45 Years Ago CompuServe Connected the World Before the World Wide Web (wosu.org) 118
Tony Isaac shares a report from WOSU Public Media: Silicon Valley has the reputation of being the birthplace of our hyper-connected Internet age, the hub of companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook. However, a pioneering company here in central Ohio is responsible for developing and popularizing many of the technologies we take for granted today. A listener submitted a question to WOSU's Curious Cbus series wanting to know more about the legacy of CompuServe and what it meant to go online before the Internet. That legacy was recently commemorated by the Ohio History Connection when they installed a historical marker in Upper Arlington -- near the corner of Arlington Center and Henderson roads -- where the company located its computer center and corporate building in 1973. The plaque explains that CompuServe was "the first major online information service provider," and that its subscribers were among the first to have access to email, online newspapers and magazines and the ability to share and download files. CompuServe, founded in 1969 in Ohio as a subsidiary of Golden United Life Insurance, began as a computer time-sharing service for businesses. In 1979, it launched an online service for consumers, partnering with RadioShack since they "were key in reaching early computer users."
Acquired by H&R Block in 1980, CompuServe became a leader in digital innovations like email, online newspapers, and chat forums, with The Columbus Dispatch becoming the first online newspaper. "... it turned out that what was most popular is not reading reliable news sources, but just shooting the breeze with your friends or arguing with strangers over politics," said former tech journalist and early Compuserve user Dylan Tweney.
Despite competing with Prodigy and AOL through the 1990s, CompuServe struggled with the rise of the internet. AOL acquired the company in 1997, but CompuServe remains a digital pioneer for fostering online communities. "For a lot of people, CompuServe was a connection to the world and their first introduction to the idea that their computer could be more than a computer," said Tweney. "It was a communications device, an information device."
Acquired by H&R Block in 1980, CompuServe became a leader in digital innovations like email, online newspapers, and chat forums, with The Columbus Dispatch becoming the first online newspaper. "... it turned out that what was most popular is not reading reliable news sources, but just shooting the breeze with your friends or arguing with strangers over politics," said former tech journalist and early Compuserve user Dylan Tweney.
Despite competing with Prodigy and AOL through the 1990s, CompuServe struggled with the rise of the internet. AOL acquired the company in 1997, but CompuServe remains a digital pioneer for fostering online communities. "For a lot of people, CompuServe was a connection to the world and their first introduction to the idea that their computer could be more than a computer," said Tweney. "It was a communications device, an information device."
My first networking (Score:4, Interesting)
CIS was my introduction to networking, and later they were my ISP for a bit. I would likely not be working as a developer today without the access to comp.sci.c and related groups way back then.
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If memory serves correct they were more expensive, per minute, than those 1-900 paychic or phone sex hotlines.
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I do seem to recall it wasn't cheap being online, but I would use a reader, Agent or something, to pull the groups I was interested in as fast as it could and then I could study offline. It was all text so even at 2400 (!) baud it wasn't terrible.
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That used to be common with usenet and email. You connect to the internet long enough to update your local email or newgroup store, and send any pending messages. Then you'd read them, respond, and connect to update again the next day.
It was much more akin to a digital daily trip to the mailbox than something you were to be constantly connected to.
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...they were more expensive, per minute....
You are correct. Compuserve rightfully earned the nickname "Compu$pend."
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When I was hired as a sysadmin for a local plastics firm in early 1994 the position came with a subscription to CompuServe. I had a 9600 baud modem and spend a fair amount of time on CIS. Then I saw the monthly bill. Holy hell! The boss was ok with it but I instantly curtailed my access to only the most important needs. It wasn't soon after, thank goodness, that the first ISP set up shop in town and we switched. CIS was crazy expensive.
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We debated such things as whether NAPLPS was teh wave of thr future.
Re:My first networking (Score:4, Funny)
I was a moderator on one of the CIS discussion forums. Then my tribe was driven from its ancestral hunting grounds by the advancing glaciation of that era.
