

CompuServe is closing - CoryOndrejka
http://paperpc.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-over-compuserve-classic-is-closing.html

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ajross
user 70611,3101 password "sleeve!coast"

Last login: circa 1988

I'm stunned that that's still in my brain. I never would have remembered it my
brain not been able to pattern match against the ID number in the article.

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ctkrohn
Ha, mine was 103476,1704, password "angry?blink." I remember having a terrible
time writing scripts to convince Linux's pppd to dial in and connect.

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sfphotoarts
I think my first isp after using compuserve for a while was netcom. No idea
what happened to them but they gave me a shell account and pine and tin and
gopher and the I has a very happy camper...

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Kadin
I was a Netcom guy also. I used them right up until I got cable HSI service
(which in my area wasn't until late '01 or early '02). Netcom as a company
disappeared somewhere in the late 90s; I don't know exactly what the story
was, but I recall getting a letter saying that I was suddenly going to be a
MindSpring customer, and then a few months (or so) later, an EarthLink one.

Their domain names and email addresses lived on through all that though, and I
still occasionally see an "@ix.netcom.com" floating around.

When I finally canceled my service with them, after getting the cable modem
installed, I was pretty bummed that they didn't have some minimal level of
service that would have just let me keep my email address. (AOL offered
something like this at the time.) I probably would have paid $3-5/mo just to
hang onto it because I'd had it for so long.

Ah, well. They were one of the better dialup ISPs I had; I never had trouble
getting access numbers in various cities, and they had fairly responsive
support. Quality declined precipitously after the Mindspring/EarthLink buyout
though; I had no love for _them_ as a company by the end.

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hachiya
Anyone else have Q-Link as their first online service provider? For Commodore
computers, and in the early 90s it became AOL...

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thorax
I did. I still recall running up $400 for a monthly bill from chatting with
random people around the U.S. I seem to recall it was $0.08/min at some point
beyond your allotted time.

I downloaded a national BBS list from there eventually, stumbled upon one or
two amazing local BBSs, and that was end of Q-Link for me.

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allenbrunson
well, that's sad. compuserve was my "internet" before i had access to the real
thing.

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tokenadult
I started out on Prodigy, in 1992, but Compuserve (started a year or so later)
had much better discussion. I made some good friends there.

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ggchappell
For me it was The Source (anyone remember them?) some time in the early 80's.
Then Compuserve, and then GEnie. Those were the days ....

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dan_the_welder
Being on Compuserve with a blazing fast 140 baud modem was expensive. My buddy
being busted for plagiarizing a paper from Compuserve in 1986..Priceless.

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Tichy
Didn't they own the GIF patent? Wonder what happened to that - expired,
hopefully? Not fondly remembered.

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SwellJoe
No. And, yes, long since expired. UniSys held the patent, CompuServe was the
victim (and the actual innovator, since they invented the GIF format, which
happened to use Limpel Ziv...it was a submarine patent for many years until
GIFs were pervasive; very nasty business).

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Tichy
Ah so I guess compuserve made gif popular, that is why I associate them with
the story.

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chaostheory
I'm surprised they didnt close earlier

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joeycfan
It's still around?

I was annoyed at the way they'd ding you for more $ if you used a better zip.

However, their wordpuntuationmarkword schema for pw is still not bad.

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ErrantX
well.. it is somewhat bad ;)

It significantly reduces the keyspace to be searched

