Boy Meets Girl, Girl Seeks Bob

An e-mailer asks Workbench for relationship advice:

... it's me and my boyfriends anniversary coming up and he always seems to somehow mention it and say how he wants it and I thought it would be a great thing to give him, no matter how weird it sounds. But I think it would be something he would enjoy, or like at least. I've looked around in all shops that could have a chance of selling older software but there aren't many where I live, I've looked around on eBay too but have had no luck, do you know where I could get it?

I don't know who's luckier -- the guy whose girlfriend would hunt down a copy of Microsoft Bob for their anniversary, or the woman whose boyfriend has such great taste in social interface software.

I'm one of the only people who has gone on record with my love for Microsoft Bob, the mid-'90s product that has unjustly come to be known as one of the greatest disasters in software history.

The only place I can find him is eBay, where a few go on sale each month and usually can be nabbed for under $25.

Microsoft Bob mug Over the last eight years, I've used eBay to find the original software, the Bob Plus Pack, Great Greetings for Bob and the only two computer books written for the software: At Home With Bob and Microsoft Bob. A third book, Microsoft Bob for Dummies, was cancelled by Wiley prior to publication, robbing technical literature of a book that would have been an enduring classic.

I also acquired some great swag on eBay -- a Bob coffee mug, key chain, long-distance card, T-shirt, pin, and baseball cap -- and nearly talked a former Microsoft freelancer into selling me the documentation for companies developing Bob add-on products (he feared, perhaps correctly, that it would constitute industrial espionage).

The swag auctions higher than the software, because I am not the only imbecile willing to blow as much as $50 on Bobabilia.

Publishing · Microsoft Bob · 2005/05/09 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Hehe thanks for making a post just about me :p but um yeah shame they only post to the USA and I'm stuck in the little UK *sob* Would be better if I had some money and could pursuade the person...but it might not work :( But I'll try my best, ya never know :) Still got a couple of months if it doesn't work out.

#1 · Catherine · 2005/05/09

Catherine~
You might check out amazon.com, they had a fair amount of Bob stuff on there. Also, I found this site that has it: www.retrosoftware.com/10670.html

#2 · Dogsdontpurr · 2005/05/09

Well I'm starting to even wonder if I'll be able to get it now, that link you gave um dogsdontpurr is great but they don't ship outside the US. So thats making me question the fact that people want to stick with the law that says don't sell it outside the US, but jeez can't us little brits get anything :'(

#3 · Catherine · 2005/05/09