The Methuselah of Software Packages? | Hacker News Reader

The Methuselah of Software Packages?

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12 pointsjwilliams11 comments

In August, I purchased Mavis Beacon Teaches typing from Broderbund. It the worst e-commerce experience I can recall.

Let me share a few things I experienced:

Their commerce partner charged me twice. I was able to catch this as they sent me two charge confirmation emails. I decided it wasn't worth my time to collect a double charge for $20.

The check out process automatically added an extra up-sell item to my final check out and if I wasn't being careful enough to remove the item, I would have paid more. They also added state tax to what was a download only order. I don't see that too often. I had to put in a U.S. address to match my credit card, but I didn't buy from the U.S., I made the purchase from Shanghai.

After I purchased, they sent me a download instructions. This email directs me to create an account at their site and follow more instructions which ends up letting you download a file in Stuff-it format. The stuff-it file is 91.1 MB. After you download, you have to go register with Smith Micro to download their free version of Stuff-it. But there's a catch. You have to give them your email to download the free extractor and it isn't easy to figure out how to get the free version as they try to sell you the deluxe version. Now I regularly get spam from Smith Micro.

So once your done and you extract the Mavis Beacon program from the 91.1 MB stuff-it file, you end up with a 92.3M app directory. Not too much compression going on here.

And in the end, all I can say is, this program is ancient.

> Not too much compression going on here.

Perhaps the files just remain individually compressed when uncompressed? A .zip file full of .pngs isn't going to be much smaller than the .pngs themselves.

Also, as far as I can tell, you didn't really purchase anything "from Broderbund." Broderbund is now just a brand for Ubisoft to release titles under; your e-commerce terror is likely repeatable with any of Ubisoft's products.

You could have also Googled a bit and found a program called "The Unarchiver", which will handle StuffIt files on OSX.

Now if anybody has a Mac-compatible program that will play RealMedia files, yet isn't RealPlayer, I'd be really happy...

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

Plays pretty much everything.

Except for RealMedia; I've tried.

Ancient, and abandonware.. but AWESOME -- http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/987/Mario+Teaches+Typing.h...

Damn, I'm amazed. This is one of the very few computer-related things I remember from when I was a kid.

Same... I remember printing out certificates and other artistic masterpieces using a daisy-chained 9 pin printer. Wild days.

> Can anyone think of a software package — or anything else, really — that proudly displays a version number higher than 23?

Well, there's Emacs.

I'm equally surprised that the Broderbund name still exists; last I heard they were called Ubisoft. According to Wikipedia it's had a twisty life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%B8derbund

AutoCAD is also up to 23 official releases (and countless spin off software packages) Though they've long since abandoned putting the release number in the name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocad

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