The first significant commercial internet service in the United States was CompuServe. It was well-known for the several innovations it brought forth, such as its chat feature, topic-specific forums, software downloads for a wide range of operating systems, and an abundance of online games. It was rather pricey because usage was billed on an hourly basis. Additionally, there wasn’t much support for GUI clients, and the client was primarily text-based.
Founded in 1969 as a time-sharing and processing service, CompuServe remained a key player in the market far into the 1980s. At its height, CompuServe was in the early 1990s. When AOL joined the market in 1991, it finally started to confront fierce competition, and by 1995, AOL had surpassed it.
CompuServe Information Service, first referred to as CIS or CSi, was an online service based in the United States that was the world’s first significant commercial offering. When it first started in 1969, it catered to businesses as a timesharing and remote access service. The system went up at the same time as The Source in 1979, following a profitable endeavour that sold Radio Shack consumers otherwise underutilized after-hours time. After purchasing the business in 1980, H&R Block started promoting the service more vigorously.
In the 1980s, CompuServe was the industry leader, and it continued to have a significant impact until the mid-1990s.
CIS was well-known for its online chat system, message boards covering a wide range of subjects, large software libraries for the majority of personal computers, and several well-liked online games, such as MegaWars III and the Island of Kesmai, when it was at its peak in the early 1990s. It was also credited with creating the GIF picture format and the GIF file exchange system. “The oldest of the Big Three information services (the others are Prodigy and America Online)” was how it was characterized in 1994.
Foundation:
Founded in 1969 as Compu-Serv Network, Inc.[a] in Columbus, Ohio, CompuServe was a Golden United Life Insurance subsidiary. CompuServe’s first president was John R. Goltz, even though Jeffrey Wilkins, the son-in-law of Golden United founder Harry Gard Sr., is sometimes mistakenly listed as the position.[4] Within the first year of business, Wilkins took over as CEO from Goltz. Goltz and Wilkins were both University of Arizona graduate students studying electrical engineering. Doug Chinnock, Larry Shelley, and Sandy Trevor—the creator of the CompuServe CB Simulator chat system—were among the other early hires from the same university.
The company had two goals: first, it wanted to become an independent business in the computer time-sharing sector by renting out its PDP-10 midrange computers to other businesses during business hours. This was done to handle computer data internally for Golden United Life Insurance.[3] In 1975, it was split out as a distinct business and began trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol CMPU.
Compuserve Networking Services:
CompuServe Network Services, a significant division of the company, was established in 1982 to make money by offering connectivity to the countrywide packet network CompuServe had constructed to serve its time-sharing business. CompuServe created all of the network’s operating software in addition to designing and producing its network processors based on the DEC PDP-11. The CompuServe network, sometimes (and mistakenly) referred to as an X.25 network, used a combination of proprietary and standardized layers all over the network.
We called one of the proprietary layers Adaptive Routing.[10] Two potent features were implemented by the Adaptive Routing system. One is that self-discovery mode was the network’s exclusive mode of operation. Without any explicit configuration, a new switch was discovered and absorbed into the network when it was connected to a neighbour through a leased telephone circuit. All one had to do to modify the network setup was add or remove connections; the network would take care of the rest. Network engineers frequently discussed the second Adaptive Routing capability, which only CNS implemented: creating connection pathways based on real-time performance evaluations. Traffic was rerouted to other routes as one circuit filled up to avoid overcrowding and causing users’ experience to suffer.
CompuServe Internet Services:
In 1989, CompuServe became the first online service to provide limited access to the Internet by connecting its proprietary email service to the Internet so that messages could be sent and received using Internet-based email addresses.
Thousands of people visited CompuServe’s dozens of moderated forums in the early 1990s; these were the ancestors of the World Wide Web’s discussion sites. (Just like the Web, a lot of forums were run by independent producers who hired moderators, often known as sysops, and handled the forum’s administration.) Numerous of these involved customer support provided by computer hardware and software firms. As a result, the target audience grew from being mostly corporate users to include technical “geek” people, some of whom had previously used the online Bix service from Byte Magazine.
Special clubs and forums existed, although many of them (as well as “some premium databases”) charged “$7.50 each time you enter a search request.”[c]
The first documented WYSIWYG forum posts and email content were hosted by CompuServe in 1992. Using NavCIS, a third-party program developed by Dvorak Development, fonts, colours, and emoticons were encoded into 7-bit text-based communications that ran on DOS, Windows 3.1, and eventually Windows 95. Similar to offline readers used with bulletin board systems, NavCIS provided offline work tools that allowed users to connect to the website and exchange new mail and forum content in a largely automatic manner.
The user modified their messages locally while offline after the “run” was finished. To enable services like the chat system, the system also permitted interactive system navigation. Several of these services continued to be text-based.
CompuServe’s Acquisition:
Throughout its existence, CompuServe made several purchases, both before and following its acquisition by H&R Block:
Early in the 1970s, a tiny regional timesharing business based in Dallas, Texas called Alpha Systems used PDP-10 technology. It ran as a stand-alone business for a short while before the Dallas operation was shut down and its PDP-10 was transferred to CompuServe’s data centre in Columbus, Ohio.
1986 saw the creation of the relational database system System 1022 by Software House.
Collier-Jackson began producing human resource management products in 1986.[21]
1988 saw the creation of the 20/20 spreadsheet application by Access Technology.[22]
The first consumer internet suite, Internet in a Box, was created in 1995 by Spry, Inc.
CompuServe informed subscribers via email in January 2007 that Windows Vista was not supported and recommended transferring to the AOL-branded service. CompuServe client software, however, can run in compatibility mode on Windows Vista, just like many other older programs. CompuServe Pacific declared in July 2007 that it would be closing on August 31, 2007. It was stated in September 2007 that CompuServe France would cease operations on November 30, 2007. With 35,000 clients in 1998, Fujitsu Australia ran the CompuServe Pacific franchise in the Pacific region, which includes Australia, New Zealand, and other countries.
As of 2013, there is a closer connection between CompuServe channels and forums. A slightly scaled-down version of the Netscape.com Web portal is presently available on Compuserve.com. Netscape.com was shut down in 2006.
The announcement that CompuServe Classic would “no longer operate as an Internet service provider” and end on June 30, 2009, was made by CompuServe on April 15, 2009. As of that day, all CompuServe Classic services, including the OurWorld Web pages, were unavailable. Users of CompuServe Classic email would be able to utilize a new email system to access their CompuServe email addresses. CompuServe is still running on version 7.0 as of 2023.