Jason Scott of Textfiles.com Wants Your AOL & Shovelware CDs

eldavojohn writes: You've probably got a spindle in your closet, or a drawer layered with them: the CD-ROM discs that were mailed to you or delivered with some hardware that you put away "just in case." Now, of course, the case for actually using them is laughable. Well, a certain eccentric individual named Jason Scott has a fever — and the only cure is more AOL CDs. But his sickness doesn't stop there, "I also want all the CD-ROMs made by Walnut Creek CD-ROM. I want every shovelware disc that came out in the entire breadth of the CD-ROM era. I want every shareware floppy, while we're talking. I want it all. The CD-ROM era is basically finite at this point. It's over. The time when we're going to use physical media as the primary transport for most data is done done done. Sure, there's going to be distributions and use of CD-ROMs for some time to come, but the time when it all came that way and when it was in most cases the only method of distribution in the history books, now. And there were a specific amount of CD-ROMs made. There are directories and listings of many that were manufactured. I want to find those. I want to image them, and I want to put them up. I'm looking for stacks of CD-ROMs now. Stacks and stacks. AOL CDs and driver CDs and Shareware CDs and even hand-burned CDs of stuff you downloaded way back when. This is the time to strike." Who knows? His madness may end up being appreciated by younger generations!

Comments

I see the master plan

[SuperKendall]

and even hand-burned CDs of stuff you downloaded way back when

Just casually tossed out at the end there... when in fact that was the primary goal.

He wants to build the largest collection of 80's Mix CD's EVER ASSEMBLED, probably for some kind of evil sonic weapon.

Well sir, you will have my CD's and my wishes for luck in whatever scheme you have hatched, I ask only that you spare me or at least email me beforehand when to put on earmuffs.

Re:I see the master plan

[ArmoredDragon]

Shareware can typically be redistributed, and in most cases the author specifically put language in saying that they even encourage you to do so. In fact if somebody ever took it to court, I think there's sufficient evidence that stamping the shareware label on anything means that anybody in the world is given a blanket license to distribute it as much as they want.

I actually used to have one of those Walnut Creek CDs that I bought from a software store in a mall. It was called Doom Fever, and had a crapload of stuff on it that was fun for me at the time because even though I had a 14.4kbps modem that I bought with my allowance, my parents refused to ever pay for internet access because they were afraid that just the mere act of getting online means that its easy for somebody to steal your identity and ruin your life (they watched the movie The Net and basically assumed that that kind of thing happens to people all the time the second they dial in with their modem.)

I did use my modem to play Warcraft 2 and Doom multiplayer with friends down the street a lot though.

Re:I see the master plan

[hairyfeet]

Afraid not, a friend of my and myself actually tried contacting some of the old shareware companies to get permission to make the old shareware on a flash stick with a preconfigured DOSBox so kids could see what it was like in the early 90s.

What we found was 1.- A third of them are now owned by vultures that think some DOS card game should command the same prices as Doom 3 did at release, 2.- The rights are in limbo, because the companies have been split up and nobody knows who owned what (but nobody will give permission for fear somebody else might make a penny) and 3.- Companies that say "Oh we are gonna do something with that someday somewhere" and never do.

This is why I think copyrights should be a "use it or lose it" situation, where if a company does not sell their product in retail markets for x number of years they lose the rights which then go into public domain. This would also apply if they refuse to update the software so it can run on a modern system, otherwise they would just open a storefront on Amazon with a handful of discs for Windows 95 and try to argue "its for sale". Because as it is now more and more games are being lost, and with the "forever minus a single day" copyrights we have now programs written for first gen PCs and consoles won't be out of copyright until our fricking grandchildren are ready for retirement!

Re:I see the master plan

[nukenerd]

Afraid not, a friend of my and myself actually tried contacting some of the old shareware companies .... we found was 1.- etc etc

You should have ignored them. Anyone has the right to distribute shareware. You do know how shareware works don't you? If so, I don't understand why you even contacted them and I expect they didn't either. Here is the first Google definition I've found :- "Shareware is software that is distributed free on a trial basis with the understanding that the user may need or want to pay for it later."

Perhaps there was a misunderstanding here. Shareware can be upgraded to fully paid versions by, well, paying. I guess that these companies were assuming, by your contacting them at all, that you wanted to pay for the upgrade to the full version. So it is hardly suprising if they were taken aback by such a request, and that they no longer had the full version of this ancient DOS stuff by their right elbow.

Re:I see the master plan

[sh00z]

There is no point in having multiple copies of the same CD.

So something else is the master plan.[snip]

I'm betting it's something similar to the Beer Can House.

