Software Piracy in 1985

Written by Ernesto on November 07, 2006 

I found an interesting episode of the computer chronicles about software piracy back in 1985. A true classic!

frankie mouse computer pirateThis episode of the computer chronicles features Frankie Mouse, the Computer Pirate. Frankie explains what being a software pirate in 1985 is all about. Frankie even shows off with his cracked version of his Apple II software.

Another interesting guest is John T Draper, also known as “Captain Crunch” and once listed in the “top twenty hackers” of all time by Newsweek. Draper started hacking telephone lines in the early seventies, skills he later taught Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak even before they founded Apple. Draper also developed EasyWriter the first word processor for the Apple II and the IBM PC.

A very interesting video to watch for people who are interested in “software piracy in the old days”. Unfortunately I haven’t spotted a torrent yet, but you can download the episode in different formats at Archive.org.

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16 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)

1 Nov 08, 2006 at 00:52 by Platypus

Thanks! The closest I have found is one of the first “The Gathering” events… a video of a dude (norwegian) On big-ass phone: It’s like houndreds of copies of that game here (rough translation).
Anyway, thanks for the link. Now I know why the nerd stereotype looks like that. (he kinda looks like me too :p )
Anyway, thanks.

2 Nov 08, 2006 at 01:32 by Scharfschutze

Torrent
http://www.demonoid.com/files/download/HTTP/522999/14576958

3 Nov 08, 2006 at 01:33 by Platypus

Just downlaoded the episode Super Computers, and I’m just wondering, how many MB is 40 trillion bits ? (remember to calculate bits, not bytes.

4 Nov 08, 2006 at 03:25 by Jim

The torrent you requested was deleted by it’s owner or a moderator.

Torrent down!

5 Nov 08, 2006 at 13:07 by kdsde

Platypus wrote: “Now I know why the nerd stereotype looks like that. (he kinda looks like me too :p )”

But you know that these big glasses are sooo 1985?! So you might want to change now. ;-)
(Or maybe they become the new retro trend in 2007) :-P

6 Nov 08, 2006 at 20:08 by Yoweigh

40 trillion bits = 5TB?

7 Nov 08, 2006 at 20:32 by oscabat

40 trillion bits - 4.547 TB

8 Nov 08, 2006 at 21:33 by Me

I do not see a download link

9 Nov 08, 2006 at 22:09 by Ernesto

[quote comment="20614"]I do not see a download link[/quote]

but you can download the episode in different formats at Archive.org.

e.g. http://www.archive.org/download/Software1985/Software1985_edit.mp4

10 Nov 08, 2006 at 22:16 by Platypus

[quote comment="20477"]The torrent you requested was deleted by it’s owner or a moderator.

Torrent down![/quote]
I got 500kbps from the link in the article, so that’s good enough for me.

11 Nov 08, 2006 at 22:46 by Scharfschutze

sorry, for some reason demonoid deleted my torrent :/

12 Nov 09, 2006 at 00:36 by Xeppo

Not illegal enough. Sorry. Demonoid doesn’t want it.

13 Nov 09, 2006 at 15:46 by R2K

Thats crazy :)

14 Nov 11, 2006 at 00:36 by Zeb

Jim, put up a torrent if you got it that fast…
Have tried to download the file a couple of times, max speed has been 15kb/s :(

Thanx!

15 Nov 12, 2006 at 14:28 by theboss

google calculator comes handy here

40 trillion bits = 4 768 371.58 megabytes
40 trillion bits = 4 656.61287 gigabytes
40 trillion bits = 4.54747351 terabytes

16 Mar 26, 2008 at 13:43 by Katie

pirates looked more awesome in the -80s
http://katie.blogsite.org

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