5 ms·

For most people, "online" means "the web", so roughly two decades of online services (1975-95) have ceased to exist. This includes FidoNet, Usenet, Prestel, Tel

by scholia 11y ago

For most people, "online" means "the web", so roughly two decades of online services (1975-95) have ceased to exist. This includes FidoNet, Usenet, Prestel, Teletel, CompuServe, AOL, Prodigy and too many others to mention. Of those, only AOL still seems to have any mind-share, and that's probably because it eventually provided internet email and browser-based web connections.

ghaff 11y ago
For a lot of people, AOL was their original ISP given how ubiquitous their disks were pre-broadband. It's interesting that pre-web, you really had a number of largely non-overlapping online communities (which didn't even intersect all that much within the broad groups). I'm not sure that most people appreciate how fragmented the entire thing was. There was no real universal email for a long time. Individual BBSs - which also had some shared boards through systems like PCRelay Commercial "BBSs" like Compuserve, AOL, Delphi, etc. Usenet which was the only one which was actually part of the Internet.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > I'm not sure that most people appreciate how fragmented the entire thing was. There was no real universal email for a long time. Nor how expensive it was. http://imgur.com/xz3k9OC http://imgur.com/xz3k9OC Compuserve was $11 per hour. Delphi was $6 per hour. $11 in 1998 is $22 now.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    And that's not even counting the fact that even intra-state dialing outside of the local calling area was metered per minute at non-trivial rate. When I was BBSing and had a subscription to a service in a nearby city (which was still an intra-state long distance call), I used software that sucked down BBS content and let me read and reply offline.
    - gscott 11y ago
      Cellphones used to include unlimited forwarding so I would set my cell phone to forward to the BBS I wanted to call and then I would call my cell phone with my terminal software. Cell phone companies figure that out and limited the number of minutes allowed for forwarding.
  - sixothree 11y ago
    When I was getting started Compuserve was $6 per hour for 300 baud and $11 for 1200 baud. I was in 6th grade at the time and caused a number of rather large monthly bills to the point my family cancelled the service. I did later go on to run a BBS which included FidoNet. That was incredibly fun stuff.
fractallyte 11y ago
Hey, I still use my CompuServe email daily! (Same address since 1997!)
- ghaff 11y ago
  I was a Compuserve subscriber for a long time starting sometime in the early eighties. Not sure exactly when I stopped using it entirely. I used it for various things and I was reasonably active in the shareware scene for a time which used CIS as their main member discussion forum. As I recall, CIS was also my gateway to Internet email for a time before I got my own email through my BBS (which became an ISP like other commercial BBSs at the time).
- chrisBob 11y ago
  I occasionally see @aol.com addresses and cringe to think that people might still be paying $20/month for it. Is a compuserve account free at least?
  - fractallyte 11y ago
    AOL acquired CompuServe, but still maintains the mail servers - for now. People go all wide-eyed when they hear my '@csi.com' address, associating it with the TV series. But, yes, it's free ;-)

by scholia 11y ago

ghaff 11y ago

For a lot of people, AOL was their original ISP given how ubiquitous their disks were pre-broadband. It's interesting that pre-web, you really had a number of largely non-overlapping online communities (which didn't even intersect all that much within the broad groups). I'm not sure that most people appreciate how fragmented the entire thing was. There was no real universal email for a long time. Individual BBSs - which also had some shared boards through systems like PCRelay Commercial "BBSs" like Compuserve, AOL, Delphi, etc. Usenet which was the only one which was actually part of the Internet.

DanBC 11y ago
> I'm not sure that most people appreciate how fragmented the entire thing was. There was no real universal email for a long time. Nor how expensive it was. http://imgur.com/xz3k9OC http://imgur.com/xz3k9OC Compuserve was $11 per hour. Delphi was $6 per hour. $11 in 1998 is $22 now.
- ghaff 11y ago
  And that's not even counting the fact that even intra-state dialing outside of the local calling area was metered per minute at non-trivial rate. When I was BBSing and had a subscription to a service in a nearby city (which was still an intra-state long distance call), I used software that sucked down BBS content and let me read and reply offline.
  - gscott 11y ago
    Cellphones used to include unlimited forwarding so I would set my cell phone to forward to the BBS I wanted to call and then I would call my cell phone with my terminal software. Cell phone companies figure that out and limited the number of minutes allowed for forwarding.
- sixothree 11y ago
  When I was getting started Compuserve was $6 per hour for 300 baud and $11 for 1200 baud. I was in 6th grade at the time and caused a number of rather large monthly bills to the point my family cancelled the service. I did later go on to run a BBS which included FidoNet. That was incredibly fun stuff.

fractallyte 11y ago

Hey, I still use my CompuServe email daily! (Same address since 1997!)

ghaff 11y ago
I was a Compuserve subscriber for a long time starting sometime in the early eighties. Not sure exactly when I stopped using it entirely. I used it for various things and I was reasonably active in the shareware scene for a time which used CIS as their main member discussion forum. As I recall, CIS was also my gateway to Internet email for a time before I got my own email through my BBS (which became an ISP like other commercial BBSs at the time).
chrisBob 11y ago
I occasionally see @aol.com addresses and cringe to think that people might still be paying $20/month for it. Is a compuserve account free at least?
- fractallyte 11y ago
  AOL acquired CompuServe, but still maintains the mail servers - for now. People go all wide-eyed when they hear my '@csi.com' address, associating it with the TV series. But, yes, it's free ;-)