Re:I see the master plan

[Gr8Apes]

Afraid not, a friend of my and myself actually tried contacting some of the old shareware companies to get permission to make the old shareware on a flash stick with a preconfigured DOSBox so kids could see what it was like in the early 90s.

What we found was

This is why you follow the license on the shareware, and what you did was essentially allow the copyright holders to restrict you retroactively. Most shareware, IIRC, had something along the lines of distribution was fine, you had essentially a "trial" free version, and payment to unlock the entire thing. Abide by those rules, and you should be fine. IANAL....

This is why I think copyrights should be a "use it or lose it" situation, where if a company does not sell their product in retail markets for x number of years they lose the rights which then go into public domain.

I'll agree with this. Personally, I feel the following should happen

• 1) bring back the register the work with the Library of Congress portion within a year of publishing. This will ensure the work remains available even if the publisher goes away.
• 2) make the copyright term truly limited. Since the average life expectancy for men in the US is 74 and you cannot realistically recall most things until you're at least 10, that means the max would have to be less than 64 years to effectively be limited. I would argue 32, rounded down to 30, which is darn close to the original copyright terms. I also am fine with the original clause that required re-registering the copyright halfway through.
• 3) putting something in "the vault" (a la Disney) automatically puts it in the public domain. (the anti-Disney greedy money grubbing clause)
• 4) copyrights are non-transferrable and distribution agreements cannot extend beyond half the copyright term. (guarantees that the copyright creators maintain ownership)

It's Jason Scott

[narcc]

He's the same guy who brought you the BBS and Text Adventure documentaries. Send him your things!

If you can support floppydump, you can support this guy. He's about the most important computer archivist around.

Re:It's Jason Scott

[ShanghaiBill]

A disc archive can serve practical purposes. A FreeBSD 1.1 CDROM from 1993, published by Walnut Creek CDROM, was used to defeat a patent troll, Acacia Research, by demonstrating prior art.

Re:It's Jason Scott

[King_TJ]

Yeah.... it's Jason Scott, the guy I had the dubious privilege of having a fairly long, involved conversation/debate with on a Facebook forum a while back. (I belong to a private message group someone created on there where people discuss the "good old days" of the local BBS scene in the area code I lived in back then.)

The BBS Documentary Project was brought up and somehow he was invited to the discussion. I thought that was pretty cool, initially, because I'm one of the people who did an advance purchase of that set of DVDs when I heard it was coming out. I'd never had a conversation with Jason Scott before, but always admired the guy for caring enough about the BBS scene and preserving it as a part of history to make the documentary. (Heck, part of me always wanted to do one myself. I went through a phase where I bought a fair bit of video editing and recording gear and helped make DVDs out of other people's footage from vacations and other events, and wanted to produce something of my own. But life got in the way, as it often does .... a messy divorce, a kid I had to raise on my own, and demands of a new job pretty much squashed that little dream for me.)

But hey, here was a guy in a different place in life who was able to run around the country in his R.V. and actually go get all of these interviews and make the documentary. So, cool... I was happy to give him a little financial support by buying a copy.

After Facebook, my opinion of him changed a bit. For starters, it seems he's really NOT very good at handling constructive criticism. Many of us, for example, simply felt his documentary was oddly biased in a few parts and wanted to ask him why he made some of those choices. For example, after watching the whole thing, I was a little perplexed why he left so much footage in there covering the "ANSI artwork scene"? I fondly remember the days when the WWIV BBS owners would play around in the ANSI art editors for DOS, creating cool welcome screens, and how certain folks achieved near celebrity status as the top ANSI artists out there. But most of the documentary interviewed these younger kids who were part of the later scene that was a very minor footnote. (We're talking the "warez BBS" groups at this point, with people who often as not, just processed GIF or JPG images into ANSI art with utilities and made massive things that had to scroll through 2 full screen displays to see the whole image.) And IMO, their interviews came off pretty arrogant - like the whole BBS community revolved around their work or something. It just felt inaccurate to me.

So anyway, we brought that up to Scott - but to my surprise, he started attacking us, rather than having an honest discussion about why that choice was made. It turned into a big finger-pointing session of "If you think YOU can do so much better, why don't you make your OWN documentary then!?" It wasn't much different when a few of us wanted to know why our requests, back in the day, to get interviewed for the project were ignored. (Basically, he never interviewed a single person living in our area code or any surrounding area codes, yet we had a huge, fairly influential BBS scene in the 80's.) He turned it into a rant on how expensive it was to drive all over the country to collect all of the footage, and how there was no way he could interview everyone who contacted him, etc. etc.

