Micom 2000 said:
One of the things I discovered when finding old computers was the almost predictable software installed on them. I concluded the majority of users were quite boring. Standard WP or occasional Wordstar, Lotus and an accounting program. Occasionally I would find one reflecting imagination in the user and would mine it for some of the programs on it. It was more fun.
One of my favorite tools which I still put on every Intel computer I own is CMFiler which can read hex listings as well as Ascii and execute any program plus much more.
It still works with Win 98. An amazing program. It is a bit like Norton Commander or PC Tools but incredibly more capable. With it I could explore and troubleshoot any computer.
There are so many interesting programs developed for early DOS. One of the best DOS graphics programs I've seen was one called Neo-Chrome, but it might have required a 386 processor. I loved the early Sidekick, a program called pop-up, a free-form idea developer whose name I can't remember, an early windows with 4 frames. I imagine all of these are on Simtel. Some games of course, but I could use my Atari for more interesting ones. Check out the numerous archives for the many programs available. Part of the fun is finding programs that tickle your fancy rather than those business programs that simply reflect the needs of some corporation.
Lawrence
I find it pretty much looks like this as far as software goes, yes, t's REAL predictable.
PC's, XT's, and Clones - if they even have a hard drive: Spin-Rite, Optimizer, ProComm Plus, Xtree Gold, BASICA with a bunch of BASIC programs and games, maybe some sort of menu system, Lotus 1-2-3 on occasion, and sometimes an early Word Processor, usually WordPerfect 5.1 Usually running MS-DOS or PC-DOS 3.1-5.0.
286, 386 SX, and early 386 DX - Usually MS-DOS 5.0, sometimes as new as 6.1, VERY rarely an early Windows (like 2.03 or 3.0), usually no Windows, some sort of freeware/shareware game like Commander Keen or Elf. Usually comes with Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect 5.1, and in rare cases, Harvard Graphics. These sometimes have cool screensavers on them.
386 DX-486 DX4 w/16MB or Lower of RAM - Usually DOS 5-6.22, Windows 3.1, Adobe Font Manager, some WordPerfect, some Lotus 1-2-3, sometimes a Microsoft office program or two, and maybe a Web Browser or ISP program of some sort, usually being AOL 3.0. Usually has a couple DOS games on it, in rare cases they could be something like Monkey Island and DOOM, but usually are Commander Keen, Scorched Earth, and Windows Entertainment Pack.
Anything Else - Usually Runs Windows 95, 98, NT, or 2000, has pretty much anything my computer has or has had on it (Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word, Microsoft yadda yadda). Sometimes has DOOM or Microsoft Arcade pack installed. Usually is slow as crap to start Windows, has Porn on the drive somewhere possibly, and usually is trying to run more fancy stuff than a machine of that type can handle.
