AIM will shut down after 20 years

 

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/6/16435690/aim-shutting-dow...

Many many moons ago my first taste of this addiction to the internet I have came from getting an AOL disk in the mail. AIM was the first instant message thingamabob and it was cool. Of course as time went on AOL became AOHell and I moved out of the AOL cocoon and have been wandering around in cyberland ever since.

You never forget your first taste.

RIP AIM

November 1994 ~ December 15, 2017.

--
. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .

And now the end is near...

soberbyker wrote:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/6/16435690/aim-shutting-dow...

Many many moons ago my first taste of this addiction to the internet I have came from getting an AOL disk in the mail. AIM was the first instant message thingamabob and it was cool. Of course as time went on AOL became AOHell and I moved out of the AOL cocoon and have been wandering around in cyberland ever since.

You never forget your first taste.

RIP AIM

November 1994 ~ December 15, 2017.

Nothing is permanent and everything has an end. It's just a matter of time. I do still remember my first browser Netscape way back in the 90's.
.

--
EGMJR

AOL

AOl was purchase by Verizon ,many years ago. as a Today 2.1 millions peole are using AOL. and some Members are still using AOL ( Dial up, must pay for Aol Membership ), it was Free over a decade when Aol pair up with Time warner cable. If you had Time Warner Cable internet then aol was/And still is free of charge.. Some people are still using Aol E-mail (including me )lol
With AIM stop working as December 15 2017 I am sure those 2.1 millions users the number is going to go way down.

Not a Merry Christmas for those who still are using AIM I guess.

A sign of becoming more mature (OLDER)

Driver 38 wrote:

AOl was purchase by Verizon ,many years ago. as a Today 2.1 millions peole are using AOL. and some Members are still using AOL ( Dial up, must pay for Aol Membership ), it was Free over a decade when Aol pair up with Time warner cable. If you had Time Warner Cable internet then aol was/And still is free of charge.. Some people are still using Aol E-mail (including me )lol
With AIM stop working as December 15 2017 I am sure those 2.1 millions users the number is going to go way down.
Not a Merry Christmas for those who still are using AIM I guess.

I remember many stores, restaurants etc. which I used to frequent. All gone long ago. A sign of maturity (OLD AGE)

I also remember using Netscape which I thought was the cats behind, that is so long ago now. I also used to use AOL free for 30 days when I found myself looking for a better and less costly ISP. Of course all that was in the Dial-Up days. Went from 14.4 to 28.8 and thought wow this is fast. Then from there to 56.6 and I could not believe the speed, LOL !

--
Nuvi 2797LMT, DriveSmart 50 LMT-HD, Using Windows 10. DashCam A108C with GPS.

AOL

I do not have AOL software installed on my pc. But I still can retrive my mail through the Pc and my phone. I use Spectrum for internet and my speed is 100mbs. When I do my speed test it go about 118mbs range..

I guess for people still using the 56k modem just to look around the internet is just fine, but for files download,or video streaming does not cut it.

I have used Internet High speed since was avaiables. And I like it.

You Gotta Admit

You gotta admit, IM was a pretty cool innovation back in the day.

Agree.

It was innovative in its day. I remember a demo at my workplace using AOL dial-up and Mosaic browser back in the mid 90's, displayed from a Mac connected to an overhead projecter color VGA display device. It blew me away ... a window into the future. There was almost no content in the "world wide web" at that time, but it was a clear indication of what was coming. It changed the world and there is no going back. The AOL "You've got mail" message is an icon for beginning of the connected world.

--
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

Nothing to do with AOL,

but I go way back to the days of Dial-Up 56K modems, before Al Gores Internet, where you dialed in to someones Bulletin Board. Some guy probably running 3 or 4 modems in his basement. You were limited to what he had. First computer was a Radio Shack TRS 80.

--
"As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one a friend." - James Russell Lowell Garmin StreetPilot C330, Garmin NUVI 765T, Garmin DriveSmart 60LMT

yup

alandb wrote:

~snip~

The AOL "You've got mail" message is an icon for beginning of the connected world.

I used to love the "You've Got Mail" sound byte, even when I moved on I used to use the byte in other mail programs as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFBLiHpkcOk

A little bonus for those of us that started with dial up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dudJjUU9Nhs

--
. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .

Ancient history.

