Nostalgia: Old Computer Programming Software and Books

I had actually posted this to my Facebook about two weeks ago. At the time, I wrote:

I recently threw out several boxes of old computer programming software and books, because they were obsolete, and I didn’t know anyone who wanted them. For nostalgia’s sake, I took photos of the stuff I threw out. It’s such a pity that commercial software and the associated books become outdated so quickly.

I’m reposting the photos here since they do belong, in a way, in this series of posts on the books that I’ve owned throughout my life.

From left to right, the following pictures show:

1. the books that came with Borland C++ v5;
2. the books that came with Borland C++Builder v1 and v3;
3. some books on C, Prolog, and InterBase;
4. two books on C++Builder;
5. more books on Borland C++, and a few other topics.

I don’t have very much to say about the books that came with the Borland products, other than that I never used them very much, since pretty much the same content was also available through the Windows help system. I have to wonder if anyone ever referred to their paper copies of these volumes, or if these were included merely to justify the prices. On the other hand, the OWL reference posters were both useful and aesthetically pleasing.

As for the other books, they served their purpose. I learned what I needed to from them at the time, but now they’re obsolete and are basically completely useless (except maybe to hobbyists who build or refurbish old computers for fun).

The following three pictures aren’t of books, but are related to the above:

1. the box that Borland C++ v4 came in — unfortunately, I did not take a picture of the books inside, but it was full of them;
2. I did, however, take a picture of the 22 floppy disks;
3. Adobe Acrobat v4.

– davinci 11770

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