In the 1990s AOL surpassed its competitors CompuServe and Prodigy to become the most visited internet site/portal in the world. AOL CDs were distributed far and wide, some of which said once you tried it, you’d be a different person. They weren’t wrong. By the end of 1997, AOL had about 8 million users, and […]
There was a Mac client (AOL4Free, I think?) that worked by sending a token saying that the user was in a support session after each request. Support was free, so this eliminated billing charges beyond the monthly subscription. I read that it was the work of a college student. Made my life sweet at the time.
Another memory of that time: PC users calling themselves “barcodes,” with names like IIIllIllI flooding our chats and running macros to harass Mac users. Stupid shit. Whatever. We had knock-off macros, but I don’t think we had an equivalent to AOHell.
Also: Cheers to all who built a career on this hobby / fascination when we were kids and such. What a great outcome. “Say HERE to get added to my mass-mail of pirated material!”
There was a Mac client (AOL4Free, I think?) that worked by sending a token saying that the user was in a support session after each request. Support was free, so this eliminated billing charges beyond the monthly subscription. I read that it was the work of a college student. Made my life sweet at the time.
Another memory of that time: PC users calling themselves “barcodes,” with names like IIIllIllI flooding our chats and running macros to harass Mac users. Stupid shit. Whatever. We had knock-off macros, but I don’t think we had an equivalent to AOHell.
Also: Cheers to all who built a career on this hobby / fascination when we were kids and such. What a great outcome. “Say HERE to get added to my mass-mail of pirated material!”
haha yes I remember those too!
Barcodes are still around, these traditions die hard! :)