Freely available and legal software.

[Nemesis]

"Abandonware" is a grey area ethically but strictly speaking is illegal.  Because the copyright holders are not using or apparently intending to use the material any longer it is often possible to get away with distributing it as they don't care enough to stop it.  Legally however they do have the right to stop it and could get awarded substantial damages against anyone who does distribute it. 

As an example Microsoft has "abandoned" WinME and earlier but if someone were to try and start distributing it they would definitely find Microsoft lawyers on the attack.  On the other hand the whole MAME project is based on running copies of the ROMs of old arcade games and rarely if ever has the rightful copyright holder ever stepped in to stop it.

Because of this I won't add abandonware to the master list.

[Bonk]

I don't see this one on the list:

QEMU

QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.

When used as a machine emulator, QEMU can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performances.

When used as a virtualizer, QEMU achieves near native performances by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. A host driver called the QEMU accelerator (also known as KQEMU) is needed in this case. The virtualizer mode requires that both the host and guest machine use x86 compatible processors.

The supported host and target CPUs are listed in the status page.

QEMU Manager

The QEMU manager provides quick control of the brilliant QEMU Emulator for win32.  It provides media management, virtual machine management, easy storage of your media to iso or floppy disk image files for quick boot with QEMU, and provides basic process management should your QEMU session become unstable.

Trying it out now, seems to run the old QNX4 demo OK, though I havent worked out networking yet. I'm going to try a 200MB SLAX distribution I have lying around on it too. I'm curious to see if I can get it all running from a usb drive with reasonable performance. If so I may package up a set of LiveCD virtual machines with QEMU packaged in the PortableApps.com format.

[Nemesis]

Mixxx is an open source DJ tool designed for both professional and amateur DJs alike.

Mixxx allows DJs to mix music live with a clean, simple interface. Futhermore, Mixxx has a number of key features to help DJs in the mix: Beat estimation, parallel visual displays, and support for various DJ hardware controllers.

Mixxx is available on all major desktop operating systems, including Windows (XP and Vista), Linux and OS X.

Mixxx is also open source, so it can be downloaded and used for free. Mixxx is distributed under the GPL.

[Bonk]

I came across an interesting one today:

XMPlay

XMPlay is an audio player, supporting the OGG / MP3 / MP2 / MP1 / WMA / WAV / CDA / MO3 / IT / XM / S3M / MTM / MOD / UMX audio formats, and PLS / M3U / ASX / WAX playlists. A load more formats are also supported via plugins. When XMPlay was first released in 1998, only the XM format was supported, hence the name "XMPlay".

I found it while researching their .mo3 file format:

MO3

MO3 is a file format, encapsulating the features of several "MOD" formats (IT, XM, S3M, MTM, MOD), but with one big difference - MP3 and OGG compressed samples. A lossless codec is also incorporated for any samples that don't like lossy encoding, and the whole file structure is compressed too.

I was quite impressed with the quality and efficiency of both products. Both are free for non-commercial use. Quite a neat set of audio tools that fellow has produced.

[Nemesis]

PDFSam - PDF splitter and joiner.

Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Join PDFs together, split them apart and pull out individual pages with pdfsam, an open-source, Java-based cross-platform tool that's a free download. The program, just released in a 1.0 alpha, does basic PDF manipulation pretty quickly, and job processes can be saved for common tasks. As with the OS X-native Combine PDFs, it's a handy tool to tuck away for when you need it, like pulling relevant chapters out of a manual or textbook. Pdfsam is a free download and works wherever Java can, but a Windows installation tool is available.

[psytce]

Hello.....

I'm new here and I didn't see 2 free text editors I use when coding:

http://www.context.cx/ --- Context.
http://www.xemacs.org/ --- Xemacs.

I use Xemacs on UNIX and Context on windows.

Thanks........

[Nemesis]

Nice to see new faces.  Welcome.

[psytce]

Thank You ....

