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1997-06-21
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7KB
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126 lines
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ SHAREWARE - GOOD AND BAD ~
~ ~
~ by Rab Gilmour ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please note: The views of STEN's contributors are not necessarily
those of STEN itself; we are a forum for all views and comments. Rab may
have had some unfortunate experiences, but it's difficult to know the
full story without hearing both sides of it. The following is his
account and does not reflect the views of STEN about either PD or
Shareware.
Most mistakes on the part of shareware authors are the result of
taking on more than they can deal with, rather than, as Rab puts it,
"authors taking the money and running." If any of the authors concerned
wish to reply to Rab's comments, then we'll be more than happy to print
them in a future issue.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All of you will no doubt have heard of the shareware method of
obtaining good quality programs of all kinds for the ST, but unfortunate-
ly not all shareware authors provide a good service. Let me explain....
In February 1991 I and no doubt quite a lot of other people were
persuaded to purchase 'The Professional Virus Killer', which was then
(and still is now) sold by the Floppyshop PD Library with the promise of
regular updates to the program. Well, despite Floppyshop's best efforts
to persuade the author of PVK (Mike Mee) to update it, the first release
version is still being sold. In other words, 17 months later, it has
still not been updated. Regular updates? What a bloody joke!
The only reason I, and probably most other people bought it in the
first place was was because of the promise of updates which will now
probably never happen. Of course, I should have expected this from Mike
Mee after my earlier experience with him. Some of you may remember a
program called the 'Fire and Ice Depacker' and its accompanying Doc file
which asked people to send him packers and their source code, for use in
some future multi depacker program.
I sent a letter to the address printed within the program offering
two disks of packers and their source code if he sent me a couple of
blank disks and return postage. He never replied to this letter. Two or
three months later I sent another letter asking him why he never replied
to my offer. Guess what? He didn't reply to that letter either. Draw
your own conclusions....
Another program that I thought might be quite good was a program
called 'Dr Fox's Football Annual'. I duly sent off my £5.00 registration
fee and after waiting six weeks I received the full version which
contained last season's football tables. Not a lot of use for this
season I'm sure you will agree. The author promised to send me this
season's tables as soon as possible, but it's now quite late into both
the Scottish and English football seasons and I still haven't received
the tables. Not good enough!
I don't expect perfection, but surely I can expect a program that is
valid for this year's football leagues. I have to say that both of these
examples appear to be a case of the authors taking the money and running.
By the way, I received his letter on the 15th of July. It's now the 28th
of September. No further comment is necessary I think!
Don't let the two cases above put you off the idea of registering
with the authors of shareware programs as the next example will hopefully
prove that most authors are decent folk after all.
Contained on the April 1992 cover disk of 'ST Abuser' was a quiz
game called 'Quizical'. I played the game to death (yep, I liked it!) and
decided to take up the offer of a free update to the game on receipt of a
blank disk and a stamp. Just over a week later a new version popped
through my letterbox which was even better than the cover disk version.
Along with the disk came a letter which stated that 'Quizical' was just
the start of a planned series of games which would be released as
shareware.
I wrote back to the author of the game (Dave Cobbledick) pointing
out that I would be unlikely to register with him as I was on the dole
and struggling to run a small PD service. I expected to hear nothing more
after this, but I was wrong. To date, Dave has sent me both of his new
games ('Mindlock' and 'The Wiz'), both completely free of charge. He
even sent me the PD version and the registered version of 'The Wiz'
without even asking for anything in return. This has restored my faith
in shareware authors to a great degree.
If you like quiz games, you will definitely like Dave's games.
The registration fee is just five pounds and it's well worth registering,
if only to keep Dave in disks so that he can produce even better games
(this is rapidly turning into a free ad for Dave's stuff, so I suppose
I'd better call a halt to it right here!).
To round this article off, if you are looking for a program that
will depack many different kinds of packed files, a coder called Mike
Watson has written a program called 'Megadepacker' which will depack 40
different kinds of files. Megadepacker is superior to both of MUG UK's
(Mike Mee) current multi-depacker programs and also works within Neodesk
without bombing out (unlike MUG UK's latest version). Megadepacker should
be available from any decent PD library.
One more thing, If you want more details on any of the Quiz games
talked about in this letter, then write to the following address.
(And remember to include an S.A.E and tell Dave that I sent you, ok?)
Dave Cobbledick
Dunces Cap Software
245 Rosalind Street
Ashington
Northumberland
NE63 9AZ
England
Tele: O670 85O629 after 6.OOpm
Thank you for listening!
~~~~~eof~~~~~