At the end of the day, I'm still very happy he got some of the interviews captured on video that he did. Some of that would surely be lost to history if it wasn't done. And yes, kudos to him for actually going out there any making this documentary when clearly, the rest of us weren't willing or able to do it at that point in time. But man -- drop the negative attitude! Most of us who would even make the effort to discuss this thing with you and question it are among the core group who actually LIVED it. We actually watched all 4 DVDs full of what you put together, which frankly, MOST people would never even do because they'd find it too "dull a

Cannot Have Mine

[DERoss]

I save old CDs and DVDs. About this time of year, I take several and drill a small hole near the edge of each disc. Using kite twine, I then hang them from my fruit trees and grape vines to scare birds away. I have to do that shortly before the fruit ripens so that I can harvest the ripe fruit before the birds get used to the flashing of the discs as they rotate in the sun. I need a supply of discs because the silvering eventually deteriorates hanging outdoors.

Re:Cannot Have Mine

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to make scale armor for live action role play games: it's light, very durable, easy to work with a Dremel tool, and provides a modest amount of very real protection against casual blade or blunt attacks.

Re:Cannot Have Mine

[Ulric]

I save old CDs and DVDs. About this time of year, I take several and drill a small hole near the edge of each disc. Using kite twine, I then hang them from my fruit trees and grape vines to scare birds away.

And the birds go "Aah! The AOL disks are coming! The AOL disks are coming!"

Walnut Creek CD-ROM

[ls671]

I remembered Walnut Creek CD-ROM was the official publisher of slackware back then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Walnut Creek CD-ROM

[motokochan]

In a way, they still are. FreeBSD Mall, which was spun off from Walnut Creek, has been handling the Slackware Store for years. It may not say that right on the store page, but the physical mailing address is the same.

Be careful what you wish for!

[jtara]

Subject says it. I kept all those AOL CDs for just this purpose. For many years. It was quite a pile! Then decided that was silly when I moved. Gone, years, ago. If you find them in Asian landfills, it will answer a burning controversy. Is that where this stuff goes? Or not? But I do have some stuff. Just not as common as AOL CDs. Hmmm...

- Wired Rip. Sample. Mash. Share. Some rights reserved.

Ohh, ohh, ohh, HotMetal Pro 6.0

Buncha CDs that came in the back of expensive paperback tech books from Bookstar. Microsoft developer-type stuff, ATL, COM, etc.

The usual collection of drivers and install disks for long-dead hardware and long-obsolete software, that everybody else has too.

AOLs and shareware CDs gone, baby, gone!

Well, you're not getting this (in part because it's proprietary source code) but I just found a 1985 floppy with source code for what is now Siemens TeamCenter Lifecycle Visualization Variation Analysis. (OK, half the source code, cause it says disk 1 of 2, and I don't have 2. Or a 5" floppy drive.) 30 year old software that is still alive and kicking, and has been (and is) instrumental in the design of... well, probably everything that anybody here drives, flies in, blows somebody up with, or records data on (if it rotates...). I guess NDAs are still good 30 years later, huh? :( Wonder if Siemens might like it? This is version 1.0.3. It's in my old "code samples box".

I guess if you were into how and why mass-produced mechanical thingies that fit together have been made to fit-together so much better and better over the past 30 years, that one might represent some significant bit of geeky history.

Re:Be careful what you wish for!

[Bing Tsher E]

I once encountered a floppy diskette that was part of the Microsoft Word 6.0 installation set. This was apparently a special edition, because it was on a 360K floppy diskette. I believe it was disk x of 100 something.

I still have Windows 98 on 5-1/4" floppies, because Microsoft offered to send it to you for free if you bought the edition distributed on 3-1/2" floppies. I have two sets because for some reason they shipped me two copies when I requested them.

The 5-1/4" distribution of Windows 95 is unique in that it's the only distribution of Windows 95 that doesn't require a CD key or fingerprint the diskette when you install it. For years I had a copy of that on CD that was the contents of all the diskettes copied into a single directory and burned to CD. It's the most primitive and first release of Windows 95, back when Microsoft was competing with CompuServ and AOL to be the 'Online Service', hence from before 'the Internet' had been discovered by Microsoft. It's really 'clean' and small with no Internet Anything installed. And as the first ever version of Windows 95 it has EVERY bug of the initial release (obviously)

Blows my mind

[PrimeWaveZ]

I have an addiction to information collection for my specific interests, which is why I'm going north of 12TB of historical crap. I understand his desire to archive all the things.

At least my wife can't complain about the amount of physical space the data takes up since HDD densities have been getting better recently...

