Slashdot Mirror
Pre-1994 Reference to e-Commerce?
pkaral asks: "Does anyone know a reference to ecommerce that predates 1994 (maybe from sci-fi)? I work with a company facing the Bellboy e-Commerce patent claim. It turns out that the patent must be taken seriously, but can be defeated by a pre-1994 description - fiction or not - of an online purchase."
"Requirements:
(1) Description of someone buying/ordering something over a computer network,
(2) buyer gets real-time order confirmation (a salient aspect of the patent), and
(3) the text was published before Dec 17, 1993.
I figure some author, maybe William Gibson, may have written something along these lines. If the Slashdot community knows of a specific reference we could rid the world of this ridiculous patent."
Circa 1993:
1) toll-free dial-in at 4800 on 7E1 to get local compuserve dial-in number
2) sign up for a new account, pay for using Visa/MC
3) access is granted
4) 'go epic'
5) Register Epic Pinball (and other great titles), billed to credit card, download SFX zip file, message sent to messaging account once transaction is successful.
I'm sure there are other compuserve/prodigy/etc examples that predate this (lexis-nexis comes to mind).
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Minitel, a nationwide computer network that supports purchases, was deployed in France in 1980.
misc.forsale
I bought a hard drive online in 1988. 20 megs. 5.25 full height.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Try The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. It's been a while since I've read it, but I think that it featured a worldwide network where things could be bought.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Frankly, I wouldn't lift a damn finger until the patent holder sued for willful criminal infringement, then I'd rape the individuals involved (not the companies -- if they are gonna personally be idiots, they have to be personally punished) violently with prior art and fraud counterclaims. But then I tend to have a scorched earth approach...
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
Wasn't this in Total Recall?
Not sure when that came out though... 1992?
How about a RPG from 1989?
ShadowRun, first edition.
Every transaction you make in that universe is done with a variant on credit cards that are electronically verified over thier version of the internet, and payment confirmed with the same system, before you can even buy a candy bar.
Electronic commerce on a mass scale exists since 1981 in France. You could (and still can) order train tickets, clothes or whatever else from a dumb terminal plugged into the telephone network. It was connected (for a time based fee) mostly to services through France Telecom's proprietary gateways. France telecom distributed heavily subsidised terminals in order to ensure dominance of the market.
wasn't cdnow selling cd's pre-web using a telnet interface, using credit cards and the whole bit?
Anyone remember Shatter? I distinctly recall several on-line transactions in it... usually with an ATM. You should be able to get back issues from Mile High Comics.
As I recall I bought some American Airlines plane tickets on AOL in 1993 via a service they had called Easy Sabre.
sulli
RTFJ.
There was an episode of Alf that aired October 9, 1989, in which ALF buys stocks and some other things online. The episode was titled "We're in the money". The episode guide is available at http://epguides.com/ALF/guide.shtml.
David
Not a full fledged purchase, but Broderick and Sheady reserved airline tickets online and got immediate confirmation. 1983.
I don't have a copy handy, and it's been a long time since I read it, but I seem to remember it including descriptions of what was basically e-commerce with micro-payments.
Published in 1990.
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series has some references to electronic purchases. But read them yourself, your lawyers will charge $400/hour to read the whole series... expensive stuff.
I seem to recall all of these (or their predecessors) offering things for sale. I remember, in particular, that one of these late-80's early 90's online services featured an on-line shopping mall. Unfortunately I don't recall which since I never used it. Thought it was too gimmicky.
What about CompuServe? They had a lot of 'features' that would instantly charge your account for access, e.g.: I took an IQ test that cost not just connect time but an actual fee. After choosing the option the test was presented. (unfortunately I didn't score high enough to catch on to the e-commerce boom of the mid-late 90's).
All of these services also allowed you to dial in, enter a credit card, and have (more or less) instant access, which smells a lot like e-commerce. For a while compuserve even sent out a kit with a manual and some other stuff. This back in 1986-1987.
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
From 1977 to 1984, Warner Cable and American Express ran a trial of an interactive cable television system in Columbus, Ohio. Based on a set-top box built by Atari, the system allowed two-way feedback and persistant user preferences.
Relevant to the "real time feedback of purchases" part of the patent in dispute would be Qube's pay-per-view feature.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
there was a service in the UK called Prestel in the late 70's/early 80's which was a crude forerunner to the www and provided email, shoppig etc. It made some headlines over here when some hackers got into Prince Philip's account and read his email. So you could argue that the patent holders read the reports of the hack and got their idea from there.
I used to subscribe to a service called ViewTron in the early 80s, and dialed in over a 300 baud modem.
They had a network connection to the local Ticketron computers, and I bought tickets for Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA tour online using my mom's credit card...no SSL required!
From their site: "Welcome. You're connected to CDconnection.com!. ... We have been serving the online community since 1990." I read of people ordering through them via telnet even.
Are you spontaneously enthusiastic about everyone having everything you can have? - Buckminster Fuller