Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

CompuServe's Forums Are Closing On December 15 (fastcompany.com)

Posted by msmash on from the thanks-for-all-the-fish dept.

harrymcc writes: In the era before the web, the forums on CompuServe were indispensable for everything from getting tech questions answered to chatting about movies. They still exist, albeit in diminished form. But Oath, which owns AOL, which owns what's left of CompuServe, is about to finally shut them down. I wrote about the sad news for Fast Company.

3 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Those weren't the days by barc0001 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Same. No direct dial in Canada so we had to pay to use the Datapac network at a crazy hourly rate on top of the Compuserve hourly rate. Datapac was priced so it was JUST cheaper than direct dialing LD to Compuserve in the US directly. Today's kids will never know the pain of calling someone 100km away and paying $1.25 a minute for the pleasure OR waiting until after 8pm to do it for *only* 25 cents a minute.

  2. Sad by DaMattster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is indeed sad news. I first learned about Unix-like operating systems from the Compuserve forums. I had no idea that there was a whole ecosystem devoted to open source computing and tinkering beyond MS-DOS and Windows. Compuserve opened a wealth of information to me. RIP

  3. In the era before the INTERNET by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Compuserve predates public access to the internet. After Compuserve and before the web, people communicated through USENET and IRC. Then there was a brief moment before the web turned into a brochure, but that's hardly significant.