5 ms·

As teenagers we were pirates sailing the high digital seas, our rooms filled with stashes of 5"1/4 and 3"1/2 floppies. Buying neither shareware (btw as teenager

As teenagers we were pirates sailing the high digital seas, our rooms filled with stashes of 5"1/4 and 3"1/2 floppies. Buying neither shareware (btw as teenagers in Europe we had no idea how we'd even buy sharewares) nor commercial games (these you'd just go to a shop and buy them). However one day, when Ultima V came out, I decided I'd buy it: I had been playing Ultima III and Ultima IV so much, it seemed right to buy Ultima V. But I was not on the C64/C128 anymore, I had an Amiga. So I broke my wallet and bought the Amiga version of Ultima V. Turns out: the port of Ultima V to the Amiga was particularly bad. So I borrowed my neighbour's C128D (nice machine: my C128 had a little issue) and... Played a pirated version of Ultima V for the C64 (I'd use the C128 in C64 mode), which was way better than its Amiga port. Aye. P.S: semi-seriously though: I remember it was hard to buy US shareware from Europe in the eighties/nineties. My parents didn't even have credit cards back then (it was all still "cheques" and lots of tiny local currencies).

Clubber 3y ago
It was hard in the US as a teenager too. I had to get my parents to write a check and a stamp and mail it when I bought a BBS license.
Log_out_ 3y ago
There was a turn based game called pc emperor where my prickly pirate youtfull self actually bought share wäre. Oh and baron baldric..
DarmokJalad1701 3y ago
Sharewares got me into coding tbh. As a teenager growing up in India, paying $20+ for a video game was too big of an ask (That was on the order of 1000 rupees at the time and would pay for 20+ meals at a decent restaurant) and there was no way to pay for it even if I wanted to, as my parents did not have credit cards at the time. So I learned to "crack" shareware, first by patching using hex editors and then using debuggers like SoftICE and Ollydbg to figure out the correct registration code myself. This got me into reading/writing x86 (win32) assembly pretty early and gave me a very intuitive understanding about how programs work. There were also plenty of "crackme" programs to test my skills on. Thank you, "Santa's Secret Valley". I have a great career today thanks in a small part to you!
- nprateem 3y ago
  Ha ha another student of fravia and +orc?
  - DarmokJalad1701 3y ago
    Haha! I had completely forgotten about that site. I have definitely used those tutorials!

Clubber 3y ago

It was hard in the US as a teenager too. I had to get my parents to write a check and a stamp and mail it when I bought a BBS license.

Log_out_ 3y ago

There was a turn based game called pc emperor where my prickly pirate youtfull self actually bought share wäre. Oh and baron baldric..

DarmokJalad1701 3y ago

Sharewares got me into coding tbh. As a teenager growing up in India, paying $20+ for a video game was too big of an ask (That was on the order of 1000 rupees at the time and would pay for 20+ meals at a decent restaurant) and there was no way to pay for it even if I wanted to, as my parents did not have credit cards at the time. So I learned to "crack" shareware, first by patching using hex editors and then using debuggers like SoftICE and Ollydbg to figure out the correct registration code myself. This got me into reading/writing x86 (win32) assembly pretty early and gave me a very intuitive understanding about how programs work. There were also plenty of "crackme" programs to test my skills on. Thank you, "Santa's Secret Valley". I have a great career today thanks in a small part to you!

nprateem 3y ago
Ha ha another student of fravia and +orc?
- DarmokJalad1701 3y ago
  Haha! I had completely forgotten about that site. I have definitely used those tutorials!