Thank you for the reply. I'm aware of how BBSs and on-line services started (CServe, Prodigy, Genie). Most of what you've said in your earlier reply was spot on with the exception the initial audience for AOL (at least in its earliest incarnation). I later thought you might be referring to AIM, but I couldn't find any relation to your claim either. It seemed odd as to how overseas military families would have access to AOL given that:
a) International dialing rates were incredibly expensive at the time. I don't know how someone would be connecting to AOL in a local network in, say, Stuttgart or Mogadishu without paying a pretty penny.
b) Most online communication done by overseas military members would have been done over ARPANET/MILNET with on-premise or remote data terminals attached/networked to minicomputer or timesharing systems (e.g. Honeywell, CDC, Burroughs, etc).
c) The AOL's earlier incarnation, Q-Link, was a C64 only service. AOL only became available for DOS/PCs just as the Gulf War ended (February 28 1991).
d) Anything that couldn't run C/PM, Unix, or PC-DOS was considered a kids toy (an image not helped in Commodore's case with the C64 being sold in Toy's R US, but I digress).
Given these factors, I would think AOL's initial audience would have been the same hobbyists and MUD players that made BBSs popular for a time.
Perhaps you were talking about early flat-fee connection services/ packet networks like Tymnet, BBN Telenet, DATAPAC, Frame Relay, etc ?
Re: dialing rates: the point was that for the cost of a local call (and often free), AOL enabled family members to send email or (text) chat in realtime. That compared against either postal mail (a week or more overseas) or phone calls (expensive, possibly a dollar or more a minute). The service provider (I'm pretty sure it was AOL, might have been others) itself had dedicated backplanes, probably bulk leased lines. Throughput wouldn't have been great, possibly as low as 9600 baud, though I believe 56k leased lines were fairly common (we had a few of these connecting uni campuses in the late 1980s). Where all comms was text, this was sufficient.
AOL wasn't providing military comms services, AFAIU, but personal communications, either between deployed servicemembers and spouses or partners back home, or entire deployed families and their own extended relatives and relations in the US. You're right that official military comms had their own channels. This personal/family element is precisely one of the factors shaping the cohort of AOL users which emerged being one of the major points of the article.
I'm not entirely sure of the timing, but 1991 -- 1999 would have been roughly the right timeline. Keep in mind that broadband was only starting to become generally available in the US by the late 1990s / early 2000s, and AOL continued as a major dialup provider through the mid-aughts.
I'm pretty sure this was DOS or Macintosh. I do recall helping neighbours with Mac-based AOL configurations on a Mac Quadra in the 1993--1995 timeframe.
I'm fairly certain this was AOL specifically. MCI might have been another possibility.
I didn't think leased lines were affordable to anyone outside of megacorps like IBM or top-tier research institutions. Negotiating with local service providers for cheap rates in the early 90s sounds plausible, but I can't say for sure.
I do recall something about BBSs, BITNET, Echomail being used in the Gulf War but I also have to look up that article.
Comments
Thank you for the reply. I'm aware of how BBSs and on-line services started (CServe, Prodigy, Genie). Most of what you've said in your earlier reply was spot on with the exception the initial audience for AOL (at least in its earliest incarnation). I later thought you might be referring to AIM, but I couldn't find any relation to your claim either. It seemed odd as to how overseas military families would have access to AOL given that:
a) International dialing rates were incredibly expensive at the time. I don't know how someone would be connecting to AOL in a local network in, say, Stuttgart or Mogadishu without paying a pretty penny.
b) Most online communication done by overseas military members would have been done over ARPANET/MILNET with on-premise or remote data terminals attached/networked to minicomputer or timesharing systems (e.g. Honeywell, CDC, Burroughs, etc).
c) The AOL's earlier incarnation, Q-Link, was a C64 only service. AOL only became available for DOS/PCs just as the Gulf War ended (February 28 1991).
d) Anything that couldn't run C/PM, Unix, or PC-DOS was considered a kids toy (an image not helped in Commodore's case with the C64 being sold in Toy's R US, but I digress).
Given these factors, I would think AOL's initial audience would have been the same hobbyists and MUD players that made BBSs popular for a time.
Perhaps you were talking about early flat-fee connection services/ packet networks like Tymnet, BBN Telenet, DATAPAC, Frame Relay, etc ?
Re: dialing rates: the point was that for the cost of a local call (and often free), AOL enabled family members to send email or (text) chat in realtime. That compared against either postal mail (a week or more overseas) or phone calls (expensive, possibly a dollar or more a minute). The service provider (I'm pretty sure it was AOL, might have been others) itself had dedicated backplanes, probably bulk leased lines. Throughput wouldn't have been great, possibly as low as 9600 baud, though I believe 56k leased lines were fairly common (we had a few of these connecting uni campuses in the late 1980s). Where all comms was text, this was sufficient.
AOL wasn't providing military comms services, AFAIU, but personal communications, either between deployed servicemembers and spouses or partners back home, or entire deployed families and their own extended relatives and relations in the US. You're right that official military comms had their own channels. This personal/family element is precisely one of the factors shaping the cohort of AOL users which emerged being one of the major points of the article.
I'm not entirely sure of the timing, but 1991 -- 1999 would have been roughly the right timeline. Keep in mind that broadband was only starting to become generally available in the US by the late 1990s / early 2000s, and AOL continued as a major dialup provider through the mid-aughts.
I'm pretty sure this was DOS or Macintosh. I do recall helping neighbours with Mac-based AOL configurations on a Mac Quadra in the 1993--1995 timeframe.
I'm fairly certain this was AOL specifically. MCI might have been another possibility.
I didn't think leased lines were affordable to anyone outside of megacorps like IBM or top-tier research institutions. Negotiating with local service providers for cheap rates in the early 90s sounds plausible, but I can't say for sure.
I do recall something about BBSs, BITNET, Echomail being used in the Gulf War but I also have to look up that article.