Tech Throwback: America Online

I like to take a look at where I’ve been to evaluate where Im going. Technology is cyclical after all… wait no its not. That said I still like all the feels that come rushing back like a flood of nostalgia every time I get my hand on the tech I grew up with. Im going to go back periodically and take a looking at the stuff that used to blow our hair back and get our minds rolling. Some of these device blew up and changed the world, some where ahead of their time and some just fell flat and became colossal failures. Today we have not just a tech throwback, not a device or toy, but an internet revolution. The name even says it all… America Online, and that is just what happened. America went on line.

And so it was America On Line or AOL as we came to designate this revolution first started out in 1983 as an online video game service for the Atari 2600. Shortly after that founder and CEO  Bill von Meister wanted to converge in to a music on demand service. The idea was squashed by Warner bros music department…

Later in the decade, these innovative thoughts and dream has merged into an online portal for the commador 64 and apple II, called q-link. Then in August 1988, Quantum launched PC Link, a service for IBM-compatible PCs developed in a joint venture with the Tandy Corporation. After the company parted ways with Apple in October 1989, Quantum changed the service’s name to America Online. Case promoted and sold AOL as the online service for people unfamiliar with computers, in contrast to CompuServe, which was well established in the technical community.

Its now 1991 and AOl Charged its users an hourly fee, mostly gamers where using the platform and it hosted 2 exclusive dungeons and dragons, title called Neverwinter Nights from Stormfront Studios; which was one of the first Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games to depict the adventure with graphics instead of text. Gaming was still the backbone of America Online.

America Goes on Line With America Online

In 1996 America Online changed its billing and pricing from an hourly rate to a 19.95 monthly fee. America responded. During this time, AOL connections would be flooded with users trying to get on, and many canceled their accounts due to constant busy signals.

What We Remember

BEEEEEEEE DEEEEE DEEEEE. We all remember the sound to connect, the little guy running across those little boxes to get on the line. They after a few eternal minuets, You’ve got mail… With only a handful of boxes to click on, we were blown away by all the endless information we now had at our finger tips.

Then the Chat Rooms, oh we spent weeks of our lives during the late 90s in those rooms. The connections we discovered to random people validated our very existence. We had reached a pinnacle of society and were all now connected.

And all those free trial disks and cds. We collected them, used them to create new account for temporary or incognito service, then

The World at Our Finger Tips

America Online brought us on the line, all of us, on the line. Now we are all here, what do we do with this unprecedented power? Globalization. AOL is the backbone of our world today, it set it up and paved the way for Amazon, Ebay, Napster and all of the internet companies that could turn minuet transnational profits to worldwide unimaginable wealth.

The Final Thought

It would take the world almost a decade to catch up to Americas latest boom. Instantly, due to our ingenuity, desires and “why cant we” bravado made another giant leap in society. Much like everything else in america, their was a meteoric rise, unprecedented success, and the world was forever changed overnight. The following year would see mergers and purchases, evolving in to a giant conglomerate. Today AOL is nothing more then a small branch in Telecom giant Verizon’s portfolio, but for a time it was a revolution.