[Bonk]

This one has come along since I last tried it. (or perhaps I have, and can actually make use of it now, lol)

Doxygen

   
Source code documentation generator tool

Doxygen is a documentation system for C++, C, Java, Objective-C, Python, IDL (Corba and Microsoft flavors), Fortran, VHDL, PHP, C#, and to some extend D.

It can help you in three ways:

   1. It can generate an on-line documentation browser (in HTML) and/or an off-line reference manual (in $\mbox{\LaTeX}$) from a set of documented source files. There is also support for generating output in RTF (MS-Word), PostScript, hyperlinked PDF, compressed HTML, and Unix man pages. The documentation is extracted directly from the sources, which makes it much easier to keep the documentation consistent with the source code.
   2. You can configure doxygen to extract the code structure from undocumented source files. This is very useful to quickly find your way in large source distributions. You can also visualize the relations between the various elements by means of include dependency graphs, inheritance diagrams, and collaboration diagrams, which are all generated automatically.
   3. You can even `abuse' doxygen for creating normal documentation (as I did for this manual).

Doxygen is developed under Linux and Mac OS X, but is set-up to be highly portable. As a result, it runs on most other Unix flavors as well. Furthermore, executables for Windows are available.

[Bonk]

I came across a few windows shell replacements not on our list today:

Emerge

Emerge Desktop is a replacement windows "shell" (the desktop environment normally provided by Windows Explorer) for Windows 2000 and above. In order to replace Windows Explorer as a shell, it provides a system tray (the area that collects the icons collected at the lower right corner in Explorer), called emergeTray. It will also provide access to the users programs (normally accessed with the windows "start" button) via a right-click on the desktop, via emergeCore.

Litestep

For those of you picking up LiteStep for the first time you have yet to experience the power and flexibility that you can find in LiteStep. LiteStep was originally written years ago by lonerunnr as a AfterStep interface port for windows. It has since grown into the most powerfull shell still in active development.

GeoShell

GeoShell is a replacement shell for Windows™ to replace the standard desktop interface. In other words, you trade your start menu, taskbar, system tray and desktop in, and you get our versions, featuring slick, skinnable geoBars which can be placed anywhere and alpha blended into your background. GeoShell has plugins that add additional functionality like rss readers, weather forecasts, mail checkers, web search bars, virtual desktops and more.  In it's default installation geoShell also uses less resources than Windows Explorer, and is particularly effective when combined with third-party web browsers and file managers to completely upgrade your basic Windows interface.

I haven't tried any of them yet but I'm about to give Emerge a go and will download Litestep soon. I'll report my findings.

EDIT:  So far I approve of Emerge Desktop, it seems to work well for me. I'll try Litestep next.
EDIT2: I tried Litestep, I did not like the look and feel of it at all, I'm using GeoShell now, I like it better but Emerge is my favorite I think as it is so minimalist. None of them have borked my system.

[Bonk]

Here's a good ol game not on our list:

Neverball

Tilt the floor to roll a ball through an obstacle course before time runs out. Neverball is part puzzle game, part action game, and entirely a test of skill.Also found here is Neverputt, a hot-seat multiplayer miniature golf game using the physics and graphics of Neverball. Neverball and Neverputt are known to run under Linux, Win2K/XP, FreeBSD, and OSX. Hardware accelerated OpenGL is required. A 500MHz processor is recommended.

I like a good dose of neverputt from time to time. Fun and maddening at the same time!

[E_Look NCC-9091]

Is Geoshell anything like GeoWorks was?

(GeoWorks was a substitute for early Windows on early PCs; it seemed a little more efficient, a little more user-friendly than Windows was.)

[Bonk]

Is Geoshell anything like GeoWorks was?

(GeoWorks was a substitute for early Windows on early PCs; it seemed a little more efficient, a little more user-friendly than Windows was.)