I actually started with 110 "baud" acoustic couplers connected to a teletype. It was before Internet, but we "dialed in" to a HP timeshare computer and there were online "bulletin boards" as well as "MUSH" gaming environments and news/stock feeds. Teletypes were noisy electric "oil burners" requiring constant maintainence ... those of you old enough will know what I mean. They had a paper tape punch/reader for "storage". Having a battery operated high speed paper tape winder/spooler was considered to be a real luxury. I remember when we traded in our old Teletype-33's for 1200 baud "DECwriters" with a built in modem and dot-matrix printing. I thought we had "arrived" at the ultimate communications system!

It still amazes me that the entire "computer revolution" has occurred within my lifetime. It reminds me of some of the conversations I had with my Dad (passed in the early 80's; he was born in 1910) explaining how he couldn't have imagined "modern technology" in his youth. Of course he was talking about indoor bathrooms, cars and paved highways, airplanes, air conditioning, television, etc. My years are numbered now, but I do wonder what my kids will see in their lifetimes that I can not imagine and what stories they will tell their kids about the "old days".

--
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

Back in the day

In the late '90s, I was a computer consultant. We had employees in several cities across the country and AIM was our corporate instant messenger. Jeez, I haven't even thought about it in over 15 years.

--
"No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won't make it worse."

Time Moves On

Don't forget CompuServe in all this, they were a big part of the adoption of the cyber world.

Look at what has happened to photography. No more rolls of film, developing, etc.

--
When you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It is only difficult for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.

and before that...

There was BITNET not BitNet.. but BITNET

If my memory is right BITNET ran from about 1981 to about 1996..

BITNET was my first real online exposure was in 1985... not AIM by any means... but it was the only real thing then... some e-mail and some exchanging of files... of course you could use BITNET from home via a modem in a pc... using a modem and a phone line connecting to a mainframe somewhere...

And before that use I think it was an Apple II with an external (150 baud) modem to dial into a mainframe somewhere to do some emergency work.. but if you had to do a lot of work.. well, it was still quicker to get dressed, get in the car and drive to work and do whatever... and this was back in like 1980 and all you could do was to dial in, view / edit a file and screen print..

and before that, in about 1968, I could get into some of the the CSU systems.. via a dedicated point-to-point terminals in dedicated rooms.. but not do much else... edit a file, play a game, print a file, but I'm getting a tad far afield...

--
Never argue with a pig. It makes you look foolish and it anoys the hell out of the pig!

technology axe

When you look at it there is nothing that makes you feel old like technology smile You talk to people ("kids") just a few years younger about "old" tech stuff and you see lack of understanding in their eyes. Like you are the one that lived alongside dinosaurs smile

I'm middle age and still there is a kind of surprise in kids eyes that I know how to use smartphone. Well, I even know how to use fax and typewriter smile And I was using computers and Internet (as it was then) way before those kids were born smile

But still, when you think about it, it makes you remember how many years passed already.

BBS

I was in a computer lab my first semester in college when someone showed me how to access a BBS. Met my first boyfriend that way (I was a late bloomer). He lived in Belfast. I recall it taking literally 8 hours to have a conversation.

If I didn't feel old enough, my friend's 10 year old asked what those "little boxes with square holes in the top" were. "They're in almost every room in the house!". It took a minute to figure out he was talking about telephone jacks.

I haven't thought about telephone jacks in years! Back when my "roaming" radius was only as far as that stupid twisty cord would go, and the distance always seemed to shrink as the cord became knotted within itself.

~Angela

netzero

emercado wrote:

Nothing is permanent and everything has an end. It's just a matter of time. I do still remember my first browser Netscape way back in the 90's.
.

I remember netscape, also I remember when I finally left AOL, there was netzero, a way to access the internet and was free back then, for a limited amount of time each week. I had a Juno email account, boy those were the days .... not. There's absolutely no way in the world I could use the net the way I do now with dial-up and the limited services of days gone by.

--
. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .

The Memories

Brings back so many memories!

goodbye, i guess ...

I figured something was up when I saw that my AIM account vanished from Messages in the latest version of macOS. I was still using that to communicate with a friend who is digitally challenged. AIM worked when others did not,

--

it's the dog's fault

--
Garmin DriveSmart 5 My other toys: IMac quad-core i3, Mac Mini M1. MacOS: Ventura 13.3.1 The dog's name is Ginger.

and Yes....

Time changes everything.

--
RKF (Brookeville, MD) Garmin Nuvi 660, 360 & Street Pilot

Those free AOL CDs...

