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> I was one of a handful of people who wrote AIM bots for things like store-and-forward messaging. You tell the bot who you want to talk to and your message, an
by BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
> I was one of a handful of people who wrote AIM bots for things like store-and-forward messaging. You tell the bot who you want to talk to and your message, and when they came back online the bot would send them your message.
Why would you make a chat program into "email with extra steps" instead of just sending an email?
- aidenn0 4y agoBecause there were lots of people who would login to AIM, but not check their email?
- stevehawk 4y agoI want to say that there were people with AIM accounts but no email.. was an email address required for AIM back then?
- vel0city 4y agoFor at least some period of time you did not need an email address to make an AIM account.
- aidenn0 4y agoPretty much all ISPs included at least one email, but it is certainly possible that some family members lacked a personal e-mail. My first e-mail was aidenn@geocities.com, but I forgot the password and had no way to recover it since it was my only e-mail, so I added a zero to the end and re-registered. Say what you want about yahoo, but that e-mail address still works!
- atribecalledqst 4y agoWhen I was growing up AIM was the method to chat with my friends online. I don't think I knew any of their email addresses. If someone was offline, I would just have to wait until they came online. I could definitely see a bot like this being useful back then.
- throwaway892238 4y agoI had friends that I had their AIM name but I never knew their email address. Could I ask everyone on my friends list for their email, switch to email & email them, hope they check email at the same time they sign into AIM, and when we're both online ask them if they got my email? Sure... but that seemed like more effort, and writing a bot seemed fun :) And it's nice to have one interface with all the context.