I recall seeing copies of GeoWorks lying about years ago (still in the box), but had never used it, so I can't say for sure. Here's what wikipedia says:

The original code was released under the GPL by author Geoffrey Elliott ("geO"), circa 1998.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoShell

... so, I guess not!

[Panzergranate]

The ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum, +2, +2A, +3 and QL ROMs all have Sir Clive Sinclair's permission for use in emulators.

I can't see Microsoft giving a sh*t about Windows 1.03, 2.03, 2.03 386, 3.00, 3.11, 3.51, etc. these days. I've had all of them.

[Bonk]

Came across this one the other day:

Remora USB Disk Guard

Remora USB Disk Guard is a small tool performed as a file encryption switch in your usb drive. With Remora USB Disk Guard, you can secure all your files anytime and anywhere.

I haven't tried it yet, but I understand its main benefits are that in comparison to Truecrypt it is smaller and does not require admin status. (Truecrypt's latest release now includes whole disk encryption as well)

[Panzergranate]

I've always used the ARJ arciver (banned in all governement establishments as it is also a powerful hacking tool in the wrong hands ) to encript any files I want to keep secure.

We used this at one of the MOD jobs I was on.

Up to 256 layers of 32 character passwords can be set, all of which have to be hacked to unpack the contents of the archive.

We were using it to encript my cricuit designs onto Caddy Drives for porting between computers in different places.

[Tus]

not really program persay, but http://www.videohelp.com/ provides plenty of resources for video stuffs.  I personally used it to find a few free proggies to help me convert some video files to my zune

[Bonk]

Noticed this one is not on our list. I was reminded of it when I found masm examples with the BASS audio library. After working with NSIS for a while, assembler does not look so scary, especially with macros and large library of functions.

MASM32

MASM32 version 9 is a working development for programmers who are interested in either learning or writing 32 bit Microsoft assembler (MASM). Installation is an automated process that will install on the local drive of your choice.

An assembler as powerful as MASM is capable of enmulating higher level languages while maintaining the performance and size of assembler code. This has been demonstrated with C style code that MASM already supports. The macro capacity built into MASM has allowed the development of a combined macro and library system that partly emulates basic style string handling and other similar language capacities. This allows experienced programmers with multiple language skills to leverage their existing skills and get up to pace writing MASM code more quickly.

[Bonk]

SCons

SCons is a software construction tool--that is, a superior alternative to the classic "Make" build tool that we all know and love.

SCons is implemented as a Python script and set of modules, and SCons "configuration files" are actually executed as Python scripts. This gives SCons many powerful capabilities not found in other software build tools.

 

[Panzergranate]

Using Assembler to programme computers.... that big difference between and IT person and an Electronics Engineer!!

Electronics Engineers are raised on Machine Code and Assembler,so we find it pretty easy.

All I can say to anyone starting off using Assembler is, "Welcome to the realm of the gods and titans in software!!"

If you're going to use Assembler to programme a PC you seriously need a copy of the "IBM Built In Operating System Manual" for all the in built subroutines and helpful bits of code.

Also things like the XDPB (Expanded Disc ParameterBase), media read/write routine calls (with regster conditions), acknowledgements, interrupts, non-maskableinterupts, graphics calls, etc. are held.

You can't seriously create complex software on the PC without this book.

Also data is chucked around the insides of any computer in in what engineers refer to as "Streams" and these have been standardised in computer design since the darkages.

Streams can be linked to each other, with a line of code tocall certain BIOS subroutines.

Forinstance linking Strem #2 (keyboard output) to Stream #1 (display input) willhave everrything typed into a keyboard appear on the screen rather than goto thekeyboard memory buffer (Stream #5 input).

Stream #8 is the printer input, so directing the keyboard to this will have any computer running the printer as a typewritter.

If anyone wants some help with learning assembler, I've taught people the core basics before.

I started out with the Signetics 2650 in the late 1970's.

