My dad’s employee originaly found it, then showed it to me. That was about a year and a half ago. Been using it ever since 
I heard of Blender through my friend Jeff back in 1999 when I was in 10th grade. It was version 1.73, non-Ckey. He tried it out, but gave up easily while I didn’t… Now he’s programming games and he wants me to do all the 3D animation %|
I started off with Maya ple 5 but it had all the nasty watermarks on it :x .
So i went and searched for a free program and found Blender
errrrrrr i jus found it lol looking for a free game engine on the net and came across loads and decided too learn this one no tutorials like j is well (altho j tought me stuff lol)
I was looking around www.fanfilms.com and after being amazed by some of the things I saw I started wondering how they did it. A button labbeled “Make your own fanfilms” caught my eye. It lead to a 3d software list. I was confronted with all those expensive programs (3ds max lightwave etc) And at the bottom I found one small link: Blender. It lead to links to the old blender.nl and www.blenderwars.com and I was shown too Blender 2.18 (I think) and I’ve been with it all the time since then (and I still suck :< )
nobody sux were all good in one way.
I had been using The Games Factory(the same family as klik and play), and I was making 2D games for a LONG time, but I had been looking for a 3D “game maker” for just as long a time. So I found Crystal space, and the screenshots looked AWESOME, and I tried using it, except I didn’t know how to program in C++, so I gave up. But the screenshots inspired and drove me to work even harder to find a 3D Game Engine/Creator. So After a VERY long time, I decided to just go with a 3D modeler, and I found blender 1.80(using google of course).
I used it for a long time, but I couldn’t figure out how to use it. Then one day, I saw The Blender Book, by Carsten Wartmann, and I remembered that old 3D program I had, sitting on my hard drive. So I downloaded the new version, 2.0, still commercial, and I figured out how to use it! So I used it for a long time, and then… 2.25 occured! And it was free! So I started making games with it, and Now, after 2 years of learning, I’m finally making something of relatively good quality!(Legacy of Taro)
Blender is a dream. I hope I don’t wake up. 
Blender’s game engine isn’t the best out there, your best bet is Torque from Garagegames. There’s a real good blender exporter you can download from their site and some even envision real close intergration with blender only that it would violate Torque’s license.
Damm! I feel really old by reading these posts, from what I read, only NOR.J has been around longer than me.
When I first found Blender it already had the C-Key thing, it was on version 1.8 and the UI was soooooo scary that I coudn’ t even find a way to quit the program, I would just prest Ctrl-Alt-Delete and terminate the program from there.
Around that time Blendermania has just returned for the Nth time back from death, Blender.nl was THE PLACE (I really miss it) and the 1.8 manual has just hit the stores. From those days I still keep my “Tutorial Guide #1” book, wich was full of tricks on how to imitate features that where only available to C-Key owners, like a way to fake enviromente mapping on plane surfaces and stuff like that. (I must admit that there are tricks in that book that I’ m still using).
First version I downloaded was 1.78, so there… 
Blender was featured in a special “free” software guide in a news paper, so I picked it up from there (3rd quarter 1999 I’d say). I used it sporadicly at first until the first F1 challenge came around.
Like you said, blender.nl was all the rage and blendermania was THE ressource center. Darn, I miss the CJs. (pokes Goofster)
Martin
Must have not read my post than…
I have been using blender for about 5 years, now that I remember it was version 1.7something, right before radiosity and s-mesh features.
My older brother had downloaded it and showed it to me, I have been using it since.
I was watching channel 354 on direct tv… Tech TV and they showed it on their show “The Screensavers” unfortunately, once they pointed out the site, they couldn’t access it, because so many people went to it when they showed it 
a chat friend who’s name is qiv (we both have the same real name Peter :P)
told me about blender, because I searched a 3d-Program for fun. So he told me to take blender. when I started it on my pc, I thought that I’ll never know what all the buttons do there, and I deleted Blender for some days. But then I got Blender back (why, I don’t know), bought the “Blenderbuch” in German and I blended till now
I don’t even remember how i found it.
Started using it since may 2003. The 2.26 one. i only know the foundation age…
I think it was about… oh… 6 years ago or so that I first installed blender. Before that I had purchased Raydream Studio for $80 or so and was having fun with that, but never devoted enough time to get very good. Then played with Poser for awhile.
I think I was just looking through a 3D gallery one day and was impressed with someone’s work and read that they had made it with some crazy no-cost software called Blender. I was amazed that took up hardly any space on a 1.44mb floppy was puting out images that were equal to and mostly better than the stuff I’d seen made with my $80 dollar, 200mb Raydream product.
Tried it out and although frusterated that I couldn’t just look at the buttons and know what to do, found some really great basic tutes and modelled me a little x-wing fighter. I keep looking on these old dusty floppies I keep finding around the house, but still no sign of that old model.
Over the years, I’ve fired it up off and on, but really haven’t put any time into it until recently.
I started a very long time ago, in the “C-KEY” days, (if I can figure out the version number I’ll tell you.) I found the link to www.blender.nl (sounds odd now) at www.thefreesite.com. I used to spend a lot of time there, downloading lots of stupid shareware demos. Blender’s no doubt the best thing I ever found there.
What is the “C-Key”?
hehe. I came here at 2.26 but i readed a lot.
it’s a licence. like de difference between shareware and full version. For blender it was free version and full featured version. Just try 2.25 with and without the key.
hehe. I came here at 2.26 but i readed a lot.
it’s a licence. like de difference between shareware and full version. For blender it was free version and full featured version. Just try 2.25 with and without the key. ;)[/quote]
Not quite, what you have in 2.25 is a somehow more relaxed licensing system. You can’t sing files and the like. On the C-Key days, it was more restricted i.e, withouth a C-Key your copy or blender wouldn’t run Python scripts.