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An obit for CompuServ Classic, the dialup before AOL

10:59 AM Tue, Jul 07, 2009 |
By Sheila Lennon    Email this author |   Email this entry

CompuServe Classic laid to rest. Tom Krazit, Digital Media blogger at CNET News, writes a classic obit, with pointers to the memories of those for whom CIS's "7xxxx,xxxx@cs.com" was their first email address. He begins,

CompuServe Classic, the initial on-ramp to the information superhighway for a generation of Americans, has died. It was 30 years old.

CompuServ was the pricey dialup ($10 an hour in the 1980s), home to geeks and businessfolk.

I was neither, but I had stumbled across the modem-based home computer "bulletin boards" -- BBSes -- in 1989, free alternatives with their own mail- and file-sharing networks, and hopped on.

So this comment at CNet struck a chord. As AOL signup software disks appeared in your mail, your newspaper and pre-loaded on new PCs in the '90s, I read similar posts there, anticipating the arrival online of the barbarians:

Yup, been through it all.
The dumbing down of the internet with thw World Wide Web.
The commercial sellout and the beginning of the end of the net of intellectuals.
The "Green Card" Spam.
The massive IQ drop accompanying the arrival of AOL.
The clogging of the 'net with porn, warez, and illegally traded media supported wholly by advertising . . .

The last vestige of the early days has winked out.

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