A Special about installers could be something original and interesting to cover. Pretty sure by now you faced some nice ones in the show, and a little research and a poll in the forums can be enough to fill the gaps.
Thinking a bit, this is what I think might be covered:
* The purpose of the DOS installers (pretty similar of what an installer does today);
* batch installers that pretty much copy the game into a folder (I remember some pretty elaborated ones);
* the introduction of compression (lha, zip, arj), multidisc and fragmentation;
* full and minimal install schemes (specially for CD-ROM);
* how companies kind of normalized their installers (SSI installer, LucasArts installer, ID, Origin, Microprose);
* some install authors (Arj author did some installers for SSI or Interplay, if I remember correctly);
* installers acting as setup:
autoexec/config configuration
video setup
sound setup
dual sound setup
controller setup and calibration
video and sound tests;
* patchers that actually change the code at binary level (I remember the Wing Commander one doing this?)
* graphic mode installers (7th Guest, Mega-Race, Wing Commander III, are the ones I remember as interesting ones).
* Interesting cases:
Wing Commander installer can convert the game art to EGA,
Strike Commander’s and the generation of the fractal maps,
I remember SSI installers that have an insane sound configuration,
pretty sure we can find more examples.
What do you think?
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