The world of computing has, and is changing at a rapid pace. I started out with a Sinclair ZX81, that's how far I go back, eventually becoming the proud owner of an Acorn Electron, the cheaper and slightly less powerful version of the Acorn BBC that started to appear in schools along with the IBM Pet. These machines and others of the same generation were the must haves of the day.
The trouble with these machines was they were expensive and to use them for anything other than playing games, for instance using it as a word processor, meant shelling out for not only the printer but in a lot of cases special add-ons so the printer could be attached. This would invariably set you back at least and sometimes more than the computer itself. And so the majority of them became the first expensive games machines.
If however you had the time and the patience you could learn how to program them. The language that came with these machines was called BASIC, an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. It wasn't difficult to learn but it was time consuming. There were also computer magazines that published printouts of programs you could type into your machine. The only other option was to buy commercially produced programs for your machine.
Comparing the above with what we have today, makes it sound like the dark ages, but it's only 30 years or so.
Computers and everything that goes with them is a multi billion pound industry. The software industry alone has made millionaires out of many programmers.
However, there is two sides to the coin when it comes to software. You could choose to part with your hard earned cash to get the latest Microsoft or Adobe application and there is nothing wrong in that, but what if you could get a program that does the exact same as the box you see on the shelf in PC World for free?
There is an ever growing community of programmers who produce fantastic alternatives to commercially available software and give it away for gratis. This goes under the banner of Open Source, and every conceivable type of software that is for sale in stores such as PC World has an alternative ready to be downloaded from the Internet.
For example, some of the most expensive software on the market is for image manipulation. Adobe is a big name in this sector with it's PhotoShop products. By going to:
You can download for free, a program called The Gimp which does exactly the same. Here's a video demo:
After an office suite of tools comparable to Microsoft's?
Need an audio editing program http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Or perhaps you're into video.
http://www.debugmode.com/wax/
The programs listed here don't even scratch the surface of what is available for free. Check out the 'Downloads' page in the members area for a few more. This area will be updated regulary.
