPerfect Office 7 that includes the supposedly uncommon revision of WordPerfect 7 that runs natively under Windows NT 3.51.
    How could I get an image of that CD ?
  • Would like to be able to supply some stuff I've not seen 'round in decades as well.

    Rummaging thru old CDs, floppies & drives - much that is not showing up on abandonware sites.

    For now, I've been plopping stuff onto the v..ware site.

    Look forward to some renewed interest!
  • nt_5 wrote:
    SomeGuy wrote:
    I obtained a CD of Corel WordPerfect Office 7 that includes the supposedly uncommon revision of WordPerfect 7 that runs natively under Windows NT 3.51.
    How could I get an image of that CD ?

    An ISO of v7 with that description is on Vetusware.

    Search for "Corel Office Professional 7"

    Also will be upping "Corel WordPerfect Suite 8 Beta 3" if I get caught up with R/L chores. I used that one on NT4 right on up thru XP SP1 with nary a hiccup.
  • Thank you
  • nt_5 wrote:
    Thank you

    You are welcome.
Sign In or Register to comment.