Explore the World of Software 2: Kids, Adults, Educational

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Text File | 1992-03-22 | 16.3 KB | 300 lines

1992 SHAREWARE GUIDE Copyright (c) 1992, Another Company This Chapter copied by permission from Amother Company's 1992 Shareware Guide, a catalog of hundreds of Shareware programs. The complete 1992 (or current year) Shareware Guide can be had by sending $5 to: Another Company, Box 298, Applegate, OR 97530. Welcome to Another Company's 1992 Shareware Guide. It is donated to the public as freeware to help everyone figure out which shareware programs might suit their needs. Even we are not experts, some of these listings are not descriptive enough and some good shareware has been left out, but as we learn, so will you. We intend to update this guide annually. Watch Shareware Guide grow! As freeware, please feel free to copy and distribute this disk to your friends and associates, as long all files remain intact and unchanged. As payment for creating this guide, all we ask is that you consider ANOTHER COMPANY for your shareware purchases. EXACTLY WHAT IS SHAREWARE? (From a User's Point of View) Imagine going to a shoe store where the proprietor lets you try on several pairs of hiking boots, not just in the showroom, but lets you wear them for several weeks through all sorts of mountainous hiking and bad weather. Lets say this shoe store initially charges only for the cost of the leather and rubber, perhaps $3 per pair of boots. Later you pay the full price only for the boots you like and give the other boots away for your friends to try out. You'd shop there, wouldn't you? The store would get lots of customers, and wouldn't have to do any advertising at all! This store could actually charge less for the boots than other stores, because there would be no advertising costs to cover. Of course, as good as it sounds, this wouldn't work because boots wear, and it is a major task making many pairs of boots. But computer programs are different. Each copy is as good as the last, they don't wear out (well, disk do, but programs don't), and there is very little manufacturing involved. A minute to format and a minute to copy, even less, with the right software, and that's it! And so you see the shareware concept. Anyone can be an author. Anyone can get a copy of the author's work by paying a shareware distributor merely the cost of librarying, copying and sending the disk, (typically $3 to $5) or can even get it for free from an electronic bulletin board or from a friend. The authors make no money from all this. So, they put commercials in their programs asking for payment. Specifically, you are allowed to try the program, then if you like it, you are required to pay the author for the work of creating it - but remember, only if you like it! This is the American free enterprise system working at its best! The author of a great program retires to the Bahamas. The author of a so-so program, gets some money, and hopefully, keeps improving. The author of a junker is paid exactly what the program is worth. All the customers are happy, or they wouldn't be customers. Unlike shareware, when you buy a regular retail program from a store, you pay first, then hope you'll be a happy customer. Shareware can be anything. Here are some typical shareware applications: Astrology Algebra tutorial Database for baseball card collectors Video games such as Pacman, Monopoly, Chess Drafting and drawing programs Classroom management Thesaurus The appeals for money can be as varied as the applications. Each author is in charge their own work, so there are no rules as to how their commercials may be written. But there are some typical approaches. They are: The Types Of Shareware * PUBLIC DOMAIN: The author writes a program, not for commercial gain, but for some other reason, perhaps as a hobby or as a donation to the computer community. These free programs are called public domain. The definition of public domain software as of March 1991 is that it carries no copyright. All users are free to do with it what they like. * FREEWARE: This material is copyrighted, so some rights are reserved by the author, but copying, sharing and professional distributing is allowed. The advantage of freeware for the authors and the public is that changing the material is illegal. It must be copied verbatim. Therefore, if you receive a copy that is ten generations old, no one up the line has fiddled with it. You can be fairly certain it is the same as the author intended, with nothing changed or removed. * ADVERTISING FOR OTHER PRODUCTS: The author has something to sell and uses shareware as the method for advertising the products for sale. Here are two examples: A maker of video game programs gives away a game as freeware, but at the end of the game, a list of other games available for $15 each is shown. A radio antenna manufacturer gives away software that helps radio engineers with their technical calculations. In the program is a chart that shows which of the manufacturer's antennae would suit certain applications. * DONATION REQUESTED: The author simply states that donations are requested. Sometimes a specific donation amount is requested. It is typical to see at the end of a video game, a screen that states, "If you like XYZ Game, please send $5 donation to Author." * REGISTRATION REQUESTED: The author requests that you send money to become a registered user. The rights and advantages of registration vary. Minimum advantage of registration is simply that you have honorably paid the author for the author's work. * REGISTRATION REQUIRED: The author plainly states that you have a copy of the program for trial purposes only. If you continue to use it, you are required to send money. In other words, you own only a copy of the program, not the right to use the program until you pay for it. There is no way for the author to catch up with everyone who uses the program without paying, and many people simply ignore the payment requirement. It is an honor system. However, fortunately there are people out there who are honest and do send money. * OFFER IN TRADE: This method, often combined with requested or required registration, offers incentives to send the registration money. Typical offerings are printed owners manual to the program, telephone support in which the user can call the author if there are any technical questions about the program, a newer or better version of the same program, and/or a newsletter that is sent to the registered users. * CRIPPLED SHAREWARE: The