Re:My first networking (Score:5, Funny)
Then you must have known... Darn, now I'm blanking on his name. He was in charge of the CIS forums for some years before he went to GE as manager and honcho of GEnie, which is where I met him virtually. (Never actually met him face to face while I was working at GEnie, but I still remember that he was big smoker though his name is continuing to elude me.)
However mostly disappointed with Slashdot for the lack of Funny on such a humor rich topic. Which reminds me of the much beloved and greatly missed bash.org, where there was lots of funny stuff. Via the Wayback machine, I still managed to dig up one of my old favorites: https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org] Perhaps older than CompuServ?
<Khassaki> HI EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!
<Judge-Mental> try pressing the the Caps Lock key
<Khassaki> O THANKS!!! ITS SO MUCH EASIER TO WRITE NOW!!!!!!!
<Judge-Mental> fuck me
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Bill Louden! That was the name. Finally thought of a websearch that led to him. Doubt he's still around, though we exchanged greetings some years ago. Perhaps on LinkedIn?
Umm, actually the internet connected the world... (Score:5, Informative)
... before the WWW. This is a tech site, stop conflating the web and the internet. Before browsers we had (as well as IP compuserve) MUDs, IRCs, miscellanious talk servers (eg NUTS systems, Cheeseplants House), gopher, archie, FTP etc.
I'd expect Average Joe to not understand that there was life on the internet before the web, but I'd expect better on /.
Re: Umm, actually the internet connected the world (Score:5, Interesting)
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So enough already with that tired canard
It's also, I dunno, a shame? Before the internet, a.k.a a globally routed IP network won, there was a rich and interesting variety of different networking and internetworking protocols vying for dominance.
Apparently there was even a publicly routed IPX network at one point.
And you are right, the internet didn't connect the world. There were many fragmented and partially connected networks. The history of this is way way more interesting than the GP makes out.
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You mean home users. You may thing it was a small number accessing the internet, or networks interconnected, but many universities had it, many corporations, etc. Now, direct internet access was a bit rarer, and if you look at the original address assignments there aren't that many companies (but most of them very large). However there were many ways to interconnect as well. The USENET was extremely popular before Compuserve existed. Compuserve could not have succeeded if modems weren't already availabl
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... before the WWW. This is a tech site, stop conflating the web and the internet. Before browsers we had (as well as IP compuserve) MUDs, IRCs, miscellanious talk servers (eg NUTS systems, Cheeseplants House), gopher, archie, FTP etc.
Sure, the things you mentioned existed, but they were only available to you if you were on a university campus or worked in a limited number of positions in the military or at a very small number of companies.
No, at that time subscription dial-up access to Unix shell accounts was readily available; the only barrier was knowing that it existed. Later TIA became available so a shell account could provide SLIP access so you could do your processing locally. The largest group of customers was students who had free access before they graduated, but anybody could subscribe.
I had such a shell account for years, and even after I started using TIA, it was to access services other than the web which was still a joke.
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No, but no one outside the US had compuserve either then so whats your point? Hardly "connected the world", but then americans tend to think their country IS the world with the rest of us just some funny speaking vassal states.
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"You have absolutely 0 room to talk considering most of the world's ongoing conflicts came about due to your country's meddling"
If you're going to go on some self righteous rant I'd suggest you check out the genocide of the native americans the US carried out long after you have your independence not to mention continuing with slavery and apartheid long after most civilised coutries had banned it (1807 for us). Oh , and lets not forget you stole about a 1/3rd of your nation from the mexicans.
And then there'
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Glass houses mate.
Yeah, no shit. You're the one who threw the first stone genius.
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"Most of the genocide of Native Americans occurred due to European powers"
Oh please. When the USA got its independence it was a small collection of states on the east, you hadn't even got the french louisiana area yet never mind the land you stole from mexico. The vast maority of natives died at YOUR hands.
Re: Umm, actually the internet connected the worl (Score:2)
The only reason the U.S. was able to move into those lands so rapidly was the ethnic cleansing that had been occurring under Europeans for hundreds of years.
The Europeans brought smallpox, not the Americans. This alone accounts for the majority of the American genocide.
The Europeans also set the Haudenosaunee against their neighbors. The displaced nations - most importantly the Lakota - destabilized the plains, leading to Comancheria domination in the South and subjugation of the surrounding peoples, all th
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If it makes you feel better to believe that you go right ahead. But most europeans didn't get off the boat in the east and immediately head west, the majority were 2nd generation.
Re: Umm, actually the internet connected the worl (Score:2)
I'm not sure what your point is about second generation Europeans colonizers. That they are somehow not Europeans in your mind?
Re: Umm, actually the internet connected the worl (Score:2)
We were not at was with the Native Americans. From the mid-1700s onward we broke treaties and attempted the either exterminate or extirpate the natives for more than a century and a half. It wasn't until the mid-to-late 20th century that America stopped engaging in genocidal behaviors against Native Americans. Learn your history.
And, no, you can't claim that the genocidal acts were the actions of a few bad apples, either. If those types of actions had only happened a handful of times, maybe you could, but t
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CompuServe was available in 1980. I doubt you had dial-up internet in the UK then.
The UK didn't even have dentistry in those days.
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...but I'd expect better on /.
This isn't a Slashdot-written story, but just a link to a story written by someone else. While your basic premise is true, your vitriol is misplaced.
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So you're telling me the submission title wasn't written by a slashdot user then?
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So you're telling me the submission title wasn't written by a slashdot user then?
Yes, that is what I'm telling you. You will see that it's true if you click on the link and read the story's headline. Unless, of course, Michael De Bonis at WOSU 89.7 NPR News is also a Slashdot user.
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Which part of "submission title" confused you sonny?
ie:
"45 Years Ago CompuServe Connected the World Before the World Wide Web "
And look, just below!
" Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday September 25, 2024 @06:00AM from the digital-pioneers dept"
It even tells you the slashdot submitters name. Isn't that crazy!
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[checks parent poster's UID] You clearly aren't new here, are you just forgetful? BeauHD isn't a submitter but an, "editor," (yes, we use that term quite loosely here) and TFS flat out states, "Tony Isaac shares a report from WOSU Public Media:" which would imply to anyone who has a reasonable grasp of the English language (not even the King's English, even just bastardized American English) that Tony Isaac submitted the story link and the, "editor," took a relevant segment of it for TFS along with the hea
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The title was written by someone at slashdot, NOT the fucking author of the linked piece.
Get a friend for that lonely braincell of yours.
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It even tells you the slashdot submitters name. Isn't that crazy!
I understand that it's not easy to admit you made a mistake. We all do it to some extent. But there has to come a time when you acknowledge the mistake and move on.
The title came directly from the linked article. Slashdot very commonly uses titles from the original articles, as is the case here. Read the linked article to confirm. It's at the very top.
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The first non-American computer to connect was Norwegian and did so in 1973. The connection was via satellite. The UK joined a month later.
I saw a demo of "ping" in 1980 to an American server from Europe, and everyone said this was the future.
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TCP/IP may have been experimentally used in the 1970s, however it was only in 1983 that it was officially used.
ARPANET used NCP (network con
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The fourth version called IPv4 was published in 1981 and in use a few years later.
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I'd expect Average Joe to not understand that there was life on the internet before the web, but I'd expect better on /.
Leave it to a noisy slashdot nerd to brilliantly demonstrate they don't understand the nuance of ubiquity.
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"the nuance of ubiquity."
LOL! Looks like ChatGPT is logging on again :)
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Uh huh. Nerds often disregard popularity of tech to the point of not understanding why its ubiquity matters. Thanks for supporting my point.
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Have a nice day!
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And before that we had a whole world of BBS that you dialed into. Essentially a phone number instead of an IP address. We had globe-spanning mesaging networks like FIDOnet. There's a quite a bit of history before the Internet.
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The only thing they spanned was from their computers to the modems. The phone system did the rest and that was built LONG before.
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Technically speaking, yes. The phone system was the lower network layer. But it wasn't built as a data network, modems accomplished that.
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Before Compuserve, we were sending emails around the world.
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As for software before web browsers, don't forget rn, my first exposure to Usenet.
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Addendum: an interesting chart comparing the subscription growth of CompuServe, AOL, and Prodigy in the 90s:
https://www.researchgate.net/f... [researchgate.net]
not so early (Score:2)
was an early Compuserve user. He still remembers his first email address, 72241.443@compuserve.com.
Then he wasn't all that early a user, because that form of email address didn't come into use until Compuserve connected to the Internet in the early 1990s alongside everybody else.
Compuserve became available to home computer users in 1979. That was, in fact, very early. AOL's first service, for example, didn't come about until 1985.
Many other providers (Score:5, Informative)
There were other huge online provides, although not quite so early (very, very few people had home computers as early as 1979) around that time, each its own walled garden that may or may not eventually become a more generalized ISP. Examples:
GEnie [wikipedia.org] which was run by General Electric of all companies. It never was able to morph into an actual ISP.
Prodigy [wikipedia.org] which did eventually become an ISP.
Plus there were many regional online services (IE BBS), like PC Ohio which grew to be a pretty large service in the Cleveland area.
Then THOUSANDS of smaller entities, often with a single phone line. At one point I and two other friends started our own online service that had 10 phone lines (West Branch Connection [evolution-host.com]).
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There were other huge online provides, although not quite so early (very, very few people had home computers as early as 1979) around that time, each its own walled garden that may or may not eventually become a more generalized ISP. Examples:
GEnie [wikipedia.org] which was run by General Electric of all companies. It never was able to morph into an actual ISP. Prodigy [wikipedia.org] which did eventually become an ISP. Plus there were many regional online services (IE BBS), like PC Ohio which grew to be a pretty large service in the Cleveland area. Then THOUSANDS of smaller entities, often with a single phone line. At one point I and two other friends started our own online service that had 10 phone lines (West Branch Connection [evolution-host.com]).
Apple also had AppleLink, original hosted by GE, and later by Quantum Computing and some guy named Stave Case; eWorld was the final version of Apple's attempt at an online service.
As for CompuServe, one of my fraternity brothers was an employee. Interesting early pioneering service before eternal September.
Prodigy (Score:1)
Coincidentally, I got an email from a guy at a small California company...with a Prodigy email address!
Yes...it's a *very* small company (they repair and sell old surveying equipment)
Since nobody has posted it yet (Score:2)
"Welcome to WinCIM"
...and very little happened (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, CompuServe was a pioneer, but their charges were prohibitive, even to tech obsessed nerds. As I recall it was what $20 AN HOUR? At the time, bbs's were generally free.
The internet didn't take off really until services came out much later that offered connections per month fees, so you weren't penalized for heavy use.
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From what I remember it was $6/hour for 300 baud and $12/hour for 1200 baud. This post about their old game Island of Kesmai seems to confirm. Still very expensive for the time.
https://www.apl2bits.net/2019/... [apl2bits.net]
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BBSes were free but at that time there was local toll from the phone company even within an area code. That information was described in the Bell white pages.
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Compuserve/aks micronet (Score:1)
yawn (Score:2)
Additional services (Score:2)
CIS also offered services beyond news sources and 'community'. For example, for an additional monthly fee, they would provide you with detailed demographic data based on zip code. Type in the zip and it broke down all kinds of info about the people who lived within that zip.
And lets not forget those sexy CIS email addresses! 72214,7226@compuserve.com Yowzah!
Still remember my assigned password (Score:2)
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Stupid angle brackets erased ... ADVERB SPECIALCHAR VERB format.
I worked for CompuServe, many moons ago. As you said, there was a set format for passwords, and they were automatically generated. Was a bit awkward when I was on the phone to a customer doing a password reset, and the generator set it to Stupid_Dunce...
Ah, the old days of DIAL-UP! (Score:2)
I remember some of that. First at 300 baud acoustic-coupled, then 1200, then 2400. Finally was given a SYSOP account. Then gave it up when AOL took over.
It hurt the wallet when that happened, but I didn't care that much. I'd lived through the era when forums were new, and how quickly things rolled over, even when we got all the way to 1024 messages in the database... almost 3 days!
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Yes, they came earlier, but... That wasn't something I used on line. Over the air, yes, but not to a commercial service.
Sears used a slower service for their TELEX machine when I worked there. Wait, does that make ME old, too?
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still recall (Score:2)
Some key moments in history (Score:5, Informative)
It's important to put things in context.
1969 Compuserve starts as a time-sharing service
1976 Queen Elizabeth gets email
1978 Europe and the US had International Packet Switch Stream
1979 Compuserve added email
1979 Britain had email via Prestel
1979 USENET appears
1980 Britain had Packet Switch Stream
1982 Compuserve added wide area networks
1983 FIDO BBS appears
1986 USENET switches to NNTP
1986 Compuserve went International
1989 HTTP prototyped
1990 WAIS appears
1991 Gopher appears
1991 HTTP appears
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Minitel says bonjour in 1982
Ah, the simpler days (Score:1)
I remember being on Compuserve in the mid 90's. It was definitely an early lesson on internet-ish patterns: discussion groups, live chat groups, shared files and pictures...and TROLZ
It had what one might call a "GUI browser" that hinted at what could have been if Compuserve or competitors open-sourced such. Their primitive GUI browser had statefulness, unlike HTML (IIRC). If they made a nice standard around that which intended to stay GUI friendly, we wouldn't have the webShit we do now where we have to fak
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The brought us GIF images
10 FREE hours a month (Score:1)
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CIS to WWW gateway (Score:3)
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Fee-based (Score:2)
Cost? (Score:2)
I seem to remember it being extraordinarily costly to use back in the day. Can anyone remember how much it cost?
Silicon Valley started the Internet? (Score:3)
Huh? I could have sworn that the ARPANET project designed the Internet Protocols, then CSNet and various other consortia of research organizations brought businesses and campuses into the Internet, then there were FTP, MUDs, RCs, talk servers, Gopher, Archie, Veronica (none of them coming from Silicon Valley), then the World Wide Web from CERN.
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Back in my day (Score:2)
You kids. Back in my day arpanet and bitnet were good enough for me!
The Source! (Score:2)
I remember in the late 1970s that I was wishing I had the budget to subscribe to The Source. I think it was from Readers Digest? It may not have predated CompuServe but it was the first such service I heard of.
Well it was one of the commercial online services (Score:2)
They were severely hindered by their technology stack some of which ran on PDP-10s... even long after those were considered obsolete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Another problem was that they essentially only had one data center. Everything you did had to go though that center. For example if you accessed some data in Germany, you would dial into a "local" access point which would then send your request and data over a leased line of Compuserve, which was slow and expensive, particularly in the later ye
Before "M$" (Score:2)
My first (Score:2)
Compuserve was my first experience online, via a radio shack terminal (a stripped down color computer, that I can't seem to find a reference to anywhere) - it came with 10hrs free on compuserve, which I dropped like a hot potato after racking up a $300 bill ;-)
I still remember my user ID (Score:2)
My user ID was 75056,3611 and joining the CIS groups to be able to discuss things, send email messages and learn tech remains one of my most amazing life experiences. It truly felt like we had entered the future.
Re:Did it? (Score:4, Funny)
If by "world" you mean "the USA" then you might have a case
Wait. Are you suggesting there's somewhere out there that ISN'T the USA?
Unpossible!
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There were versions of Compuserve in other countries but they weren't exactly the only offerings available. Lots of dial up services were springing up about the same time, and most were glorified BBS services. Compuserve did become briefly popular in the UK, as did AOL but WAY too late to be that significant because dialup ISPs like Demon turned up and ate their lunch.
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Why are you correcting me for something I didn't say?
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CompuServe was an early provider of internet connections to regular people. So yes, the world.