Compuserve service ends

[Modelworks]

Not a lot of people here probably remember compuserve. It was the first service I ever used. I was 15 in 1985. I used my moms credit card to order a modem, 300baud from a computer magazine, it cost about $200 .
When it came I tried to install it but it had a 25 pin connector and my computer a Atari ST only had a 9 pin connector. So I got my mom to drive to me radio shack where I bought a 25 pin cable and went home, used a soldering iron to make my own cable. Connected it all up and opened the terminal program. There was a ad for compuserve in the pc mag with the number to call to setup an account so after I did that I found out the nearest access number was 40 miles away. I called AT&T to ask what the cheapest long distance was ,operator said 15 cents a minute, so I figured it would cost $9 an hour + the compuserve per hour fee. I connected and was amazed at all the bbs and forums.

I downloaded a sound file that was 4MB, took hours and hours, It was a digitized version of Robin Williams saying "Good Morning Vietnam" , first captured sound file I ever played on a computer.

It may sound silly to a lot of other people with all the internet stuff out there now, but I am really sorry they had to go.
Compuserve was one of the greats.

No, your monitor won't blank out, your Internet connection won't stall and your PC won't crash, but a major event is about to ripple across the Internet today: CompuServe Classic is closing.

After 30 years the plug will be pulled on what was once the finest online service on the globe. (CompuServe 2000, a newer iteration of CompuServe will continue.)

And the saddest part is that it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. Ask anyone about CompuServe today and the response will probably be "Are they still around?"

And that's not fair for a service that once meant so much to cyberspace--long before we started calling it cyberspace. It dates to a time when most home PCs didn't even have hard disks, just floppy disk drives, and when most PC users never went online.

CompuServe, the corporate entity, dates to 1969 but the CompuServe Classic online service for consumers debuted in 1979. In 1987 it was the flagship of online services with 380,000 users. A 1991 TV commercial trumpets CompuServe as the only online service with more than a half-million members.

Unfortunately time, and its acquisition by AOL, has not been kind to CompuServe. In recent years it has barely been marketed. Its Web site looks like a throwback to the (gasp!) 20th century. The "build" date on version 4.0.2 of CompuServe for Windows NT, the latest version of the access software for CompuServe Classic, is January 11, 1999.

CompuServe Classic's demise will come six years to the day after MCI Mail, another once-dominant online service, went dark. The text-only service had a Spartan interface but was terribly reliable. Many major corporations used it as their default e-mail service.

CompuServe Classic was home to forums for every profession and special interest imaginable. For example, the old Journalism Forum attracted journalists from around the world and was a hotbed for some of the most lively flaming sessions (that means trading insults, young folks) as well as many intelligent debates.

CompuServe Classic introduced many of us cyberdinosaurs to services we now take for granted.

Online shopping? Stock quotes? Worldwide weather forecasts? CompuServe was providing all of that in the 1980s. Who needs color graphics, music and streaming videos? CompuServe could provide users with what they needed with plain text on a slow dial-up connection.

 

[buck]

First one I used too.... Damn that was a long time ago...

 

[seemingly random]

It was amazing initially. I wouldn't feel too bad for them. A few made a lot of bucks. aol killed them with 'cheap' service. I hated the numbered account names - difficult to remember.

I won't bore you with the paper tape that I stored 'programs' on in high school.

 

[episodic]

I remember surfing on a 300 baud coupler modem. Then I mowed yards to save up 200$ for a 9600 baud screamer!

Good times. ..

 

[vshah]

my first as well, in 1989 when i was 4

 

[nanette1985]

I too had the reaction, good grief, are they still around?

In my day, you whippersnappers, CompuServe was state of the art!

 

[mugs]

You downloaded a 4 MB sound file in 1985? I think your memory is a bit fuzzy.

 

[Zim Hosein]

CompuServe Classic is closing.

:Q

R. I. P. CompuServe!

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: mugs
You downloaded a 4 MB sound file in 1985? I think your memory is a bit fuzzy.

It was probably 1MB. I had a total of 1.5MB installed in the ST that I had upgraded by stacking ram chips one on top of the other, and I recall it took two double sided disk to store the file, which is 1.4 MB.
Still a huge file for the time. I installed it to a ram drive in order to play it . Remember that the ST couldn't do anything else but play that file. This was long before PCM sound so it was not efficient to say the least. Took all the power and memory of the computer.

 

[manowar821]

RIP. A decent ISP.

I also used "CP Internet" for a few years back in the 90's, that was okay, but not as fast.

 

[paulney]

Compuserve.... man, that was a while ago. My first modem was 28.8k I believe. It came with a bunch of free offers such as AOL and Compuserve. There were only 3-4 AOL numbers for the whole city where I lived and even less for Compuserver I believe. The credit card system was virtually non-existent back then. So the first thing I got from Fidonet was a credit card generator. Then I'd generate a CC number, spend 30 minutes trying to dial into those 3-4 numbers (when there was a whole city of schmoes like me trying to do the same). If I got lucky, I'd connect, register with AOL as a new user, put in fake cc number, and 90% of the time it would get accepted. Verification was slow, and AOL would not kick you out for at least 3-4 days. Then the cc number would finally bounce, and you'd be back to basics. But browsing the web was an out-of-the-world experience. Could never pull it off with Compuserve though - they had a tight check on registrations and cc numbers.