author makes a limited version of the program that doesn't do everything it is supposed to. The crippled version works only sufficiently to demonstrate the real program's capabilities. If you want the real thing, you must send money to the author, who will then send to you the real program. The extent of crippling varies as much as the authors vary. Some examples: A video card game that runs for only ten minutes, then erases itself from the disk. A special database for keeping track of video tapes that only allows records for 20 tapes until you buy the registered version. Most shareware distributors will not distribute crippled shareware unless their catalogs and disk labels plainly state the limitation of the programs. Crippled shareware is rapidly becoming a rarity. * DEMOS: A manufacturer will often make a disk that only shows what the real product can do, but this offshoot disk doesn't actually do anything more than demonstrate the product. Again - generally considered undesirable by most shareware distributors. There is one demo exception - products that make nice pictures. One paint program maker, for instance, has a nice set of outer space pictures that really make your VGA monitor look good. Users often like this sort of demo - just to show off their equipment to their friends. How Good Is Shareware? Once again, the quality of shareware varies considerably. Some of it is written by beginning authors and is very simple. In many, if you press a wrong key, the computer needs to be re-booted. Some shareware doesn't even work! Fortunately, most of these are not distributed by anyone unless the limitations are mentioned in the distributor's literature. Other shareware programs are fantastic. Some of the best business programs in the world are shareware. Many, perhaps most, of the great video games are shareware. Some special programs can be had as shareware only. The only oxy-acetylene welding tutorial that I know about is a shareware product. The word processor that this text is being written with is shareware. It is called Galaxy. Galaxy is similar to Wordstar, a big commercial product costing hundreds of dollars, but in my opinion, Galaxy is much better, yet the registration costs only $59. I like Galaxy better because it does searches faster, has pull-down menus, and writes plain ASCII files, which is important if you operate on text files with different programs. (For instance, the MS-DOS "type" command cannot read files created by Wordstar.) How Can Better Programs Cost Less? How can a better program cost less? Remember, the author has never had to spend a dime on advertising. When you send $59.95 to the author, you might typically get a printed owner's manual, a toll-free phone number to call if you need help and another program disk. All this costs the author much less than $59. So, the author makes money, and you save money, because no one pays for advertising. On the other hand, if you go into a computer store and buy a retail* spreadsheet program for $300, the store gets $90 for the service of selling it to you (of the $90, most of it goes to the rent, payroll, etc). Of the remaining $210, probably $180 goes to cover the advertising costs, and only $30 ends up in the author's hands. And, of that $30, a substantial portion covers the costs of technical writers, packaging, and other costs. * The word RETAIL will often be used to describe conventional, non-shareware programs. In general, but by no means the rule, shareware is a bit simpler than other software. Many of the big packages such as Word Perfect or Lotus 123 were developed by a huge team of programmers working full time for years at a time. Shareware is often developed by a single programmer in spare time after work. What this means, is that the shareware product may be less colorful, sort of plain vanilla, but it gets the job done. For instance, a mailing label program from the world of shareware may come up on your screen in one color only and with very few boxes and fancy icons on the screen. But it will do complicated searches and track 20,000 names. The store-bought, fancy plastic-wrapped, glossy-box label program comes on your screen with 8 colors and fancy shadows around all the pop-up windows. It comes with 6 features not generally associated with label programs. Surprises GUESS WHAT? There are little surprises in the world of software. The glossy retail program might only handle 10,000 names, while the plain shareware program handles 20,000. Sometimes you can buy a shareware program and find out that it doesn't do everything you would like. You are out only the $3 or $4 that the copy cost, because if it doesn't satisfy your needs, you don't have to register with the author. But all too often you can buy the glossy retail product and find it has a glitch, too. For instance, there is a very popular $149 database program that can handle only 4096 records. If you buy it to track 15,000 customers, you lose $149!!! The shareware programs may not be as fancy (although many are incredibly fancy, complete with all the bells and whistles you can imagine, and some you can't), but they almost always get the job done that they are supposed to do. This is because the authors want you to send money, and you sure won't do that if they have left a hole in their programs. This lack of fanciness combined with straightforward functionality which is typical with shareware makes it much better than conventional software in so many cases, because it is easier to learn to use. Requirements The requirements of shareware vary too. The majority are written to run on most IBM-compatible computers, many can run on any IBM-compatible, but many more require at least CGA graphics capability. Nowadays there are several that require hard disks, 640k RAM or VGA monitors. What About Instructions? Some shareware programs, especially video games, are so easy to run that you just start the program and can use it. Others, such as databases and programming languages, require reading extensive instructions first. Those that require instructions almost always come with an instruction file on the disk. Sometimes these instruction files are elaborate disk-based owner's manuals. A QUICK NOTE ABOUT OUR NUMBERING SYSTEM: Our numbering system is not consecutive and there are several numbers missing because of older programs that have been discontinued, etc. There is also a large gap in the 500's, so don't be alarmed if you can't find a program for every possible number. _____________________________________________________________ chapter end.