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I dropped so much cash on compuserve as a kid... ugh the pain and realization when my folks figured out what it was..

DanBC 8y ago
For people who don't know what the costs were like, here's this page from a 1988 Whole Earth catalogue giving some pricing information. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2janfrd&s=7 http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2janfrd&s=7 Compuserve $11 per hour, had "more than 250,000 subscribers". The Source $8 per hour. Delphi $6 per hour had a loyal but small (less than 10,000 users) following. BIX $9 per hour.
- ceautery 8y ago
  CompuServe charged more if you connected at a higher baud rate, like $12.80 per hour for 14.4k... I think - I haven't worked there for 22 years, so my memory is hazy. There was also an ecosystem of apps to script connections to minimize time you spent online. You'd pick the forums you wanted to scrape new messages from, fetch them in one session, compose replies offline, and post the replies in a second session.
  - dmix 8y ago
    That's cool. Was there any data caps?
    - pavlov 8y ago
      On a 14.4kbps connection it took more than 10 minutes to transfer a megabyte, so the hourly billing rate was enough of a cap.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    It was the same thing on private BBS systems. There were a bunch of applications and scripts that basically let you go online, do your business as quickly as possible, and hang up. I remember I primarily used a system running PCBoard and Qmail was the software that let you do most things offline. ADDED:Private systems didn't (ever?) have a time charge. The bigger ones usually still offered some lines for free users but offered preferred access for subscribers.
  - Sylamore 8y ago
    I remember Delphi had one called DIJ/Delphi Internet Jet, I want to say it actually did everything in QWK format but it's been so long I don't remember. I do remember using QWK to get a lot of stuff off of WWIV<->UUCP gateways and FidoNet. One of the things that kept me at the time on Delphi was 1) X-Files had a huge fanbase there and Chris Carter would regularly join the forums and 2) You could break out of the menus and get down to the VMS shell which is how I first learned something other than DOS/Windows. I still racked up massive phone bills even with the offline readers.
- KC8ZKF 8y ago
  Long distance charges may apply. I grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio, and the closest access numbers made the toll charges the greatest cost.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    One of the peculiarities of telephone rates in those days was that it was very common for intra-state calls outside your local calling area (depending on your phone plan there was often a "free" local calling area and an extended region of some sort as I recall) to be more expensive than interstate calls. ADDED: BTW, in the early eighties, long distance rates were starting to come down but they were still in the tens of cents per minute so something over a dollar/minute in today's currency.
dillutedfixer 8y ago
Ugh. Yeah I had a few $400 bills in the late 90's. CS charges plus local long distance to the POP. Being addicted to Worlds Away didn't help either.
odorousrex 8y ago
I spent nearly $400 on CompuServe playing "Island of Kesmai" as a kid. It was the first and only time I ever saw my dad visibly tremble with rage and turn red. ($400 80's bucks is a lot of 2019 bucks to spend on a video game.)

For people who don't know what the costs were like, here's this page from a 1988 Whole Earth catalogue giving some pricing information. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2janfrd&s=7 http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2janfrd&s=7 Compuserve $11 per hour, had "more than 250,000 subscribers". The Source $8 per hour. Delphi $6 per hour had a loyal but small (less than 10,000 users) following. BIX $9 per hour.

ceautery 8y ago
CompuServe charged more if you connected at a higher baud rate, like $12.80 per hour for 14.4k... I think - I haven't worked there for 22 years, so my memory is hazy. There was also an ecosystem of apps to script connections to minimize time you spent online. You'd pick the forums you wanted to scrape new messages from, fetch them in one session, compose replies offline, and post the replies in a second session.
- dmix 8y ago
  That's cool. Was there any data caps?
  - pavlov 8y ago
    On a 14.4kbps connection it took more than 10 minutes to transfer a megabyte, so the hourly billing rate was enough of a cap.
- ghaff 8y ago
  It was the same thing on private BBS systems. There were a bunch of applications and scripts that basically let you go online, do your business as quickly as possible, and hang up. I remember I primarily used a system running PCBoard and Qmail was the software that let you do most things offline. ADDED:Private systems didn't (ever?) have a time charge. The bigger ones usually still offered some lines for free users but offered preferred access for subscribers.
- Sylamore 8y ago
  I remember Delphi had one called DIJ/Delphi Internet Jet, I want to say it actually did everything in QWK format but it's been so long I don't remember. I do remember using QWK to get a lot of stuff off of WWIV<->UUCP gateways and FidoNet. One of the things that kept me at the time on Delphi was 1) X-Files had a huge fanbase there and Chris Carter would regularly join the forums and 2) You could break out of the menus and get down to the VMS shell which is how I first learned something other than DOS/Windows. I still racked up massive phone bills even with the offline readers.
KC8ZKF 8y ago
Long distance charges may apply. I grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio, and the closest access numbers made the toll charges the greatest cost.
- ghaff 8y ago
  One of the peculiarities of telephone rates in those days was that it was very common for intra-state calls outside your local calling area (depending on your phone plan there was often a "free" local calling area and an extended region of some sort as I recall) to be more expensive than interstate calls. ADDED: BTW, in the early eighties, long distance rates were starting to come down but they were still in the tens of cents per minute so something over a dollar/minute in today's currency.

dillutedfixer 8y ago

Ugh. Yeah I had a few $400 bills in the late 90's. CS charges plus local long distance to the POP. Being addicted to Worlds Away didn't help either.

odorousrex 8y ago

I spent nearly $400 on CompuServe playing "Island of Kesmai" as a kid. It was the first and only time I ever saw my dad visibly tremble with rage and turn red. ($400 80's bucks is a lot of 2019 bucks to spend on a video game.)