History in the making

[should_be_linear]

Now, this seems like huge pile of crap. Two hundred years from now? OK, still huge pile of crap.

Whats happening with Slackware now?

[Viol8]

The latest major release was in 2013 when previously they were every 6 months! Sure, there are still package updates being done but seems to me momentum has been lost. Anyone have any info on what the problem is?

Re:Jason Scott, been a long time...

[djsmiley]

come by hash archiveteam-bs on efnet

I'm sure you can figure it out.

The Silent Cultural Good-Night

[TheRealHocusLocus]

When my father died, it was as if a whole library had burned down.
~Laurie Anderson

Until we learn to mourn for all the music that might soon be lost
or the movies that never made it to DVD, or even VHS,
because it was never transferred from vinyl, or film
because people do not cherish vinyl when they see it at Goodwill
or more tragically, someone dies --- and the collection of a lifetime goes into the landfill
because the dozen people who stopped by at the garage sale had no interest
when everything you 'own' is inside your phone,
a single toilet can swallow Western Civilization
remember that direct-to-digital CD? Now all you have is a badly encoded mp3
all those books that were fascinating but went right over your head as a kid,
wouldn't it be great to know which ones they were?
every day there are fewer people out there who have read things that never made it to 'digital'
another one died this morning.
so-called 'magnetic master tapes' cannot master time, they fade into Gaussian noise
a decently kept mass-produced vinyl phonograph record is the BEST way to recover the music
how many of your family's most precious photographs are on paper, anywhere?
have you spilled water on one lately?
most families these days have NOT A SINGLE MEMBER who considers themself a LIBRARIAN
a (tragically thankless) job of gathering, organizing, copying, re-distributing the copies
and ensuring that at least some of them are stored safely. Writings, photos. Even who is related to whom!
YOU may be the only likely candidate. Unless you begin tomorrowit will never be done by anyone.
on the Internet it's even worse. How many entities can you think of that store Internet pages
long term with a real commitment? The Wayback machine and who else?
newer tech better? Not necessarily so, IF it breeds such a mass complacency about simple
preservation of knowledge that the day arrives when EVERYONE thinks making backups and
saving previous generations of knowledge and artistic works is SOMEONE ELSE'S JOB.
In such a situation we could 'lose' more than half of everything that was worth saving
in a single human lifetime. Are we living in that time span now?
Think about it (please!).

WE ARE LIVING IN A FUTURE DARK AGE
A too-short history of data retention
The only day we clearly recall some day may be the day we lost all our memories.

Nostaligia

[Dan East]

I can understand the sense of nostalgia. I'd love to have all my Amiga floppies from when I was a kid. I'd also love to see all the dial-up local BBSs I frequented in the late 80s back up in glorious glaring ANSI (via a web interface, of course). But it's gone forever. Not a shred of it is left, which makes me a little sad. The BBS era is certainly one that was not captured for posterity. I'm sure there are a few here and there that might have been pulled off an old HDD and put online, but I'd say 99% of them (and there were a lot, and they had a lot of content) are gone forever. I don't hear people lamenting this much, but it was a segment of human society that first developed and introduced the concept of online digital connectivity to humanity, and it was not preserved.

Re:Nostaligia

[Dan East]

To illustrate just how much content I'm talking about, here is a list of BBSs just in the Cleveland area code of Ohio where I grew up:
http://bbslist.textfiles.com/2...

There are 759 BBSs in that list, representing just one little slice of Ohio. Each one was a microcosm all unto itself. There are dozens of different types of BBS software represented there. Each BBS was hand-crafted and configured by the individual sysop with the style, color, behavior, etc, and hardly any two of them were even remotely similar. It was a point of pride for sysops to have a unique looking board, and they were updated often. Some where awful, some were great, but they were all handcrafted extensions of the people who made them. Each had its own character and personality, and the discussion forums and online games drew different types of people together. Some were mainly gaming BBSs, running multi-player online games like Trade Wars ( http://geekswithblogs.net/cwil... ), others had tons of shareware files you could download, others focused on discussion forums and communication, and of course others delved into the darker realms of illegal file sharing, etc. But again, they were all unique, and they are all gone.

Re:I remember when.

[samwichse]

Well, they sold you a MODEM.

Of course it's going to come with a software CD. You bought a MODEM! (yes, I know, you could be talking about cable/DSL/FIOS)

Windows 1.0

[tsqr]

Too bad the only floppies he wants are shareware. I still have the 5-1/4" media for Windows 1.0 that came with my first PC.

I am the UPS guy

[argee]

I am the UPS delivery guy. I get paid by the package. This guy ROCKS!