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How did people get apps on their computer before the Internet?

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2022-10-06 19:00:50

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The Internet has existed since the 90s, but how did people get apps and games installed on their computers before that and how were they accessed and saved?

People used storage media, which they carried around to the machines they wanted to use the software on. The same way music and video were physically distributed in the late 20th century on tape and CD.

Very early on, programs and data were stored on paper tape and punched cards. Then magnetic tape. Then floppy disks. Then CD-ROMs. Even cartridges containing semiconductor memory were sometimes used, particularly for game consoles. (Now that I think about it, we still use cartridges as USB flash drives.)

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