Comment by palata
1 month ago
> Back when software came on physical media we still had patches. We had patches that came through the internet and we had patches that came through physical media.
Did you live at a time where Internet was not a thing?
I remember very clearly buying software on physical media and never, ever "receiving" a single patch. I don't even know how that would have looked... "buy this floppy disk, it's a patch for a bug in the other floppy disk you bought recently"?
I remember being able to buy "the next version", though. But the expectation was that I was buying a "finished" version, not something unfinished that required me to buy all the next versions.
> Did you live at a time where Internet was not a thing?
You must be relatively young. Software existed before the widespread adoption of the Internet.
> I remember very clearly buying software on physical media and never, ever "receiving" a single patch.
You had to take action to receive them. They weren’t automatic updates like they are today.
> I don't even know how that would have looked... "buy this floppy disk, it's a patch for a bug in the other floppy disk you bought recently"?
That’s exactly what it looked like. That’s still the process today for some systems —- avionics updates for Boeing 747s are provided on 3.5” floppies.
> You had to take action to receive them.
What did that look like? Remember, back then, developers and users often had no after-sale communications at all. It was a technical impossibility more than anything. There was paper mail. There were telephone networks. That's about it.
I suppose you could occasionally call the developers of every software product you're using to ask if there is an update. I doubt anyone ever did that.
> Remember, back then, developers and users often had no after-sale communications at all.
They often had no pre-sale communications either, indeed no communication of any kind. It was just like buying a spatula or a pair of shoes. You went to a retail outlet and bought the software; the developer wasn't involved in the transaction at all. It was just the consumer and the retailer.
Sometimes there was a postcard you could send to "register" your purchase with the developer, and they'd send you mail about new versions or the like, but many people never registered.
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> You must be relatively young.
Did you read my comment at all? :-)
> You had to take action to receive them. They weren’t automatic updates like they are today.
Are you saying I was doing it wrong?
> updates for Boeing 747s
Oh I get it. Maybe we just weren't playing with the same toys :D
Did you read *MY* comment at all?!
Everything @mechanicalpulse said was accurate.
To answer @grishka's question (because it seems you also don't know)
Well I literally answered that in my comment!
I broke it up and emphasized the key parts.
If you are going to accuse someone of not reading your comment you damn well better be reading the comments you're responding to.
Considering it was "harder to patch", yes, it does also mean "things often went unpatched." Mind you, this doesn't mean patches didn't exist nor does it mean, as you suggest, patches don't matter.
But again, I already addressed that in my original comment, so I'm not going to repeat myself again...
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