In the comment below, nailer mentioned that the creator of Trumpet Winsock saw very little money from one of the most widely-used pieces of shareware then in existence. Magazines and ISPs distributed the full version of his software but very few paid for it[2].
My first experience connecting to the internet was using Windows 3.1, Trumpet Winsock and Netscape 1.22 (I think) to browse the nascent web. Later I wiled away (too many) hours on IRC.
At the time I didn't have two 50c coins to rub together. Today, partly due to that early internet exposure, I am a well-paid software engineer.
In the same thread I have alluded to you will find that we identified Peter Tattam and two of us (badmonkey0001 and I) contacted him independently.
At our prompting Peter has set up a Paypal account where you can make donations. I invite you to chip in to reward a man whose work let so many of us open the door, for the first time, to an important part of our lives.
Thanks, Peter.
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Donate to [email protected]
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Edit: now cross-posted at Reddit in non-karma-harvesting format (http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/fwciq/peter_tattam_created_trumpet_winsock_enabling/)
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2281698 [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2281770