Lots of responses :)

Yes they are. Sad since piping commands is more effective than a gui (and more flexible/portable).

Too bad MS-DOS piping was broken. (an EOF or null would break the data, making it overall text-only, at least from my memory of using v6)

Nothing's stopping you from taking it. GameRager commented about the ages, and i came up with some questions that seemed relevant to that time. Being older you might have had to deal with worse. Say a computer using punch cards...

Early 8bit computers had something like 4k-8k of ram, and a 8k ROM slot. (Not a lot of space) but before that, you had a lot less! A surprise anything got done at all!

I was more talking about would it be possible to "pirate" free software by downloading/using a version not meant for you/your "class"(i.e. business or personal).....as in would that be considered pirating? :|
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True enough
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1. I did use Apple 2e/etc to play some games like Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy/Oregon Trail/etc, and newer PCs to run some games a teacher let us play in PC lab like 7th Guest/Dark Seed/etc.
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2. No, but I DID make my own game(In AGS, with the Reality-On-The-Norm series/verse) plus a small prequel to it. I also wanted to learn to make games in college but dropped out due to them wanting us to learn coding(not my forte/passion) as well in their offered courses.
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3. Nope.....that was way before my time. I DO have some old 8 tracks, though, from my parents old collection.
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4. I don't think I did beyond arcade gaming.
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5. Nope....didn;t even know those existed, tbh.
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6. I DID own an SNES my sibling bought me YEARS and years ago, and love Mortal Kombat/it's music. I also played/rented some games from stores when I had spending money.
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7. This a thousand times(hyperbole).....I had to do such for System Shock 1/Dark Seed/other games. I also trimmed unneeded stuff from my older windows installs(OEM stuff and extra windows stuff).
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8. This as well.....they were welcome when I was low on money and didn't have much to play.
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9. I think so, many years ago....along with stuff like 7Zip, WinRar, etc.
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10. Again, that was before my time, so I never used it. I do emulate it sometimes for older games(iirc), though.

1st bit: I don't think the OP is one to stir the pot for a laugh/etc...just my two cents.

2nd bit: Eh, I would suspect the ones who balk at sales "not being good enough" even when the prices are more than 60% off or find any excuse to not buy games they have wishlisted as more of a threat to gog's existence then a few pirates who wouldn't have paid for the games anyways.

Of course, saying that I think many many more should buy games on Gog to help it grow.

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Not any/all reasons....some games will likely never see a legal release for the foreseeable future that contains our lifetimes.

Why are they a threat any more than the rest of the 7.5 billion people on planet earth who don't buy games from GOG?

Not a threat perse(and not even that bad compared to steam being a thing, which threatens Gog more imo), but more like not helping either(at least financially).

In order for Gog to do well/grow, people need to buy games, and those not buying/not buying much(for some reason or other) aren't helping gog's bottom line much.

That said I am not trying to take a major dig at such people....just trying to subtlely prod some into helping gog a bit more from time to time. ;)

Thats part of what I meant with '"ego" thing'.

Maybe they see the cool game and want to copy it in its full glorious coolness but thats too hard so they just copy(*) the "COPYING IS FORBIDDEN" part and it makes them feel all cool and fuzzy at the same time or sth.

(*) pun intended

1) Use/own a 8bit computer? (Atari, Apple2, Commodore 64, Sinclair, etc)Yes. I had a Tandy 1000 HX, 1st pc. I remember using a C64 for games if we did good in elementary class.
2) Do any BASIC programming (in school probably, not the same as #5) Yes, in high school.
3) Run/load software using a tape player. Not sure. Do Texas Instruments TI-99/4A cartridges count?
4) Use a 1 button joystick. Yes, Tandy "Deluxe" Joystick
5) Enter a game/program from a magazine (Could have borrowed a book from the library too with BASIC games, usually text only and not system specific). Do shareware CDs count?
6) Play/own an NES and games? (or at least rent them when video stores still existed) Yes.
7) configure your autoexec.bat or config.sys files to get games to run in MS-DOS? I had to. Some games are very picky. I used a boot disk.
8) Find shareware games were your best friend? (MS-DOS) Yes, Doom, Heretic, Duke Nukem, DN3D
9) Have to use pkzip to extract files. Yes
10) Used Windows 3.11 to any degree Yes, I loathe bluescreens.

I see the discussion through this prism...

