Free CDs On Magazine Covers
A cover-mounted disc of demos and shareware.
PC magazines with a CD or two taped to the front, full of game demos, utilities and one very large free ISP installer.
The demos were the point. Playing the same three levels of a game fifty times because that was all the disc contained is a very specific kind of childhood.
AOL sent so many free CDs that they were used as coasters, bird scarers and, in at least one documented case, roof tiles.
Cost back then
£4.99 for the magazine
Goes for now
Sealed demo discs sell to collectors
