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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid this was rather popular in certain parts of the world in the early-mid nineties not just

by chx 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid this was rather popular in certain parts of the world in the early-mid nineties not just in the former USSR but the former USSR satellite states as well. Pirated software arrived from Austria weekly on QIC 80 tapes, got copied to ArVid/VHS in Hungary and sent on to Ukraine and it spread from there. The gigabytes capacity looked utterly ridiculous at a time when Lands of Lore with its eight floppies taking a whopping 11 megabytes was a crazy big game. Later the pirates switched to 2GB DAT tapes and even later hard drives. By the time I left that world (early 00s), FTP existed, it sure did but there were quite a bit of problems with both storing and transferring enough so the weekly packages didn't stop.

Kadin 8y ago
Wow. 2GB of uncompressed data per tape is really impressive. That's more than most of the data-backup tape systems at the time. I'm surprised/disappointed it never caught on in the US; I would have loved a backup system like that. But instead we got DAT/DDS, where the cheap recorders were barely interoperable and the expensive ones cost more than most individuals could afford. (And I think DDS tapes were under 2GB, in terms of true capacity and not the shifty advertised capacities.) I suppose there wasn't enough money in a VHS-based tape system to get any company interested. Everybody wanted their own proprietary tape format so they could do the obnoxious razors-and-blades business model, I guess.
- MisterTea 8y ago
  In the 90's I traded warez on Iomega ditto 250MB tapes with a small group of friends who were active in the BBS warez scene. They would get all the good stuff, trade, upload and get priority for being a good "upper" (or some such slang). Every month or so they would release a list. You made a wish list from that list and handed it in along with a blank tape and a few bucks for chips and soda. Few days later my friend would collect the tapes and rollerblade to my place to drop them off on his way home.
MaupitiBlue 8y ago
> QIC 80 Thanks for the flashback. My QIC80 neurons haven’t fired in 25 years.

by chx 8y ago

Kadin 8y ago

Wow. 2GB of uncompressed data per tape is really impressive. That's more than most of the data-backup tape systems at the time. I'm surprised/disappointed it never caught on in the US; I would have loved a backup system like that. But instead we got DAT/DDS, where the cheap recorders were barely interoperable and the expensive ones cost more than most individuals could afford. (And I think DDS tapes were under 2GB, in terms of true capacity and not the shifty advertised capacities.) I suppose there wasn't enough money in a VHS-based tape system to get any company interested. Everybody wanted their own proprietary tape format so they could do the obnoxious razors-and-blades business model, I guess.

MisterTea 8y ago
In the 90's I traded warez on Iomega ditto 250MB tapes with a small group of friends who were active in the BBS warez scene. They would get all the good stuff, trade, upload and get priority for being a good "upper" (or some such slang). Every month or so they would release a list. You made a wish list from that list and handed it in along with a blank tape and a few bucks for chips and soda. Few days later my friend would collect the tapes and rollerblade to my place to drop them off on his way home.

MaupitiBlue 8y ago

> QIC 80 Thanks for the flashback. My QIC80 neurons haven’t fired in 25 years.