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FrankWilhoit 2 days ago [-]
I was there. What killed Compuserve was an attempt to build an entire back-end infrastructure, software and hardware, de novo, using immature consumer-grade technology. It was a shocking thing to witness from the inside. The pivot from proprietary to open-standard was not the problem. The problem was trying to build a software ecosystem in which no one knew what they were doing and the OS (Windows NT) didn't work yet, and to populate a data center with almost-but-not-quite redundant commmodity compute and networking. Came time for the big relaunch ("WOW!") and for every person who succeeded in signing up for the new service, ten others tried and failed. No one could come back from that.
imglorp 1 days ago [-]
I'm most curious what happened to the Compuserve server software, and could some of it be resurrected as an interactive exhibit?
There is a guy on YouTube playing with SC-40s who has part of the TOPS-10 based stack, which I guess is what you mean. The Internetty stuff went by the umbrella name of HMI (Host-Micro Interface) and was guarded like the recipe for Coca-Cola. The boundary between the server and client was...fractal. Everything was about saving/spoofing bandwidth. The "browser", WinCIM, contained a huge library of UI element templates.
AFAIK SC-40 were all made for CompuServe, and effectively by CompuServe
FrankWilhoit 13 hours ago [-]
Systems Concepts may have had other prospects, but they had so much trouble getting the product out the door that Compuserve ultimately helped them finish it, licensed it (? exclusively), and produced all but a couple of the machines that went into production. I found a microcode bug in one of the first SC-built machines that caused the string-comparison instruction to return true whether or not; Gary Brown took that to SC and reported their reaction as "Damn, you caught us!", and that was kind of the end of that. You might have some stories to tell of the flight from X.25...?
p_l 13 hours ago [-]
I am from a place where CompuServe was just something you read about the way you read travelogues or otherwise reports from far away country, unfortunately.
I encountered data about System Concepts due to being interested in PDP-10 history and so on.
FrankWilhoit 11 hours ago [-]
Profound apologies -- on the basis of one of your earlier comments, I took you for someone with the same initials.
imglorp 11 hours ago [-]
Was the whole SC endeavor to avoid buying PDP-10s?
p_l 9 hours ago [-]
It was one of multiple successors to PDP-10 that tried to capitalize on existing user base after Digital decided to utterly cancel all 36bit work in favour of VAX (legends claim the last prototype ended up in millpond).
Some started even earlier, trying to compete on speed or other attributes (like Foonly)
System Concepts is the ones who ended up with CompuServe as client/effective owner from my memory. XKL was somewhat successful to the point they are the reason why last known PDP-10 was made after closure of last VAX manufacturing line, but nearly all of their systems was for internal use in their network gear
FrankWilhoit 11 hours ago [-]
DEC quit making them in 1983.
imglorp 2 hours ago [-]
Then VAX would have been an option, especially since there were migration tools from PDP. And VAXen cluster for scaling.
neverartful 1 days ago [-]
Good times! I was 75060,264 and I used software called Golden Compass on os/2 to connect, post my messages, and retrieve new messages.
lakkal 11 hours ago [-]
30 years later, 76344,2701 is still burned into my brain. I used a DOS text-based program whose name I don't remember anymore. I know I used OZCIS.exe at some point, and Aladdin with GEnie.
Some paper was preserved by CHM: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30848845
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/compuserve/
Ooh, and these SC-40s have compuserve tags and a stack of disks! I hope someone preserved the data.
https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/firsts-history-computing-...
I encountered data about System Concepts due to being interested in PDP-10 history and so on.
Some started even earlier, trying to compete on speed or other attributes (like Foonly)
System Concepts is the ones who ended up with CompuServe as client/effective owner from my memory. XKL was somewhat successful to the point they are the reason why last known PDP-10 was made after closure of last VAX manufacturing line, but nearly all of their systems was for internal use in their network gear