[ih] Chat room and forum archives

[Ofer Inbar]

On Thu, Sep 01, 2022 at 11:24:27AM -0700,
Bob Purvy <bpurvy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Len starts out on the right end of the spectrum, which runs from:
> 
> eater teenager --> college student --> post-college professional -->
> clueless AOL / Prodigy / CompuServe user

In the mid-90s, all three of those are around the same size.
Prodigy aimed at being more newb-friendly than CompuServe and marketed
itself that way, and AOL was already sending out those disks to everyone.  
Probably either of those are more likely for this guy than CompuServe,
which had been big for longer than the other two but was also less
user friendly and less game- and family- oriented.  He might have been
less intimidated to sign up for Prodigy or AOL than for CompuServe.
GEnie I think was already starting to wane by then.

Speaking of Prodigy, I did some fun contract work for them in the 80s,
beginning I think a bit before they actually launched the name Prodigy.
They had me scour the BBS world (which I was very familiar with) for
free and shareware games, download them, play them, and upload to
their new service along with reviews.  They wanted to offer their
users a large but curated library of games, with reviews.
  -- Cos