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The Freeware Hall of Fame Enters Its 20th Year (freewarehof.org)
After our story about the ongoing development of FreeDOS, long-time Slashdot reader reybo shares another valuable resource that's been "All free, all the time since 1984": Younger FreeDOS users may not know of the Freeware Hall of Fame, a source of old DOS freeware some of which is on-line 24/7 at www.freewarehof.org . This file base of free programs was begun in 1984 to help small businesses enter the world of computers. It became an international file base distributed to BBSs around the world via floppy disc until Bobbie Sumrada in Memphis gave it a home on CHEERS, her premier BBS.
The entire history is on the FreeHOF web site. Also there are downloadable copies of PCBoard, one of the great BBS platforms of all time. Anyone can create a dial-up BBS with this to see what they were like, so long as they have a DOS partition for it. I think MS DOS is also there to download, version 5.n or 6.n. Something you won't find at this site is games. FHOF never distributed games.
"No Flash, no Java, no goddam rollovers..." reads one page, which notes that in the mid-'90s they were picked as one of the world's 25 best BBSs by Boardwatch magazine.
The entire history is on the FreeHOF web site. Also there are downloadable copies of PCBoard, one of the great BBS platforms of all time. Anyone can create a dial-up BBS with this to see what they were like, so long as they have a DOS partition for it. I think MS DOS is also there to download, version 5.n or 6.n. Something you won't find at this site is games. FHOF never distributed games.
"No Flash, no Java, no goddam rollovers..." reads one page, which notes that in the mid-'90s they were picked as one of the world's 25 best BBSs by Boardwatch magazine.
I ran it in a VM and was disappointed with it's lack of vmware driver support. I won't bother running it on hyper-V as a type1 hypervisor uses more native hardware drivers.
Dosbox is a little more modern
http://saveie6.com/
Not to mention the retro attitude towards Shareware, which was novel back in the day but is now more-or-less how most commercial software is distributed. As a former Shareware author myself, which morphed into a more commercial version, the vitriol is puzzling, especially in this day and age.
People back then were used to buying software as if it were a physical good: you got a book, media such as floppies or a CD, and perhaps a box to put it all in. But by golly if that same software was something you could download alongside items that were free, then it damned well better not cost anything either! How dare an author try to recoup development costs, at the same time they give a potential customer the ability to actually try out the software before committing to buying it?! The nerve of those guys!
This seems to have evolved into folks who think that all software should be available at no cost, economics be damned, and those who appreciate that there is a FOSS option alongside a more traditional business model (with a much improved distribution system)
But I digress. It was just striking to see the old school hate posted on the site. I guess it is a blast from the past in more ways than one...