Saturday, July 05, 2008

My Electronic Pablum


I mentioned yesterday using an online service called Quantum Link by in the 80's. I was curious about what there was out there on the Internet about it and found the video below which an advertisement for it from 1986. What was amazing about this service was that it provided the basic services that the Internet browser brought to the public 2 or 3 years after the first browser was launched around 1993.

I used a Commodore 64 computer like the one pictured in this post and connected to the service using a 300 baud modem. (For those of you who aren't real tech aware--your old modem that you used to dial-up your Internet provider was likely a 56,000 baud modem!) Notice all the basic services that are described in this video. There's even a reference to a virtual world which is the same concept behind the current rage of SecondLife.

Enjoy the laughs!

1 comment:

Terry Lange said...

I have one better... I used to own a Vic -20 way back when. I upgraded to a C-64 with two 1541 disk drives and briefly ran a BBS out of my bedroom for a while. I can remember running up a hefty bill on Compuserve in the early days when they used to charge by the hour. 300 baud modems were the in thing and then 1200/2400 baud modems. Now, with the advanced technology, that stuff seems so obsolete, but at the time it was the technological rage!