3 ms·

This is so cool that someone recovered it. Reminds me of all the crazy burned CDs I have with random software from the days of yore. Here's the previous discu

by cbanek 6y ago

This is so cool that someone recovered it. Reminds me of all the crazy burned CDs I have with random software from the days of yore. Here's the previous discussion where it was shown / talked about but thought to be lost: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236132

LoSboccacc 6y ago
> all the crazy burned CDs I have lucky you, mine all became unreadable with time. I didn't know/think of refreshing them periodically on newer cds, and now they're gone for. most of the games wouldn't run on modern hardware anyway, but a lot of first gen digital photos are lost in there.
- suddencoma 6y ago
  Yeah, CD/DVD media degrades over time, often on the time span of a decade they become unreadable. They are a bad choice for long term storage.
Sembiance 6y ago
You should rip the CDs and upload em to archive. It’s possible that there is unique content on them that doesn’t exist anywhere else :)
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  I remember but have never found a copy of an Apple ][ program I got from a pirated software collection, temptingly called "SUPER HIRES CHESS", which was actually not a chess game, but a puzzle game in the form of a computer virus: It pretended to be a BASIC game with a bug in it, and when you ran it, it would break with an error message. Then it would intercept the keyboard input vector, watch what you typed, and play all kinds of tricks on you, like when you typed "LIST" and hit return, it replaced it with "LSIT" and beeped syntax error, to drive you crazy! Eventually it would start giving you more hints that your computer had been taken over by a virus, and you had to figure out some puzzles to disable it. I've scoured the Apple ][ archives but never found it. But as long as people keep uploading and sharing their old collections, maybe "SUPER HIRES CHESS" will show up some day!
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Random software reminds me of a Dutch/German PC magazine my dad used to be subscribed to (Computer!Totaal), they would often ship with a CD full of stuff, part of it was in the Shockwave menu, other stuff was on the disk itself, including a big collection of ZZT levels - I presume the staff scoured BBS and downloaded a bunch of stuff.

by cbanek 6y ago

LoSboccacc 6y ago

> all the crazy burned CDs I have lucky you, mine all became unreadable with time. I didn't know/think of refreshing them periodically on newer cds, and now they're gone for. most of the games wouldn't run on modern hardware anyway, but a lot of first gen digital photos are lost in there.

suddencoma 6y ago
Yeah, CD/DVD media degrades over time, often on the time span of a decade they become unreadable. They are a bad choice for long term storage.

Sembiance 6y ago

You should rip the CDs and upload em to archive. It’s possible that there is unique content on them that doesn’t exist anywhere else :)

DonHopkins 6y ago
I remember but have never found a copy of an Apple ][ program I got from a pirated software collection, temptingly called "SUPER HIRES CHESS", which was actually not a chess game, but a puzzle game in the form of a computer virus: It pretended to be a BASIC game with a bug in it, and when you ran it, it would break with an error message. Then it would intercept the keyboard input vector, watch what you typed, and play all kinds of tricks on you, like when you typed "LIST" and hit return, it replaced it with "LSIT" and beeped syntax error, to drive you crazy! Eventually it would start giving you more hints that your computer had been taken over by a virus, and you had to figure out some puzzles to disable it. I've scoured the Apple ][ archives but never found it. But as long as people keep uploading and sharing their old collections, maybe "SUPER HIRES CHESS" will show up some day!

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Random software reminds me of a Dutch/German PC magazine my dad used to be subscribed to (Computer!Totaal), they would often ship with a CD full of stuff, part of it was in the Shockwave menu, other stuff was on the disk itself, including a big collection of ZZT levels - I presume the staff scoured BBS and downloaded a bunch of stuff.