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.
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.
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