What vintage software did you not get that you cannot find today?

[Keatah]

What vintage software did you not get back then that you cannot find today?

 

For example (real example) I missed out on a lot of the astronomy & new-age stuff from the Zephyr catalog of the late 80's and early 90's. While there is some information on archive.org, the actual software isn't there of course. This would be 8086 - 486 software, mostly all DOS stuff. All running in a max of 512K.

 

Oh sure today's software is much better, but there's that nagging nostalgic period-correct thing.

 

 

[jhd]

 

I am sure that a quick review of any early-1980s computer magazine will have tons of ads from individuals/small businesses with software that has been long-forgotten.

 

I do not recall the specific titles, but BITD I was very much into text adventures (today called "Interactive Fiction"). There were many, many advertisements for games that are now, presumably, lost to history. Infocom and Scott Adams games are still readily available, of course, but there were hundreds more obscure titles from now long-forgotten authors. 

 

I take some consolation in that modern reviews of games from this era are almost uniformly negative, even allowing for the evolution of technology. Standards were still evolving, and some of what was sold commercially would not even make the cut as free hobbyist releases by today's standards. 

[youxia]

37 minutes ago, jhd said:

modern reviews of games from this era are almost uniformly negative

I can't say I care much for these, because they are written from modern POV, which is quite often a very one-dimensional perspective. The authors of these reviews frequently dismiss old games without putting even a little effort in, with some theatrical exaggerations as an excuse. And in doing so they miss out on a wealth of interesting content and ideas, while being completely oblivious to a historical angle.

 

Regarding text adventures, they had - and still have - a very strong fanbase, so while it's true that many have been lost, a great number has also been preserved. And many of them, even from lesser know authors or software houses, are really playable and brilliant too.

[zzip]

The only one that comes to mind was Adventure Contruction Set.   I was working on coding my own games,  but a large adventure is a slow project.   I saw the "Game of the Month" write-up in Electronic Games magazine and I had to have it!   The idea of a toolkit like that that made it seem like anything was possible!

 

Only problem, it wasn't on Atari 8-bit.   But EA did promise it was coming,  so I waited and waited and waited.   It never came.   By the time I got a PC and could check it out, it was a ten year old game and already pretty dated.

[Leonard Smith]

For me, it's mainly some MacOS 6 - 8 Macintosh utilities and games (mainly shareware which you cannot register or obtain any longer)

 

Things such as Starfight Final, the Quake utility called Quiver, and some older Hypercard games.  My understanding is that some of the great Ambrosia games such as Cythera can no longer be registered or hacked - the company went out of business and never backed up serial #'s or something.  Some of it DOES appear on abandonware sites eventually, but there's a ton that's been lost forever. 

 

Nothing's worse than reliving your youth via some Mac Addict demo disk and finding something really cool, only to realize that you may or may not have the ability to unlock the full version.

That's the one thing about shareware distribution...once the registration process is gone, or the bedroom coder has moved on, it's doubtful that it will ever be recovered unless someone has an old disk or PC hanging around with the original storage intact.  

 

[MrMaddog]

For me it's certain utilities for the Atari ST that not in the Essential Software List.

 

Since I used Macs in high school (early 90's), I've always enjoyed HyperCard and wanted to have an equivalent for the ST but couldn't find one that didn't suck.  Only recently I found out about this commercial application called HyperLINK and would like to check it out on Hatari.   But......I can't download it from Atarimania because the dump is missing.  It seems there's more downloads for games than anything else.

 

 

[Clint Thompson]

I cannot find FracTunes but if someone has a copy, I'd happily buy it