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188:) and had the leaders of the SIGs also serve as HAL-PC's board of directors. With this source of new leadership for HAL-PC and term limits for officers, HAL-PC was assured that no one person or small group of people would run the group into the ground. The SIGs also assured that all members could find something in HAL to match their particular computer interests.
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to change banks several times and one time lost money when a bank went bankrupt. But eventually things settled down, and some programmers began receiving from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars a month in orders—substantially more than they would have received accepting payment only by cash or check.
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In the late 1980s, PsL initiated an order-processing service for shareware authors in which live operators took orders over the phone at toll-free numbers. This was not an easy service to provide as banks were reluctant to give credit card merchant accounts to mail- or phone-order businesses. PsL had
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magazine. When people around the world were not able to get programs discussed in the column because they lacked economical access to bulletin board systems, they wrote to Nelson Ford asking for copies, which he also made for a disk fee. This service quickly snowballed into a full-time job, resulting
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Eventually, as the volume of software increased and CD-ROM drives in PCs became common, most of PsL's shareware distribution shifted to CD-ROMs where many hundreds of programs could be put on each monthly CD-ROM. During the boom years of shareware disk distribution, new vendors were popping up all
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In the 1980s and early 1990s, virtually no shareware authors had the ability to accept credit card orders at all, much less via live operators at toll-free numbers, the way most people are accustomed to making such orders. Authors could accept only cash or checks mailed directly to them and thus
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Programmers who learned of the service sent their software to PsL to be added to the library, eventually at the rate of hundreds of programs a month. PsL hired technicians to test, review and write-up programs in PsL's monthly magazine and annual catalog which grew to well over 1000 pages.
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With the growth of the
Internet, by 1998, the distribution of shareware by disk and CD-ROM was beginning to wane while order processing was booming, and with 13+ years of 100-hour work weeks taking their toll on Nelson and Kay Ford, they sold PsL to Digital River, Inc., an NYSE-listed,
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Originally, PsL provided its service to programmers at its cost, but as hundreds of programmers signed up, economies of scale actually made the service profitable. With the eventual spread of the
Internet, PsL added Internet order processing to its services.
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One of Nelson Ford's interest in the HAL-PC user group was swapping public domain and shareware software with other members. He eventually created a large, organized library of programs and his group made copies for other members for a disk fee.
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was created in 1987. Nelson Ford served on the first Board Of
Directors. After more than 25 years, ASP is still a very active, important organization for shareware professionals. In 2001, Nelson Ford was inducted into the
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User groups in other major cities were normally run by the few people who had started the group, which tended to limit their growth. As president of HAL-PC, Nelson Ford established a system of special interest groups
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the time. As the CD-ROM and the
Internet took over, these disk vendors died out, thus leaving PsL the first (1980) and most likely the very last (1997) company to distribute shareware on diskettes.
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in Texas and worked for Daniel
Industries, Inc. and Pennzoil Company before forming Public (software) Library. He and Kay are retired and living in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas.
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In 1979, Nelson Ford got his first personal computer, a Radio Shack Model II. In 1980, he got one of the first IBM-PCs available in Texas and shortly after that helped start the
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operators, and shareware disk distributors with the goal of creating an industry trade organization. As a result of the attendance and hard work of such industry leaders as
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Many terms were being used for freely-distributal software in the early 1980s. In his column on such software in
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magazine, Nelson Ford held a contest to come up with a standard name. The most popular name was
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magazine, he was responsible for standardizing the use of the term
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from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially
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for free-trial software. He wrote several shareware games:
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Article quoting Nelson Ford about changes in shareware
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See "Association of
Shareware Professionals" web site.
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In 1985, Nelson Ford began working on a conference of
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462:Publications with articles about Nelson Ford
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232:In 1984, Nelson Ford wrote a column named
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449:Learn how and when to remove this message
96:(born 1946) was one of the founders of
214:Association of Shareware Professionals
192:Association of Shareware Professionals
110:Association of Shareware Professionals
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503:University of Texas at Austin alumni
309:In the mid 1980s, Nelson Ford wrote
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317:against three computer opponents,
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162:University of Texas at Austin
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154:United States Marine Corps
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160:. He graduated from the
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493:People from San Antonio
329:, for learning to play
370:Please help by adding
327:CardShark Bridge Tutor
138:Shareware Hall Of Fame
134:CardShark Bridge Tutor
498:United States Marines
212:and many others, the
202:bulletin board system
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206:Jim "Button" Knopf
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