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$2600 for the OS/2 2.0 SDK in 1990 That was a standard price structure for a platform SDK at the time. I purchased the NeXTStep SDK for $3000 in 1993, and I b

$2600 for the OS/2 2.0 SDK in 1990 That was a standard price structure for a platform SDK at the time. I purchased the NeXTStep SDK for $3000 in 1993, and I believe in 1995 I got the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscription, which had stacks of CDs for their entire platform collection, that was $2000 each year. These Software Developer Kits were massive, representing a significant percentage of the total effort of the company behind it. The printed documentation was 25 kilograms of paper. That AT&T C++ compiler shipped with the documentation in three-ring binder notebooks, I literally had to get another bookshelf for it. Thousands of dollars.

Dracophoenix 3y ago
How did developers like yourself afford paying l hundreds to thousands of dollars (in the '90s no less!) for software and documentation without going bankrupt? I still find it strange that individuals spent the price of a used car on software that would became obsolete within a year or so.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Easy, we only bought what we actually needed to develop, and stayed with that until there was an actual reason to buy something else. It certainly made it easier not to worry about a new framework or programming language every single month. At least for those that wanted to stay legal, there were also tons of ways to get pirated software if one wanted to, including openly selling it on street bazaars.
- watersb 3y ago
  My platform hopping was very unusual... and not a business strategy. I had always been fascinated by the NeXT platform, and when it became available for (very expensive configurations of) 80486 PCs I had to try it. I did manage to get the dev kit half price from another programmer who had purchased it but then got a lucrative contract in a different direction. But I wrote a book about the Microsoft stuff. It didn't generate any royalties, but it landed me a couple of jobs, and I figure it worked for me. I wouldn't recommend it as a strategy.

Dracophoenix 3y ago

How did developers like yourself afford paying l hundreds to thousands of dollars (in the '90s no less!) for software and documentation without going bankrupt? I still find it strange that individuals spent the price of a used car on software that would became obsolete within a year or so.

pjmlp 3y ago
Easy, we only bought what we actually needed to develop, and stayed with that until there was an actual reason to buy something else. It certainly made it easier not to worry about a new framework or programming language every single month. At least for those that wanted to stay legal, there were also tons of ways to get pirated software if one wanted to, including openly selling it on street bazaars.
watersb 3y ago
My platform hopping was very unusual... and not a business strategy. I had always been fascinated by the NeXT platform, and when it became available for (very expensive configurations of) 80486 PCs I had to try it. I did manage to get the dev kit half price from another programmer who had purchased it but then got a lucrative contract in a different direction. But I wrote a book about the Microsoft stuff. It didn't generate any royalties, but it landed me a couple of jobs, and I figure it worked for me. I wouldn't recommend it as a strategy.