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The original AOL for the PC released in 1991 was a DOS client using the PC/GEOS (Geoworks) runtime, and it was just as proprietary as CI$, GEnie, or Prodigy. At that point, there was no web. The first HTML spec wasn't released until 1993.
AOL's first internet-related service was e-mail. They didn't add other elements of internet access until somewhat later.
Yup... he has asked what the poster meant by "real internet" and how AOL came into play. Not about the history of AOL. AOL was a major outlet to the internet in the 90's for home users.
AOL, Prodigy, CompuServe, and a few others were originally without web access (which is what I meant by "real internet". Users - which numbered in the millions - just putted around on the proprietary network, though such services may have had access to E-mail early on. In the mid-1990s, the web, as well as other internet services became available. I first accessed the web - the "open" internet, not AOL or CompuServe's closed network - in July 1996, the summer in between third and fourth grade. We had AOL until we could no longer pay the bill around Christmas that year. I had become addicted to the web, but I would have to do without it until May, when I regained access with a local ISP.
I used to do compuserve, prodigy, delphi and genie. Used to dial in on a 1200 baud modem on my 286 and 386 and sit and talk on the bbs with other people. I thought it was the neatest thing to be typing and having other people writing back, in real time!
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest
AOL did not add ful internet to their online service until the mid 90's. Prior to this, they had only web access (above their online service).
Quote:
Originally Posted by NJBest
Yup... he has asked what the poster meant by "real internet" and how AOL came into play. Not about the history of AOL. AOL was a major outlet to the internet in the 90's for home users.
I was just correcting your first statement above, unless I'm misinterpreting what you said.
Internet e-mail was the first IP network service that was introduced on AOL, not "web access". As a charter member of AOL for the PC, as well as a heavy user of various other online services and BBSes of that period, I took full advantage of that (and Delphi's e-mail, and Exec-PC's e-mail) for quite some time.
I used to do compuserve, prodigy, delphi and genie. Used to dial in on a 1200 baud modem on my 286 and 386 and sit and talk on the bbs with other people. I thought it was the neatest thing to be typing and having other people writing back, in real time!
My original computer, purchased new in February 1995 for about $1,200 (cheap for then), had a 2400 bps (and I believe also 2400 baud) modem. That was back when a 14.4 kbps modem was considered "fast", and a 28.8k modem cost around $500 or more. Access was usually charged per the hour for home users (for those who were not online back then), and some or most providers charged more for access at 28.8k than for access at "normal" modem speeds. At speeds of around 64k, ISDN was pretty much the only form of "broadband" available to home internet users until 1998-99, when cable and DSL services started to be rolled out on a nationwide basis. The real stimulus for broadband came in 2000 with the popularity of filesharing on Napster.
I had an Apple IIc back in 1983. I thought the coolest thing was when I learned how to copy 5 1/4" disks. I had every game out there: Lemonade Stand, Ultima 4 & 5, Zaxxon, and Flight Simulator 1& 2.
I recently asked my dad if he still had it cause I wanted to plug it in and mess around with it. Unfortunately he said that he sold it at a garage sale (
I was on a network in 1990 called Prodigy Services Company. Does that count? I was on a dumb terminal. Somewhere in there, I got a real computer but stuck with Prodigy and occasionally got on the Internet. They sent me a t-shirt (which i still have) and said thanks for being with the Prodigy network and said they moving everything to the Internet.
1994. My wife's ex- gave us his old 286, with a dialup modem and monochrome screen, and I subscribed to the Tallahassee Freenet, which required a toll long distance call to access text-only data. Once I was online, I could get my mailbox faster than I can now. In fact, when I first went on e-bay, I was still using freenet lynx dialup, and I could view bidding and place bids faster than I can now.
I wasn't on line then, but in (I think) 1981, I bought one of those little Sinclair ZX80 computers from an ad in Scientific American, that I could write programs to do things, and save the program on an ordinary casette recorder, and reinstall it when needed, using my household TV for a screen. In real dollars, that little thing cost more than a Dell does today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_ZX80
I was a member of a High IQ society then, and some of the members were using Internet (or something like it) to correspond, and their messages were reprinted in the journal.
Last edited by jtur88; 11-25-2010 at 05:20 PM..
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