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AOL Shuts Down CompuServe
Oracle Goddess writes "After 30 years, CompuServe is all but dead, as AOL has pulled the plug on the once-great company. The original CompuServe service, first offered in 1979, provided its users with addresses such as 73402,3633 and was the first major online service. CompuServe users will be able to use their existing CompuServe Classic (as the service was renamed) addresses at no charge via a new e-mail system, but the software that the service was built on has been shut down. Tellingly, the current version of the service's client software, CompuServe for Windows NT 4.0.2, dates back to 1999."
I still remember my compuserve address... 70324,1777...
I can't for the live of me remember my pins, or phone numbers, but this ancient email address I have remembered to this day...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
AOL shut down Compuserv LONG ago, when they bought it. The only thing that remained was the name. The techy goodness that differentiated CS from the mass appeal of AOL was gone.
They even dialed into the same modem bank, with exactly the same phone numbers.
[hanging head] Yes, I had an AOL acct and a CS acct at the same time.
I don't remember my Account Number, but I signed up in 1987, shortly after I bought my Atari 1040ST and a 2400-baud modem. I got hooked on the CB Simulator, and spent myself into severe debt. Good times.
Does anyone remember playing the game "The PITS" on CompuServe? Or, even better, know if thesource survived?
http://games.wwco.com/pits/
Goodbye to what was once an incredibly innovative service...
For any Slashdot readers who need to get a friend or relative off of CompuServe:
Users who are running CompuServe 3 or 4 can export the address book using:
http://www.connectedsw.com/Overview/57262
Users who are running CompuServe 2000, 6 or 7 can export the address book and email using:
http://www.connectedsw.com/Overview/57267
compuserve was the first thing i ever dialed with my first real computer, as it was the first actual service provider to have a local phone number in my area when i was a kid
i was completely in awe of it when i first used it, it cost me a good chunk of my allowance, but i remember it made the local BBS systems, as well as some other service providers that eventually crept into my area seem like toys
i used it for quite a long time even after everyone else had proper internet service (the internet took quite a while to get here)
i'll always have fond memories of it
suprised it took this long to die, but RIP anyways
Compuserve might've been great at one time, but it hasn't been for a much longer period. I used to do customer service for them back when they were offering a $400 rebate on new computers... as long as people signed up for a 2 year service agreement with them. I felt dirty every time I had to take a call from someone that had one of those rebates. Half the time the callers wanted to cancel their service because of how piss poor their dial-up connection was and it was my job to "remind" them about the terms which stated that they had to pay back the rebate PLUS a cancellation fee. I put remind in quotes because it was often the customer's first time hearing about the terms in the first place (Admittedly this was usually the sales person's fault, and usually not Compuserve's.). I remember one call in particular when a customer in Pennsylvania had purchased a computer with the rebate only to find out that they only had TWO dial-up numbers in the whole state available to them, neither of which was a local call for them. I had to tell this poor soul that they had accepted the terms of the rebate, received the $400, and if they cancelled they would owe Compuserve all that back, etc even though they couldn't even use the service. Now Compuserve was obviously not the only ISP that played the rebate game, but their participation left a bad taste in mouth and lowered my opinion of them greatly.
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
The case of Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc. was one of the first of it kind and set an important precedent for online BBS. In that case CompuServe was sued because they hosted a BBS where defamatory content was posted. The court rules that although CompuServe provided the medium they were not responsible for the content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby_v._CompuServe).
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
Oddly ironic that Compuserve was around before AOL. Gah, I still remember the days when AOL users first flooded the net. They were rude, they were shrill and they were legion.
The days you would actually still use a gopher server.
We got our first internet connection from the local library.
Some admins would actually block AOL users from their web servers.
Exciting times.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Allow me to be the first to say... Compuserve still existed?
Property is theft.
Compuserve was shut down? It was still up!?
Those of us who live outside of the US are vaguely aware of its existance...
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
What's the "get off my lawn" equivalent for young->old
We wouldn't know -- it would be something utterly intelligible to us, but we'd recognize the word "fossil" in it somewhere...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I don't know, but we should come up with one. "Go back to the nursing home?"
So you can laugh all you want to...
I remember in mid 80's paying alaskanet? $6 an hour to get connected from Naknek AK instead of long distance charge & then paying another like $6 an hour for the compuserve, plus a monthly $25 or such to compuserve....
all for 300 baud ... watching those characters come in..... just about as fast as you could read...
locked out of this slashdot account for 10+ years... Im back
Whatever happened to Prodigy? That was my first internet service. I remember my excitement at finding their ST:TNG message board... and chagrin at discovering that it was mostly full of middle-aged women having fantasies about Brent Spiner. I mean, I had a crush on Data and all, but at 14 I was definitely not interested in a 45-year-old actor in the same way these ladies were.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
CompuServe users will be able to use their existing CompuServe Classic (as the service was renamed) addresses at no charge via a new e-mail system
That'll never catch on.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Before all the tubes got connected business cards were full of email addresses. One had at least a Compuserve address, a Prodigy address, an AOL address, a company VAXMail address, a company VM/VMS address and perhaps a DARPA/ARPA address.
