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what other retro software do yall use


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On 14/06/2026 at 16:17, flexorcist said:

ive always been fascinated by old software this is an old video player for windows from apple.

<Moved to software discussion and support>

I've got fond memories of Winamp. Changing the skins, the different visualisations etc. But now I just need a simple music player.

MSN messenger would be another one, MSN Messenger Plus (I think?) offered so many different plugins. But again, it probably wouldn't work for me these days.

And then there is miRC. i think it's still going these days, but lord i had fun with that back in the day. Now it's mostly stuff like Discord, WhatsApp group chats, Signal, Telegram... /me is showing his age...

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I have a couple to mention, and they still run great on Windows 11 :)

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At work we still have a couple of people that use a version of AutoCAD LT purchased in 1994.

This predates Windows 95 and works fine on versions of Windows up to XP. Its long since run in an locked down isolated XP VM, accessible via RDP.

I did install LibreCAD for them, however they said it was just too different to get to grips with. In all fairness one of them is now 75 and the other is almost 60.

autocadlt.thumb.jpg.0b32973e5041b626732f09767b753b0f.jpg

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I still use HexChat!

Screenshot 2026-06-15 120313.png

Not really as ancient as the 1994 AutoCAD above my post, but I have never found anything better to replace it.

Yes we still operate an IRC server https://www.neowin.net/irc/ 😛 

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Hello,

Christian Maas' XVI32 is a nice (and very small) hex editor.

Speaking of hex editors, many years ago a colleague and I who both worked at Tribal Voice managed to edit a copy of the company's PowWow instant messaging client to make it behave better now that all of its lookup servers and other server-side tech was gone.  The program didn't support NAT (RFC-3022 was introduced in January 2001, the same time Tribal Voice was shuttered), but it still worked okay if you manually set up port-forwarding on your router.  The server at http://powwow.jazy.net/ hosts a copy (usual warnings about downloading and running untrusted code from random internet servers apply).

I occasionally use some tools like Funduc Software's Search and Replace and Application Mover when I need to make mass-edits to text-based files or move programs with a hard-coded installation directories, respectively. 

When I need to figure out the exact LCD panel inside of a laptop, EnTech Taiwan's Monitor Asset Manager is my go-to tool for that purpose.

JD Design's website (now hosted on github.io) has a number of interesting freeware and shareware utilities.  I used to use their TouchPro utility to set the file timestamps on software I was mastering to match its version number (e.g., version 3.00 of a program had all of its files dates set to 3:00AM, and so forth).

Karenware has a number of interesting freeware utilities, too.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

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On 15/06/2026 at 06:02, Steven P. said:

I still use HexChat!

Screenshot 2026-06-15 120313.png

Not really as ancient as the 1994 AutoCAD above my post, but I have never found anything better to replace it.

Yes we still operate an IRC server https://www.neowin.net/irc/ 😛 

Still using Hexchat every day but i would not consider it Retro 😛

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On 15/06/2026 at 11:51, InsaneNutter said:

At work we still have a couple of people that use a version of AutoCAD LT purchased in 1994.

This predates Windows 95 and works fine on versions of Windows up to XP. Its long since run in an locked down isolated XP VM, accessible via RDP.

I did install LibreCAD for them, however they said it was just too different to get to grips with. In all fairness one of them is now 75 and the other is almost 60.

autocadlt.thumb.jpg.0b32973e5041b626732f09767b753b0f.jpg

Oh man, the memories.

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