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Comment by Lorkki

7 hours ago

If I remember correctly, actual pirated copies would have been maybe tens of megabytes, since they didn't include the CD audio. But that would still have been a hefty modem download.

The common pirated version of Quake was a 20MB pre-release leak that had oodles and oodles of minor differences to the final version. All of the actual levels themselves are playable and completable. The funniest differences are a mean trap that was removed from the final E1M1, and E2M6 still begins with the eponymous oubliette, banished from official releases until 2021 (!).

I got 3kB/sec, or 6 minutes per meg in ‘96. 10 meg an hour wasn’t terrible even I. The U.K. where you paid a penny a minute.