It's that time of year again in the northern hemisphere: "Huge Hot Tub Sale at the County Fairgrounds! This weekend only!" (Repeated monthly from now through November)
The ad reminded me of the early days of personal computers, when most people were building their own, or knew someone who could build one for them. Every couple of months, there was an event at the fairgrounds, where you could buy computer parts and software. I'd go and the event hall would be full of tables loaded with all kinds of parts, from mother boards to monitors; and boxes full of floppy disks that were loaded with shareware. I was a big fan of shareware; some of it was just a demo of what the software would do if you bought the full version, but most of it was fully functional programs.
