How is AOL 20 years old?
 

I get this AOL disk in the mail stating that it's AOL's 20th anniversary. WTF?

1985... sounds right...

That is amazing. They were open for business when modems were 2400. And it was all text. I remember compuserve then but not AOL.

well gotta figure they were around for a little while even before they launched and then it took awhile to get into mainstream. But damn 20 is a long time

Wow... hard to believe. Net didn't hit hard around us until '97 or so.

A little before that. AOL went to unlimited access before then for sure.

I think that was '98 when AOL went to unlimited access. Their stock also shot up with that news and I know more than a few people who made a lot of scratch.

I remember aol as far back as '92, but thats about it. I was amazed by this milestone as well.

and they have been crap for exactly the same amount of time :)

theyve had a service similar to compuserves running as a BBS with chatrooms for ages - long before the net became all the rage - used to be the best place to D/L program keys :)

AOL went unlimited in 1996... I still remember the dial up busy signal madness like it was yesterday. 9 years, wow.

It was called Quantumlink, and it ran only on Commodore 64.

Wow, it doesn't feel like that long ago.

i remember aol when it was just IM + EMAIL, i believe aol1.1... but yes wow those busy signals were annoying for those many many nights

That's about right. People for some reason believe the net wasn't around before mid to late 90's. But infact computers came with, or you could pick up, AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve on computers like in '89-90.

The net was new, and most people still used BBS's and/or other shit before then, including myself. But I remember having Prodigy, and playing their fantasy football and baseball leagues back, as well as meeting chickies online back in '90-91. I also remember tracking down an uncle on line back then.

Prodigy, Compuserve, and AOL have been around a long fucking time. Al Gore had nothing to do wit dat :winkwink: .

Google search that Aol anniv, to see if that is true.

Aol 1.0 didn't come out until the 90's....

so somethings fucked in their math,....unless it was called something else

anyone remember $2,99 a minute, so you just stole your friends pass :)

pick up aol in 89 b.s., maybe 90/91

i used the biggest bbs's on the planet & grew up near blacksburg, which was pretty much the birthplace of the net

I hate AOL :mad:

phishing, account generators, password stealers... er um. no, i have no clue what you are talking about. I swear.

i remember them as far back as 93-94. i do remember prodigy which was a year or 2 earlier i believe.

WTFF AOL same age like me ? :eek7 :uhoh :censored

yup... used to have it...

Thats correct it used to run under a differnt name and was ment for BBS and postings then they switched to AOL before 90 and now its been 20 years

back then (around the 80s) they ran out of Reston Va I believe - had some RPG chat rooms (I agree they were called something else- the Q-Link does sound familiar although before that they were Gameline of something like that). They initially were a source for online gaming (well online back then meant phone lines to BBS's) with the old Atari game systems.

Yeah wow, AOL can almost buy beer legally. Crazy! They really should give out a prize to their longest active member or something.

I think it's this guy.

http://www.answers.com/main/content/..._Albertson.png

Ah yeah, registering his indignation across the globe for 20 years and counting.

Worst wardrobe, ever!

In 20 years AOL can't get good?

They may also do what a lot of companies do and claim a longer run of business based on an acquisition. Did they buy a company that was around in 1985? If so they could probably claim that too.

wether it's 20 years old or 100 years old AOL still sucks and always will.

Newsgroups were, that was the internet, all I could get any way, had no browsers then

I agree :thumbsup

um, I remember the day the postman delivered the phone bill by hand because it was too big for the mailbox..lets just say it still comes up now and then in conversation with my mom.

Anyway, I was an aol member when I was 15 and I am 28 now so it was around atleast that long.

good ole aol hell lol

Actually they just renamed the company - in 1983 the company was losing its ass trying to sell monthly memberships for the Atari game system - Steve Case was brought up to be the CEO and he changed it to Q-Link - the software was given away free with every Commodore 64 and 128 back then - it was just a big BBS - then in 1989 they started AOL for Apple and Macs, followed by something called Geoworks for DOS based systems - it was a graphical interface that sucked but it was the only real attempt at "windows" back then - and in 1991 they changed their name to AOL.

As far as the net - we had the internet back in the 80s - we just had text based interfaces for email and lookups - earlier than that it was all college and military based in the US - going way back to 1969 when there were 4 host computers at universities in the US - and 21 other computers hooked up by phone lines :) It grew from that - the whole idea was to set up a command and control system when Eisenhower reacted to Russias launch of Sputnik - but it became more than just a military project and ended up in the US colleges - Stanford, UCLA, MIT and a few others

LOL Sarah - I was a Q-Link member when I was 32 and Im 51 tomorrow so I figure I give them at least 19 years :)

if its that so...we'll then its a good job!

According to Wikipedia.......

AOL began as a short-lived venture called Control Video, a company whose product was an online service called Gameline for the Atari 2600 video game console. Subscribers bought a modem from the company for $49.95 and paid a one-time $15 setup fee. Gameline permitted subscribers to temporarily download games and keep track of high scores, at a cost of approximately $1 an hour.

In 1983 the company nearly went bankrupt, and a young marketing veteran named Steve Case ascended to the position of CEO.

psssst.. Linkster knows too much, pass it on..

Actually going back that far it could even have been more standard for 300 baud. I remember bein on Delphi at 300 baud... oof.

I had a 300 baud once.