It drastically affected lives, it brought ruin and glory, and it left all the participants coated in the scars of battle that would stay with them forever. We speak, of course, of the shareware phenomenon. Drawing from over a terabyte of shareware software collected over the last decade, Jason will show you the highs, the lows, the ruination and the triumph of a rapidly fading chapter in computer history. Expect a fast-paced waterfall of trivia, eye-opening visuals and mind-blowing examples of all the foibles of humanity captured on small plastic discs.
Jason Scott is a computer historian, archivist, documentary filmmaker and essayist dedicated to saving digital history and having a blast doing it. Between his sites TEXTFILES.COM, ARCHIVETEAM.ORG and a propensity for saying a lot of stuff to a lot of people, he’s done his best to ensure entire lengths of computer and hacker history have been preserved and not forgotten. His cat is MANY times more famous than he is.