skullaria wrote:
Before 1994 is the hard part. Isn't that a bit before CD burners became commonplace and affordable?

Gracious, it is a good thing that people never decided to patent cooking techniques. We'd not be able to scramble our eggs without paying someone...or what if the guy that made alfredo for his sick wife ran and got a patent on mixing butter, cream, and parmesan?

I often wish that computer technology and the way it is disseminated could be more like the art of cooking.

Well, it fundamentally *is* similar to cooking, but you're right that it's not treated that way. Software patents a bullshit, until they can amend the patent system to reduce the terms *a LOT* for software. None of this sitting on a software patent for 15 years or more and then trying to collect on something that's long since become presumptive.

As for this topic, wouldn't old CD-ROM based encyclopedia be a good start? Didn't a lot of those have links to external resources?

RE: Someone on MemeStreams MUST have something like this: