Have you heard of CD Textfiles? An unprecedented compilation of the most notorious shovelware (if that's even possible) from the last thirty-plus years, especially for incurable nostalgics. The best part? It's free. Don't know what shovelware is? Don't panic, because we'll explain it to you, and then you can also go and dive into the slime abyss with CD Textfiles discs to download.
What is shovelware?
Little to nothing has been said about Shovelware before, so this mention of CD Textfiles seems like an ideal opportunity for those unacquainted with the matter. Shovelware is a pejorative term in the computing world, made up of the root Shovel, which we can translate as pala or palear, and Ware, to refer to goods or manufactured items. In simple terms, "Shovelware" tries to stand alongside words like Software or Freeware to describe a type of application, only it speaks of a very particular type: a set of applications somewhat recycled, carried from one medium to another with little care, "shoveled together".
The term emerged during the birth of the CD-ROM, when business visionaries started from a very unambitious point to exploit this new and revolutionary product, using it as a large repository to collect all kinds of existing programs and utilities. The mentality was to take everything old that they were already producing and include it without much fuss on a new medium, without room for innovation, or at least to think of a function that truly took advantage of the full potential of such an invention. These CDs were generally included in computer magazines, as a "gift".
Nowadays, when we talk about Shovelware, we are not strictly talking about an ancient and rigid compilation of applications, as the word suggested years ago. Rather, it is used to describe generically a certain type of content that may be somewhat old, let's be honest, collected under some specific criterion, and that qualifies for positive characteristics that have nothing to do with exceptional quality of the product, but with the quantity of products collected (similar to the 9999-in-1 of the Famicom era).
CD Textfiles: Shovelware for everyone!
CD Textfiles has an apt slogan (Past on Plastic) that gives a small preview of what it offers. It is a compilation of the contents of old Shovelware CDs over 30 years old, bathed, combed and perfumed, ready to download. Nostalgics will probably be familiar with several titles within the site, but I am sure that even those who are just discovering that such things existed will be excited about the possibility of downloading some CDs.
CD Textfiles provides free access to anyone who wants to get 10,000 songs and sounds from 1993, old 3D graphics, assorted games, MIDI files, programmer applications, and even levels for Doom or Warcraft II. All jewels from decades ago in the same place. Each compilation (and there are dozens and dozens) includes several thousand files in the download.
With the new computing proposals that occur today, media and platforms, one tends to forget that before, the most common was different from what it is now. Shovelware has gone out of style, but among the mass production of applications and stored tools it has left behind, there is a universe of unknown resources that still today have the capacity to surprise us. CD Textfiles is an exponent of this, I assure you that browsing the published compilation is pure entertainment.
Want more shovelware?
There is a larger compilation than CD Textfiles, yes, but not as accessible. We are talking, of course, about the CD-ROM collection on Archive.org. From the archive site you will be able to find many CDs that have been left out of the list on the site presented here, including those with XXX content. The problem will be finding exactly what you are looking for, given that the collection contains more than 23,000 copies among shareware, utilities and operating systems, among other things. But if that CD from your childhood that stole your best moments is not on CD Textfiles, you lose nothing by looking for it on Archive.org.
https://old.neoteo.com/vetusware-programas-abandonados-para-tu-antigua-pc/
