Do you all remember... Bonus CDs? SHOW EM' HERE!

[Chandelier]

Games or computer related magazine publishers OR EVEN CEREAL BOXES! could come with a CD with a demo or lotsa games, mostly flash made ones.

They were mostly taken off websites or other disks to ship.

HOWEVER

Those websites might have ceased to exist and as we know not all of them gets the luxury of getting the internet archive treatment, or the website does but the game is unfortunately broken .

You there my dear viewer! if you have a functional disk of this type, it means that you may   hold a game or games that could never be found again in the open web!   

This thread will be dedicated to those finds, if you have a CD that matches the above description! THIS IS THE PLACE FOR YOU!

Besides showing the disk, show us the odd games you found inside of it! Videos or images of it would be VERY NICE!

[sokil]

oooh this thread is so cool! i used to love getting these disks!! definitely posting here as a reminder to myself.

i think i still have a few of these! a lot of my old games and things are packed away, but one day when things slow down a bit and i find the time, i can try to go through my things and see if i still have them anywhere. off the top of my head, i know i have some extra disks from the really old call of duty games, though they might just have some extra footage rather than any game demos; either way, i'll definitely check it out if i'm able to find it again!

[brisray]

Something like these things? I just had a quick look through my boxes and the oldest in the picture dates from 1988 and the newest is from 2001.

My first web site was made with software from these magazine cover disks. One of them has the complete commercial version of Corel Suite 3 on it. I've got some even older floppies as well.

Some of the games were cool.

Lemmings - where the idea was to get all the little critters home safe and sound. I made it my personal mission to see how fast I could kill them all off.

The Sentinel - build a landscape as fast as you can before The Sentinel turned its gaze on you.

All the Commander Keen games, Duke Nukem, The Incredible Machine and others were all on these disks at one time or another.

There's two that I still play now and then, Rogue a text based kill everything that moves game. I've got a version of it on my phone. Sherlock, a logic puzzle game that my wife still plays almost every day. It's one of those games like Mastermind, if this is true, then that can't be.

[Chandelier]

YES! YES!! YES!!! THAT'S THE GOOD STUFF I WAS TALKIN' ABOUT!  

[brisray]

I never was much of a gamer, but here's some that came from the disks that I liked. Most are around 30 years old now and I'm surprised I remember them at all.

TIM (The Incredible Machine)
Descent
EGA Trek
Beyond the Titanic (text adventure) I always ended up drowning or starving or meeting a gory death.
Air Traffic Controller
Big Red Racing
LineWars
Kroz
Snarf
Alien Breed: Tower Assault
 

[Salty]

I can't wait to see what gets posted here! I'll have to dig through my archive to see what qualifies. I have a ton of old PC Gamer demo CDs from the late 90s and early 00s, but I don't think I have any brand promotion things.. However, I would LOVE to add that if you are a lucky owner of one of these CDs,

PLEASE

consider ripping it and uploading it to the Internet Archive!   

It is super easy to burn an .ISO image of a CD with a free software like ImgBurn. All you have to do is pop the disc into a CD drive, use the software to burn it to an .ISO file (only 1 click), then upload it (for free) to the Archive. That way it is saved and available for others to enjoy and preserve!!

[brisray]

I made a half-hearted attempt of doing that several years ago. Luckily it seemed other people had exactly the same idea so most of what I've still got has already been done. I may get around at having another look at doing that as I've still got boxes full of those disks @Salty

I'm glad you mentioned ImgBurn - that's been one of my favourite programs for doing what it does for years.

There is still a lot of interest in these old programs. When I put QBasic 1.1, 4.5, and 7.1 on my site in 1999, I always expected a cease and desist letter from Microsoft. I never got one, and those zip files are still some of the most popular downloads from my site.

It was those old magazines and the disks that started my career. I liked the idea of making the lump of electronics in front of me doing what I wanted it to do and the magazines always had a programming section and gave away the development kits. On the strength of what I taught myself and after sending out loads of CDs with my work on it, a company called MMI took a chance on me and I became a database programmer. Before I left for the US in 2001, I was their head programmer. When I handed my notice in, they even offered my wife a job and would pay for her moving expenses from the US to keep me!

[Salty]

I made a half-hearted attempt of doing that several years ago. Luckily it seemed other people had exactly the same idea so most of what I've still got has already been done. I may get around at having another look at doing that as I've still got boxes full of those disks @Salty

I'm glad you mentioned ImgBurn - that's been one of my favourite programs for doing what it does for years.

There is still a lot of interest in these old programs. When I put QBasic 1.1, 4.5, and 7.1 on my site in 1999, I always expected a cease and desist letter from Microsoft. I never got one, and those zip files are still some of the most popular downloads from my site.

It was those old magazines and the disks that started my career. I liked the idea of making the lump of electronics in front of me doing what I wanted it to do and the magazines always had a programming section and gave away the development kits. On the strength of what I taught myself and after sending out loads of CDs with my work on it, a company called MMI took a chance on me and I became a database programmer. Before I left for the US in 2001, I was their head programmer. When I handed my notice in, they even offered my wife a job and would pay for her moving expenses from the US to keep me!

That's so cool!! I'll have to pick your brain on that sometime. I've read quite a few of your articles and things on your site over the years, but I didn't realize you sent out demo discs. What kind of software were you shipping?

Also, wow! I love a mysterious box full of old CDs. I am an avid collector and archivist of old shareware/software/whatever, so if you ever decide to toss them, I would definitely pay for you to ship them my way so I can get them archived!! 

[brisray]

I probably worded it wrongly. What happened was that I stayed two extra 2-years at school to get my A-levels but wasted them so no higher education for me and I left school no better off than when I was 16. After leaving the army, as I'd had an interest in programming, but no experience or qualifications, I created a bunch of programs I thought might be of interest to businesses and sent out a bunch of CDs, about 30 or 40 of them, to various companies in the city I lived in. MMI was the one I ended up working for.

I was hoping to get a job with IBM or Hewlett Packard who had offices near where I lived. Realistically I had no chance of that, but it still turned out really well. I didn't know who MMI actually were, just that they advertised for programmers. It was only after I got the job I found out they were the largest business to business data processors in the UK and 4th largest in Europe.

The magazine CDs I just kept because I'm like that. They all came from British magazines that I brought with me when I moved to the US in 2001. One of my friends is a geek like me, but about 20 years younger. He'll eventually get my collections and my websites will end up on his servers. He'd better - I'll come back and haunt him forever if he doesn't.