Flack
03-02-2004, 10:49 PM
Did any of you guys ever attend copyfests?
For you youngin's, "copyfests" were parties where everybody brought their computers to one central location for the purpose of copying software.
Even though a Commodore floppy disk only held 180k of information, that might take several hours to transfer over the modem. 1200 baud was the norm (if you're familiar with 56k, think 1.2k), so if you were wanting to copy anything more than a game or two, it was often quicker and easier to just hook up in person.
At these copyfests, everyone carried their computers into a room. The first copyfest I organized was at a local hotel -- we got their conference room for $40, invited 20 people, and charged everybody $2 to attend (a hell of a deal for the amount of software one usually walked away with). Hotels would always supply us with those 8' lunch tables, so once people began showing up we began hooking up C64 systems, which of course took up tons of space and gave of tons of heat. Once people were set up, people spent their time wandering around, looking through other people's game collections and copying whatever they wanted. If you didn't want it copied, don't bring it to the copyfest.
The first copyfest I organized was kind of funny. I was 13 years old at the time, and I knew there was no way a hotel was going to rent me a conference room. I ended up talking another guy into it, via e-mail. What was funny was I typed then about as I do now, so the guy had no idea how old I or most of my friends were. When everyone showed up, this poor 40 year old guy found himself surrounded by a bunch of 12-13-14 year old kids. :)
So, did any of you guys ever attend any local copyfests? I probably attended at least 10 or so, maybe more over my Commodore days (plus trading with people one on one lots more times).
For you youngin's, "copyfests" were parties where everybody brought their computers to one central location for the purpose of copying software.
Even though a Commodore floppy disk only held 180k of information, that might take several hours to transfer over the modem. 1200 baud was the norm (if you're familiar with 56k, think 1.2k), so if you were wanting to copy anything more than a game or two, it was often quicker and easier to just hook up in person.
At these copyfests, everyone carried their computers into a room. The first copyfest I organized was at a local hotel -- we got their conference room for $40, invited 20 people, and charged everybody $2 to attend (a hell of a deal for the amount of software one usually walked away with). Hotels would always supply us with those 8' lunch tables, so once people began showing up we began hooking up C64 systems, which of course took up tons of space and gave of tons of heat. Once people were set up, people spent their time wandering around, looking through other people's game collections and copying whatever they wanted. If you didn't want it copied, don't bring it to the copyfest.
The first copyfest I organized was kind of funny. I was 13 years old at the time, and I knew there was no way a hotel was going to rent me a conference room. I ended up talking another guy into it, via e-mail. What was funny was I typed then about as I do now, so the guy had no idea how old I or most of my friends were. When everyone showed up, this poor 40 year old guy found himself surrounded by a bunch of 12-13-14 year old kids. :)
So, did any of you guys ever attend any local copyfests? I probably attended at least 10 or so, maybe more over my Commodore days (plus trading with people one on one lots more times).