I can now programme 80x86, Z80, Z8000, 8080, 6800, 68000, 80x1, PIC, etc. or any micriporcessor that will ever enter existance. Once you can programme one, you can programme any processor. Just like cars, trucks and motocycles, they all have the same controls, drive the same way, though the controls may have different names, just like French and European cars have the driving position on the wrong side.

The easiest processor to programme in Assembler, for an novice, is the 68000. The 80x86 is quite awkward due to its lack of registers, which was the main reason that 1980's amd 1990's Macintoshs were always superiour to the PC, as the PC had the inferiour processor.

[Bonk]

The easiest processor to programme in Assembler, for an novice, is the 68000. The 80x86 is quite awkward due to its lack of registers, which was the main reason that 1980's amd 1990's Macintoshs were always superiour to the PC, as the PC had the inferiour processor.

That is consistent with my experience, that is where I started, assembler on the Apple II GS in high school in the late eighties. That's what they taught us. Never really did anything with it since as in the next two years the IBM ATs and XTs were what we used in the chemistry department at my university and oddly mostly as terminals on a VAX/VMS system. It was good to have that foundation of understanding from high school though. I've only programmed as a tool in my work and as a hobby for play so never got very advanced with any one tool but have experience with a wide variety of computing and automation systems.

Currently I'm switching my NSIS BASS.dll includes to a plugin written in C, as NSIS's scripting language could not comprehend floats or dwords or structs.. and was limiting my progress, so instead of writing bin/math libraries for NSIS I just moved to C. Once I finish moving it to C, I'm thinking of doing it in MASM just for the exercise and to compare the results (there is an example MASM include for NSIS plugins in the NSIS source).

[Panzergranate]

I always found that the lack of registers on the original 8 bit PC's 8088, the XT's 8086 and subsequent 80186, 80286, 80386, 80486, etc. infuriatinng.

It takes a lot of clever memory shunting and stacking to overcome the problem.... which leads to slower running software.

By comaprison, the Z80 had more than 3 times the instruction set of the 8088 and twice the registers to play with.

My XT had the Intel 80386 card fitted, which I still have.

Also only the AX / EAX register can contain the result of an ALU operation, port call,etc. where as the 68000 can use the D0 to D7 for the same operations.

I must admit that the dual core and quad core Intel processors are welcome. For those who don't do Assembler or Machine Code I'll explain....

On a normal processor any call to a subroutine results in having to stack the contents of the ALU otherwise it will be lost. Also some other registers,which might be holding binary data essential to your programme will also have to be stacked as calling BIOS (Built In Operating System) routines will corupt certain registers asit will use them.

In a dual core and quad core processor, there is a second ALU (dual core) and multiple ALUs (quad core) which activate and handle subroutines (branch instructions in Machine Code jargon).

On a quad core itis possibleto call a subroutine from a subroutine from a subroutine, which is a serious no no taught in coleges and universities all over the planet.

This is why the quad core is ever so special.... it has four ALU, the normal ALU plus three for handling subroutines, subsubroutines oand subsubsubroutines.

[Bonk]

Came across a free music software site not on out list. Looks pretty good:

http://freemusicsoftware.org/

[Bonk]

Handy utility I came across today, beats building mkisofs under cygwin yourself:

Folder2Iso just creates an iso from any kind of folder

http://www.trustfm.net/divx/SoftwareFolder2Iso.php

EDIT:
Well, it makes ISOs alright, but lacks much of the functionality of mkisofs. (in particular making boot images) I located Win32 Binaries for cdrtools here:
http://www.student.tugraz.at/thomas.plank/index_en.html
Go for the "Win32-Binaries (latest stable)" cdrtools package.
(which contains mkisofs)

[Javora]

I found this program today called DVD43.  Similar to AnyDVD except DVD43 is free.  Haven't tried it yet but here it is:  http://www.dvd43.com/

[Bonk]

Some more good stuff not on our master list yet:

Unlocker
(a handy tool to release unwanted file or folder locks, use with care.)


