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Ah, you're suggesting Sears could have run their own dial-up shopping service? Maybe, but I think it was too early. It would have been a text mode system (home

Ah, you're suggesting Sears could have run their own dial-up shopping service? Maybe, but I think it was too early. It would have been a text mode system (home computers, such as they were in the 1980s, were systems like Apple II or Comnmodore or TRS-80 or maybe CP/M or DOS if you had a "business" computer at home). Macintosh computers were available, but expensive and not a typical home computer. And bandwidth on dial up at that time was maybe 2400 baud, way too slow to send any kind of detailed images of products that consumers would want in a catalog. It might have gained some adoption, but in that era I think most consumers would have found filling out an order form and faxing or mailing it in easier.

aidenn0 9y ago
Prodigy was not text-only; it was mixed text and graphics, and 9600 modems were cheap and 14.4 modems were widely available in 1993.
- dungle6 9y ago
  But let's be real, the graphics of prodigy were not really up to the task of showcasing products. nb: the graphics of prodigy were a semi-standardized limited color pallette vector graphics system called NAPLPS. Benefit was that it was extremely low bandwidth, the limitation was that it had no way to handle bitmap graphics (like GIF). By 1994, prodigy just became an http provider (on top of the existing service).
drzaiusapelord 9y ago
I was active in the BBS scene during that time. What could be done over 1200-2400 baud was fairly impressive considering the technical limits. Especially when ANSI and RIP graphics became the norm. Later 4800 and 9600 modems became cheap. By the late 80s these were the norm. Ordering systems would have been trivial to implement if the political and commercial will was there. Not too long after this you had Prodigy, Compuserve, and AOL offering these kinds of services. I remember they let you order flowers, buy software, etc from their online systems. The web and tcp/ip internet replacing it all didn't come until much, much later. From 1983-1995 online services were ruled by non-TCP/IP dial-up BBS services and proprietary services like Prodigy. Home internet didn't take off until 1995-1996 and even then it was fairly limited. >Apple II or Comnmodore On top of all the PC clones running DOS and Windows (Windows 1.0 was 1985), Amigas, Macs (as you mention), Timex/Sinclair, etc. Macs were home computers, there were just less of them. Back in those days people paid large prices for home machines, so the pricetags might seem high today but the utility/novelty factors made up for it.
- heywire 9y ago
  RIP graphics was like magic in its day!

aidenn0 9y ago

Prodigy was not text-only; it was mixed text and graphics, and 9600 modems were cheap and 14.4 modems were widely available in 1993.

dungle6 9y ago
But let's be real, the graphics of prodigy were not really up to the task of showcasing products. nb: the graphics of prodigy were a semi-standardized limited color pallette vector graphics system called NAPLPS. Benefit was that it was extremely low bandwidth, the limitation was that it had no way to handle bitmap graphics (like GIF). By 1994, prodigy just became an http provider (on top of the existing service).

drzaiusapelord 9y ago

I was active in the BBS scene during that time. What could be done over 1200-2400 baud was fairly impressive considering the technical limits. Especially when ANSI and RIP graphics became the norm. Later 4800 and 9600 modems became cheap. By the late 80s these were the norm. Ordering systems would have been trivial to implement if the political and commercial will was there. Not too long after this you had Prodigy, Compuserve, and AOL offering these kinds of services. I remember they let you order flowers, buy software, etc from their online systems. The web and tcp/ip internet replacing it all didn't come until much, much later. From 1983-1995 online services were ruled by non-TCP/IP dial-up BBS services and proprietary services like Prodigy. Home internet didn't take off until 1995-1996 and even then it was fairly limited. >Apple II or Comnmodore On top of all the PC clones running DOS and Windows (Windows 1.0 was 1985), Amigas, Macs (as you mention), Timex/Sinclair, etc. Macs were home computers, there were just less of them. Back in those days people paid large prices for home machines, so the pricetags might seem high today but the utility/novelty factors made up for it.

heywire 9y ago
RIP graphics was like magic in its day!