Tech Time Warp of the Week: America Online, 1995

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
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For all of you old enough to remember and really don’t want to be reminded how old you really are, we are reminding you anyway. The year was 1995 and the hot commodity was ‘online services’ like America Online. They had everything you could possibly want on a dialup connection speed of 9600 baud….and I bet you had a mullet too. :D

But there was a brief time when these services were king — and a company like AOL was powerful enough to purchase a giant like Time Warner for $164 billion.
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Business in the front, prog rock in the back, Microsoft Metro trademarked design on the screen.
 
Was I the only one who thought AOL was the real Internet? I remember clicking on the IE icon and being completely baffled and confused when I saw real, actual web pages.
 
Megalith said:
Was I the only one who thought AOL was the real Internet? I remember clicking on the IE icon and being completely baffled and confused when I saw real, actual web pages.
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No sir, no you were not the only one. I used to try to convince those on AoL they weren't on "The Internet" but rather a bulletin board system.
 
sfsuphysics said:
No sir, no you were not the only one. I used to try to convince those on AoL they weren't on "The Internet" but rather a bulletin board system.
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I had family that visited once that needed to use the computer to check email. They loaded my comp up and asked where the internet was. I opened it for them, opened the browser, and they still were confused so I had to basically do it all for them because they couldn't grasp the concept that the internet existed without AOL.
 
1995 or 2012? :D

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By 1999, I probably had close to one million free hours because of all the CD they kept sending me...
 
You've got mail! I was still using that sound bite on my phone until just a few years ago. Chat rooms sure were fun. Getting punted sure was not. Neither was figuring out IRQs for ISA cards.
 
Who remembers using those fucking free floppies to go online :D This story made me feel old please post better news ;)
 
I remember switching from GNN using the Mosaic browser, to AOL, man did it feel like there was so much more to do.
 
yea, took me a while to figure out i can connect with aol, then use IE/netscape to browse the real internet.
yahoo, altavista, etc etc

good times. i wish someone would create a vintage aol "portal" for us to connect to on our vintage pc's/laptops. i got a few old 386/486 laptops i wish i could connect to aol like the old days and pull up all those old websites again. maybe one day.
 
What makes me laugh is how they make it all look 'so fast and easy'.

I remember back then you learnt a whole new concept of time when using the internet.
 
So how many here got America Online for one reason (Other than porn of course).... AOHell. :)
 
Trivia:
It was the last version of AOL to be released on a 3.5" diskette.
 
potency said:
You've got mail! I was still using that sound bite on my phone until just a few years ago. Chat rooms sure were fun. Getting punted sure was not. Neither was figuring out IRQs for ISA cards.
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punters were the best!
 
I used to work for a PC sales and service place and we had a guy come in saying that his PC was not working. We tried to get more info from him, but all he’d say is it doesn’t work. So we took it in did our standard diagnostics, optimizations and testing of each device. We found nothing wrong. So we called him back and informed him we found nothing wrong. He comes and picks up his system and heads home. 2 hours later, he returns saying that it still does not work. So we take him to the tech bench, hook everything up and ask him to describe the problem. He guides us through only to discover that his problem is that he cannot connect to AOL. We test the modem on our line and it works fine. We tell him that we are not responsible for AOL and that he has to contact AOL. So he calls them right there and we ask him to put it on speaker. Go through the usual routine and find out he is trying to login under an expired trial account. (Palm in face) We inform him that our responsibilities are for PC and OS functionality. Other software he has to contact their customer support. Takes his PC and walks out angry and as he’s exiting, turns and says I’m never doing business with you guys again.
 
I never used AOL. I probably should have, as when I went online it was either Chicago or Seattle for the phone call. Mosaic was the browser. Trumpet was the DUN tool.... HUGE phone bill. Long gone were the BBS days (well, not really, still enjoyed the local one).

I always thought AOL was more of a very limited ISP/browser and never questioned that it could be just a local dialup number (it wasn't, though, for a long time) and use my own browser.
 
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