ImageMagick

ImageMagick® is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (over 100) including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to translate, flip, mirror, rotate, scale, shear and transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects, or draw text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bézier curves.

The functionality of ImageMagick is typically utilized from the command line or you can use the features from programs written in your favorite programming language. Choose from these interfaces: G2F (Ada), MagickCore (C), MagickWand (C), ChMagick (Ch), ImageMagickObject (COM+), Magick++ (C++), JMagick (Java), L-Magick (Lisp), NMagick (Neko/haXe), MagickNet (.NET), PascalMagick (Pascal), PerlMagick (Perl), MagickWand for PHP (PHP), IMagick (PHP), PythonMagick (Python), RMagick (Ruby), or TclMagick (Tcl/TK). With a language interface, use ImageMagick to modify or create images dynamically and automagically.

ImageMagick is free software delivered as a ready-to-run binary distribution or as source code that you may freely use, copy, modify, and distribute. Its license is compatible with the GPL. It runs on all major operating systems.

GhostScript  (check out the company name: Artifex Software, Inc)

Ghostscript, an interpreter for the PostScript language and for PDF, and related software and documentation.

Ghostscript is an interpreter for the PostScript (TM) language. A PostScript interpreter usually takes as input a set of graphics commands. The output is usually a page bitmap which is then sent to an output device such as a printer or display. PostScript is embedded in many printers.

(if you don't see a windows build for the latest release just check the previous release)


Clamwin

ClamWin is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/2003 and Vista.
ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge. It features:
    * High detection rates for viruses and spyware;
    * Scanning Scheduler;
    * Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database.
    * Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer;
    * Addin to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically.

ClamAV Antivirus Native Win32 Port

Unofficial native port of the well known ClamAV Antivirus, this port is used in ClamWin Antivirus

EDIT: and the "official":
ClamAV for Windows

From here you can download a version of ClamAV for Windows. Previously only available for UNIX-like systems, the release of  ClamAV on the Windows platform marks a breakthrough in AV technology for Windows. This version is native, that is it was built using Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 and requires no emulation layer such as Cygwin.

...

Please note that ClamAV is NOT a desktop AV system, it is aimed to the server market.

KpyM Telnet/SSH Server

KpyM Telnet/SSH Server ( KTS ) is a free, open source telnet/ssh server for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista. It provides access to the host computer via the telnet or ssh protocol. Supports command line applications (dir, ftp, etc.) and full color console graphic applications (edit.com, tetris.exe, etc.). KTS accepts connection from any telnet/ssh client running on any OS.

PuTTY

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator.

[NuclearWessels]

FlashDevelop is a decent open source flash editor

GIT is an open source version control system  started by ol' Linus Torvalds

dave

[NuclearWessels]

The easiest processor to programme in Assembler, for an novice, is the 68000. The 80x86 is quite awkward due to its lack of registers, which was the main reason that 1980's amd 1990's Macintoshs were always superiour to the PC, as the PC had the inferiour processor.

Damn that brings back some memories!  My first teaching job, back around '92 or so, was teaching 680x0 for engineering students.

dave

[Panzergranate]

If anyone wants to learn to programme in the mistic art of assembly language, the 680x0 series of processors is the most user friendly to learn the art on.

There are quite a few tricks that a 680x0 processor can do that a 80x86 processor can't do which makes the user's life a lot easier writing code.

It is not a good idea to learn on a RISC based processor for a beginner as programming these can be very, very tedious in some cases if one wants to do something "clever" in coding up.

If you really want to be confused,try "register lipping" on the Z80 and Z8000 processors.

[Bonk]

I found a Windows SSH client that works better for me than PuTTY.

UTF-8 TeraTerm Pro with TTSSH2

UTF-8 TeraTerm Pro with TTSSH2 is TeraTerm 2.3 succession version and is being officially recognized by the original author. TeraTerm is open source free software terminal emulator supporting SSH2 and UTF-8 protocol.

It seems much more responsive overall.