[tehjoker]

Back in the day, the license keys weren't checked at a central server, there was some kind of check sum or database inside the software instead. This was wonderful for both pirates and legitimate users for when the company disappeared.

I still remember a working Starcraft CD key (though it later turned out that something on the order of 01234566789 worked).

[sn_master]

I remember my Windows XP QQWD7 serial key too. Even when central server was the default, there was usually still a way to do an offline activation. Nowadays, not anymore.

[aphroz]

I was more a FCKGW kind of user