Raise your hand if you ever downloaded software by recording a series of tones onto a cassette tape as it was being broadcast over a radio station. Patrick Debois did – back in the 1980s as a budding computer enthusiast. He recalled that Europe didn’t have the network of electronic BBSes that existed in the U.S. These radio broadcasts were one way to distribute software, although they were often thwarted “when your mom walked in the room saying something and ruined the recording.”

Source: LXer – Patrick Debois: Untold Stories of Open Source