All that is changed now.
Now we list Company main telephone number, Company direct dial number, Company fax number, Home number, Company cell number and perhaps a Skype id.
The days of the pages with the default gray backgrounds are finally gone!
I don't miss the old days of web browsing either -- but I do have my default background in SeaMonkey set to exactly that old shade of gray, and it's pleasant when I get a page that doesn't set the background color for me. (I know I could override it and have my preferred color scheme come up every time, but that seems like overkill.) Black-on-light-gray is a lot easier on the eyes than black-on-white when you're looking at a glowing screen. I'm used to the latter by now, but I do wish that people had kept in mind that screens and paper are not the same thing.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
"Go back to the nursing home"
We're all LOST you insensitive clod!
Compuserve was my first real foray into an online community and all the good and bad that comes with it. I was 16 and in High School when the Computer Programming teacher (BASIC on Apple II+ computers) signed up for a school account on Compuserve. This was years before I had even heard of the Internet. Since nobody in the school had the first clue what to do with this "Information Superhighway" thing, and I was the only geek around, the teacher just gave me the login info and let me do whatever I wanted on it.
It didn't take me long to gravitate towards the various chat rooms. Those of you who grew up with the availability of the Internet and the like probably take it for granted that you can communicate with people all over the world (or nation, at least). Back when my only communication with the world at large was my pen pal, these simple chat rooms were mind-blowing!
There was one little hitch. See, my nickname back then was "Granny" (play on my last name) and so I naturally used it as my handle in the chat room. I forget which room I joined but I hadn't been in there but a few seconds when I started getting a lot of people saying "hi" and asking where I was located and the like. Then somebody asked how old I was and I mentioned that I was 16.
Well, right after I wrote that, I started getting a stream of Private Chat requests. We're talking a couple dozen requests in about 10 seconds. "Everybody is so friendly," I thought.
But their questions were odd and very personal. "What do you look like?" "What color are your eyes?" "What are you wearing?" Eh? What am I wearing? What kind of weird question is that to ask.
And then: "How big are your boobs?" "Do you have a boyfriend?" It went off the deep end after that.
They thought I was a 16 year old girl! I thought that was so funny and told them so. And just like that, all of the Private Chats closed and all I was left with were a scattering of "Well why would you call yourself Granny if you weren't a girl?" messages.
I signed on a few more times as Granny after that but found that I really couldn't go anywhere without a stream of sexual comments following me. I eventually had to change my nick just to be able to chat with people without them staring at my virtual chest.
That was an eye-opener. Let me tell you, though, when the Internet happened years later and I heard women complaining about being effectively harassed online by a bunch of horny nerds... well, I knew exactly what they were talking about.
Heh.
Compuserve, I think,, would have survived much better in the Internet age than AOL, if AOL hadn't have bought them. AOL was more a forerunner of the advertising laden shlock that we have today, but Compuserve was a much more serious minded product and tended to have good information products and good forums. IF AOL would have kept up with Compuserve, investing millions into a computerserve web site, rather than -cough-, Time Warner, they could have been way out in front with the social stuff that was in Compuservers forums, the software stores could have been expanded to sell other stuff... the news was always good. It was just that AOL ruined them.
This is my sig.
Compuserve, we barely knew thee...Cuz like, I could get offers to enlarge that certain part of the male body from the rest of teh webs since the early 90's.
So I guess you were better than AOL, who funny enough just put you out of your misery even though you were around longer. And I was never really into you, even more so once I found local BBS'. Especially ones with pirate software and Trade Wars. To be honest I was only fascinated by what was possible with you, not what you actually offered. I should have been more open with you and told you.
But you were great fun while you lasted, which in the eyes of most people who knew about you probably ended somewhere around 1985. I hope you weren't lonely in the end, because I had no idea you were on that respirator and life support. I TOTALLY would have come to see you if I knew...I mean, me and the free shell accounts at Arbornet have been getting it on all kindsa nasty style for years now, so I hope you don't curse me from intarwebs hell. I just found a part of teh 'tubes that, you know, I clicked with. It was never you, Compuserve. It was totally me.
Rest In Peace, old friend.
We're all LOST you insensitive clod!
No, where are not. We know perfectly well where WE are. But some of those young dorks MOVED EVERYTHING ELSE.
Requiescat in Pace, CompuServe. AOL was a cruel suitor and an abusive partner. You deserved better. 76702,2040
Just remember - just because we've taught you everything you know -
that doesn't mean we've taught you everything *we* know...
young dorks MOVED EVERYTHING ELSE.
the word you where looking for was ' hooligan '...
NOW GET OFF MY LAN!
We wouldn't know -- it would be something utterly intelligible to us, but we'd recognize the word "fossil" in it somewhere...
That's because it will most likely be a mix of vally, redneck, and inner city slang... ...And our reply will sound pompous and faggy to them.
What do you look like? What color are your eyes? What are you wearing? [grin]
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Hi! A/S/L? :p
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
is the $300-$400 monthly bills for all the time spent using the CB Simulator. That was addictive, but man those bills hurt.
If, despite your name, you weren't remotely grandmother-aged, why would they still assume that you were female?!
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