Did Game of Thrones piracy (the most-pirated tv show in history) hurt HBO subscriptions or the sales of GoT merchandise (including book)?

I can't think of where this 'class' would come into being.

I know Microsoft has put differences between 'business' and 'personal' by implementing limits. (Example, Windows XP could only accept 64 simultaneous connections max unless it was a 'server' edition. It was found to be binarily identical to the personal Windows XP, but with a few registry tweaks which Microsoft would sell you $800 more).

With free software, you specify the limits (in the configuration), and there isn't really a difference from the software perspective.. (Also any limitations you put in as a 'personal' version could be stripped and recompiled to remove it, making it pointless).

Is there a 'business' version of AWK vs a 'personal' version of AWK? I don't see why there would be. Or GIT, or XWindows?
Not sure. Typically i think of this when i think of a tape player for it. though some 8bit computers had it built into the computer too, i think the Sinclair was one.

Also you had to put "CLOAD" command in, then hit play. The details of the data and how it is stored on cassette is is quite interesting. It starts with an 0xAA code (10101010) byte to identify speed in case it's slow for timing, then a byte which is how many bytes in the next sector/block, and then the block is up to 128 bytes long.

Getting into the Tokens of MS-BASIC (how it's stored when saved) is also quite interesting...

if anything is causing piracy its not gog its places like steam with there DRM, id rather pirate a game than be forced to install shitty steam and rent my games for £30+, and the your not supporting the developers is so 90's cos in the 90's devs cared about making good games, now all they care about is rushing out games and getting as much cash as possible they dnt care about the games or the users that play them, the only devs that probably do care are indie devs.

said this in another thread but its true fuck these games devs normally id say triple A but there games arent worthy of that

Ultimately without reading their mind, I have no idea. It did however seem like a somewhat silly thing to ask, and often such type of thing is just someone stirring the pot, so it made me suspicious. But clearly like many others, I responded anyway ... perhaps more fool us.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, as surely any price is subjective, almost arbitrary. One only has to have a quick look at the prices at GOG to see how wildly they vary. For some games, 60% off is indeed a great bargain, while for others it isn't ... depends on the game and the original price. Going by some reviews, even 100% off is not enough for some games.

There are often many factors involved when buying a game, and not just the price.
But some seemingly don't even care about price, and just buy because they want the game. Most sensible and discriminating people however, are cautious with their money.
They want to make sure they get good value for money, or minimize the risk for the outlay.

I myself, purchase many games on a whim, based on risk factors. The cheaper the game, the more risk I am willing to take, so long as the game captures my interest enough. So while I prefer to buy games cheap, you could say quantity is also an important aspect, when it comes to supporting GOG, as I have bought an awful lot in the last 30 months.

Of course, a lot depends on how well I know a game or seem to be able to tell. I will pay more if I know I like a game or feel pretty confident I will.

Indeed, and I second the motion, while leading as one good example to others,

No. Thats stupid.

B-b-but it's one of my favourite "childhood" books!
*confused in tank*

I was trying to wonder/ask if one downloaded a freeware version of a piece of software meant for the other class(personal or business) if that would be considered piracy or not by said soft. makers/people/etc.....which itself was a musing after reading someone ask if freeware was possible to be pirated or not.
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1st bit above: I was more talking about people who want to buy a game/wishlisted it to buy and even when the game is 65% off and around 3-4 dollars(or their currency's equivalent) and is very reasonable/they want it more than other games they still complain the discount isn't good enough or find some other reason not to buy.

Some of them either dislike the direction gog is heading and want to act like a potential customer taking away a potential sale(with some of them), or they have other reasons(saving an extra 50 cents-1 dollar being very key to buying for some reason, even if they have the money and don't have many games, for example).

2nd bit above: One should always set a good example, this is true.

I suppose the only thing i can come up with, is downloads for specific countries. There was suppose to be governmental regulations where you couldn't export encryption software above 56bits encryption (has to do with how hard it is to crack and how long it would take. DES was a 64bit key cipher but lowered to 56bits and adopted as a standard as one reason). As such you could create a great security software but have to leave out or put a weaker cipher in to make it complaint. Though with the open sources, you could swap it out or have a patch and recompiled accepted in other countries.

No doubt there will be torrents of free software perhaps individually or as a collection, as if other sites go down that host those files, there will still be another backup way of it (Actually tons of torrents for iso's for distros). Though it isn't breaking any sort of copyright.