PC-Talk
Encyclopedia
PC-Talk was a communications software program. It was one of the first three widely popular software products sold via the marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...

 method that became known as shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...

. It was originally written by Andrew Fluegelman
Andrew Fluegelman
Andrew Cardozo Fluegelman was a publisher, photographer, programmer and attorney best known as the inventor of what is now known as the shareware business model for software marketing...

, in late 1982, and with it created the shareware-category of software, its sales and marketing methodology.

Though PC-Talk is regarded as a progenitor of the shareware distribution model, it was labeled at the time both freeware
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

 and "user-supported software", and included elements of open-source software
Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...

 (but not free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

). Its source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

 was available and many derivative works were created by its user community. The CompuServe
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...

 IBM/PC SIG
Special Interest Group
A Special Interest Group is a community with an interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences...

 forum developed "PC-TALK III Version B, Level 850311". Both the user-modified version of the program and the CompuServe distribution point were officially sanctioned by Fluegelman and The Headlands Press, holders of the copyright for PC-TALK. Members of HAL-PC also produced custom versions that supported videotex
Videotex
Videotex was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television.In a strict definition, videotex refers to systems that provide...

 and IBM 3101
IBM 3101
IBM 3101 ASCII Display Station, and its follow-on IBM 3151/315X and IBM 3161/316X are display terminals with asynchronous serial communication that were used to attach to a variety of IBM and non-IBM computers, especially the data processing terminals on non-IBM minicomputers, IBM Series/1 and IBM...

 emulation
Terminal emulator
A terminal emulator, terminal application, term, or tty for short, is a program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture....

.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK