Compuserve, GEnie, The Source, PC Pursuit, AOL...

[jeffweico]

Originally Posted by Dmshark25

Nice!! Brings back memories, it used to buy time, like you had so many minutes or hours you could use a month and if you went over they would kill you, like a cellphone bill

I remember CompuServe. $13 per hour, $6 per hour after 9pm.

Also Prodigy. It had great graphics, for its day, but had fewer users than AOL, so the games and discussion groups were not much fun. They died a few years after they started up.

There was also The Source and GEnie.

I had all of them at one time or another. I liked GEnie because it was half the price of CompuServe. But using it was more difficult. And all 3 of these (CompuServe, The Source and Genie) were text only. If you wanted to do certain things like look up newspaper or magazine articles, that was extra. Depending on what it was, it could be anywhere from $1 - $60 and even more. With CompuServe, if you wanted to connect at 9600 Baud, it was about $25 per hour. One month I ran up a $1,000+ bill and my Dad nearly killed me!

When AOL came out, they all lost a lot of customers. I believe it was $19.95 per month for up to 10 hours, which was a bargain, because CompuServe would cost a minimum of $60 for 10 hours. AOL also had better graphics and did not charge extra for connections up to 14.4kbps. Eventually, AOL became unlimited. After the internet became a reality, they were the nation's biggest ISP. But broadband killed them. Now they are a content provider.

There was also PC Pursuit, a service that let you call BBS's is other cities a lot cheaper than long distance, which was EXPENSIVE back then.

God, I am SUCH A NERD!!!

[Dmshark25]

I,was trying to think of the name , Prodigy this was my first Internet Server, and than I had AOL

I still remember how amazing it was , and just the stupid simple things like a Chat room or even the Ads and banners that would be moving live across the page, there was nothing like it before

It's crazy how fast technology evolves

In ten years I can't even imagine what the Internet will be

[RosieTosie]

Great insight guy's, what about 50 years from now because timescales are increasing of course, we have a good enough idea of what will be around in 30 or so years from now, but longer than that will there be anything near the leaps in capabilities to achieve things that have been in the last even 30 years.

[SilentHill]

I remember using Napster. I was in elementary school. good ol days. AOL and slow ass dial-up then upgrading to expensive DSL. lol haha

[slokor]

Originally Posted by Dmshark25

In ten years I can't even imagine what the Internet will be

Think Oculus Rift and combine that with an article I just read about virtual shopping.
In addition they've just come up with a new gadget you can on your finger that will let you feel textures and such within such a virtual environment.
Wonder where that will put the ebay experience...

[123]

Originally Posted by SilentHill

I remember using Napster. I was in elementary school. good ol days. AOL and slow ass dial-up then upgrading to expensive DSL. lol haha

haha i remember when limewire became the hot new thing and people were getting so many viruses

[rsot]

Compuserve went under if I recall correctly.

Hah limewire...wow what a memory