Lol, when I was seeing them around as a teenager I was thinking to DIZ as "dizionario" in Italian (dictionary)... of course, had I thought a bit more, I could have figured out that it was probably not Italian.
The whole history of shareware was badly neglected along my path into the industry, as if all those people set sail sometime in the 1990s and were never heard from again. In fact they continued in parallel, and still show very obvious influence in many niches of software. I think that was just hard to see while I was at uni.
I can strongly recommend Richard Moss' Shareware Heroes book for those interested in remedial reading, and not just for those devoted to games.
If there are any computer history grad students lurking, an integrative history of early software distribution models and industry orgs is still a big, gaping hole in the lit, as far as I know.
Essentially it was a parallel track in the BBS world. And it ended up dying/morphing into the sort of trial-ware etc. that the "true" shareware movement was largely against. The whole thing just sort of fizzled out as open source was becoming more prominent but, even as someone who was a part of it, it's not totally clear to me how that transition came about.
With a few exceptions like Jason Scott's BBS documentary, the non-Unix/Internet history of early personal computing is not very well-covered at all.
> Please don't be tempted to use fancy graphic or ANSI sequences in the
FILE_ID.DIZ file, as most BBS software will not allow this, and will render
your FILE_ID.DIZ file useless.
Everyone was doing exactly that and even I did something like +hundred artsy file_id.diz headers for the scene groups or my own groups. When "releases" started to be from 5 to 15 disks (packages), many sysops started to clearing the art away from the file lists and just leaving an oneliner of the title visible, like:
The Name of The Release Disk: [03/12]
Interesting too that as niche as they are today, they are still being made. The last ones I did was in 2015.
I was adult years old when I realized all those big walls of gibberish I saw in my youth was intended to be elaborate graphics, but my computer had the wrong charset to show them.
I can remember this, scrolling through page after page of the same release since only 3 or 4 big "PWA" or "FLT" logos could fit on a page. I remember more or less the same visual style as graffiti from the era. I had no idea this stuff was still happening in 2015.
Pedantic note: This appears to be a text file that was improperly converted to HTML. The body contains text in angle brackets that is not visible when viewing in a web browser, mainly the <ASP> mark for the Association of Shareware Professionals. You can properly see the original text by viewing the page source.
The file self-describes (in the first line) as being HTML, so not using characters that don't work in HTML seems like a sensible requirement. Strange that nobody noticed and fixed it, earlier.
Perhaps browsers of yore (heh, I was there so that sounds strange) did render the elements in question since they were less strict?
In a world where we increasingly don't own software but we rent it, is hard to imagine that shareware even existed.
As a kid I remember playing only first level of Doom, because it was distributed as a shareware and didn't have money to buy the game.
I remember saving money and buying computer magazines and then installing all the shareware they had on floppy disks, out of curiosity. For me the discovery process was fascinating.
Then you must be misremembering... the shareware version was the first episode, which was around a quarter of the final game. This practice was started by Apogee (who published, amongst others, Wolfenstein 3D) and then continued by id software for Doom and Quake.
What I remember is a title ascii screen (yellow letters against a red background or something the like) stating 'if you copy Doom, you will go to hell'. I'm pretty sure I got a copy of the complete game. I guess a lot of people will be going to hell.
I've bought one mobile app in my life. It was a tower defense game. The first few levels were completely free. After that, the game sends monsters that are too tough to destroy with the towers in the free content of the game. You could pay $2.50 for more towers, $2.50 for more more towers, $2.50 for more levels, $2.50 for something I don't remember, as in-app transactions.
I thought two things: "this game is fun enough to be worth $10," and "this is a really stupid way to do shareware."
I totally like their example, let me cite it here:
-------
MY PROGRAM v1.23 - A program which will
do anything for anybody. Will run in only 2k
of memory. Can be run from the command line,
or installed as a TSR. Completely menu-
driven. Version 1.23 reduces the previous 4k
memory requirements, and adds an enhanced
graphical user interface. Also, MY PROGRAM
now contains Windows and DESQview support.
Coming soon - an OS/2 version.
From Do-It-All Software, Inc. $15.00
Just $15.00 for such a software gem with 2k mem requirements. I would surely pay for an OS/2 version. :)
I love the burn about OS/2’s lack of software, where a fictional developer has done all of those things including DESQview support of all things but still hasn’t supported OS/2.
> A user file (such as README.1ST), which should explain how to use the install utility, what the user should expect during the installation, and any preparation that the user should make prior to the installation. This file might also contain a brief description of your program
> might
There's times where I find a random codebase and the README talks about how to install it without first giving some idea on what it is. I guess that's not new.
Readit News
Ah, finally, another puzzlement from my childhood explained.
"Description In Zip" seems like it could be a backronym.
Deleted Comment
I can strongly recommend Richard Moss' Shareware Heroes book for those interested in remedial reading, and not just for those devoted to games.
If there are any computer history grad students lurking, an integrative history of early software distribution models and industry orgs is still a big, gaping hole in the lit, as far as I know.
With a few exceptions like Jason Scott's BBS documentary, the non-Unix/Internet history of early personal computing is not very well-covered at all.
> Please don't be tempted to use fancy graphic or ANSI sequences in the FILE_ID.DIZ file, as most BBS software will not allow this, and will render your FILE_ID.DIZ file useless.
Everyone was doing exactly that and even I did something like +hundred artsy file_id.diz headers for the scene groups or my own groups. When "releases" started to be from 5 to 15 disks (packages), many sysops started to clearing the art away from the file lists and just leaving an oneliner of the title visible, like:
Interesting too that as niche as they are today, they are still being made. The last ones I did was in 2015.I can remember this, scrolling through page after page of the same release since only 3 or 4 big "PWA" or "FLT" logos could fit on a page. I remember more or less the same visual style as graffiti from the era. I had no idea this stuff was still happening in 2015.
http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=107478 for example this 2024 release, if you scroll to the end of the page.
Perhaps browsers of yore (heh, I was there so that sounds strange) did render the elements in question since they were less strict?
As a kid I remember playing only first level of Doom, because it was distributed as a shareware and didn't have money to buy the game.
I remember saving money and buying computer magazines and then installing all the shareware they had on floppy disks, out of curiosity. For me the discovery process was fascinating.
And mission disks are called DLC.
Which also work with DRM free content. DRM and renting feels like short term gain to me.
I thought two things: "this game is fun enough to be worth $10," and "this is a really stupid way to do shareware."
Such a bargain!
> might
There's times where I find a random codebase and the README talks about how to install it without first giving some idea on what it is. I guess that's not new.