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by tablespoon 1481 days ago
> It wasn't really a walled garden, though. I remember using the AOL client software to connect to the internet and then opening IE to browse internet sites like yahoo, geocities and slashdot.

That wasn't always true. At some point internet access was a "feature" that was added to the walled-garden AOL. They famously added Usenet in September 1993. I can't find a date for web access, but I'd guess 1995.
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tmm84 1480 days ago
I remember the usenet and gopher features that were part of the AOL client. I remember the hype I had heard as a kid on AOL back in those days. When I found them and tried to use them (I was about 12 years old) I didn't find them very helpful or easy to use like the main forms in AOL but after a few years after leaving AOL I got way more out of IRC and usenet than I had in my time there. What AOL did for me at that time was present an internet that was good enough because it was easy enough to use.
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unixhero 1480 days ago
Eternal September, aaahhh
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analog31 1480 days ago
I certainly remember the culture clash when AOL opened the Internet to "newbies," starting with Usenet and then everything else. I think part of it was just that being able to connect no longer made you part of a special club.

I was one of those newbies. When my spouse and I were living in different towns after grad school, AOL allowed us to communicate using local phone numbers in our respective locations, using a single account. Later on, they reconfigured their software so that it was running on top of a regular TCP/IP client, and you'd use it by logging in with the AOL software and then switching over to Netscape and an e-mail program that recognized AOL's protocol.

I ran my first side business from an AOL e-mail address.

AOL was the closest thing to "it just works" in the business for quite a while. Plus, their nationwide reach meant that you could access it anywhere without paying for long distance phone service. It took a few more years for the Internet to work that well for everybody.

I predicted to my friends that pretty soon everybody would have access to the Internet! Today we look back on the early Internet with nostalgia.

Eternal September... yeah, bring it on.

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