My friend used them as coasters, since they sent them out every week, it seemed.

--
Striving to make the NYC Metro area project the best.

Frisbee's too

camerabob wrote:

My friend used them as coasters, since they sent them out every week, it seemed.

Yup, Frisbee's too

--
. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .

Yup, I remember those "little boxes".

They're still in my parents house.

GlobeTurtle wrote:

I was in a computer lab my first semester in college when someone showed me how to access a BBS. Met my first boyfriend that way (I was a late bloomer). He lived in Belfast. I recall it taking literally 8 hours to have a conversation.

If I didn't feel old enough, my friend's 10 year old asked what those "little boxes with square holes in the top" were. "They're in almost every room in the house!". It took a minute to figure out he was talking about telephone jacks.

I haven't thought about telephone jacks in years! Back when my "roaming" radius was only as far as that stupid twisty cord would go, and the distance always seemed to shrink as the cord became knotted within itself.

~Angela

--
Nuvi 2460LMT.

I still have

and prefer a land line (using cable modem) for routine day-to-day personal and business calls. So I still use those "little boxes", although with cordless phones you don't need one in every room like you used to.

--
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

I was one of those guys!

>>where you dialed in to someones Bulletin Board. Some guy probably >>running 3 or 4 modems in his basement.

I was one of those guys! I hosted the Midwest Node for a group of folks who were interested in data base programming in the early days of PC's.

We were the think tank for testing and promoting use of Aston Tate's dBase and Nantucket's Clipper with nodes in Palo Alto, New York City and my house in Dunlap, IL.

The first modems we used were telephone handsets placed in cradle modems. Our computers and phone lines were provided by software companies ... which was a good thing, because I never would have been able to afford a PC when only IBM sold them!

--
Garmin 205, 260W, 1450LMT, 2460LMT, HEREwego for iPhone ... all still mapping strong.

Yep.. I was a SYSOP once..

alleghany wrote:

but I go way back to the days of Dial-Up 56K modems, before Al Gores Internet, where you dialed in to someones Bulletin Board. Some guy probably running 3 or 4 modems in his basement. You were limited to what he had. First computer was a Radio Shack TRS 80.

Ran a BBS for about 6 yrs, had 4 nodes in it and was fun to do. I learned a lot in those days!!

The board was called HQ RBBS in NYC

--
Bobkz - Garmin Nuvi 3597LMTHD/2455LMT/C530/C580- "Pain Is Fear Leaving The Body - Semper Fidelis"

OMG..

cbwatts wrote:

>>where you dialed in to someones Bulletin Board. Some guy probably >>running 3 or 4 modems in his basement.

I was one of those guys! I hosted the Midwest Node for a group of folks who were interested in data base programming in the early days of PC's.

We were the think tank for testing and promoting use of Aston Tate's dBase and Nantucket's Clipper with nodes in Palo Alto, New York City and my house in Dunlap, IL.

The first modems we used were telephone handsets placed in cradle modems. Our computers and phone lines were provided by software companies ... which was a good thing, because I never would have been able to afford a PC when only IBM sold them!

I will bet I was one of your Users - always looking for information or Tools to help us program with dBase III and IV and all the rest. Also used Clipper to compile the programs to make them run smooth and faster. Wow, brings back days..

And I still have the Floppys for all of them!

--
Bobkz - Garmin Nuvi 3597LMTHD/2455LMT/C530/C580- "Pain Is Fear Leaving The Body - Semper Fidelis"

Hi Bob!

Hi Bob! You probably were! Back then, we all were looking for ways to program dBase ... and then thought we died and went to Heaven when Clipper came out.

Clipper CEO Larry Heimendinger asked me to proofread his Clipper programming book and test the disks included with the book.

I also helped start IDBUG ... the first International Database Users Group. We sponsored a network of BBS's ... and published a quarterly magazine.

Did you ever use GRUMPFISH? Its author, Greg LIEF, was a friend of mine.

I really loved those days, and we enjoyed helping other database programers in the earlier years. Never really made the jump to WINDOWS programming but I'm glad to see you are another "survivor" of the earlier programming years of PC's ... way before the internet existed.

--
Garmin 205, 260W, 1450LMT, 2460LMT, HEREwego for iPhone ... all still mapping strong.

Wow !!!

cbwatts wrote:

Hi Bob! You probably were! Back then, we all were looking for ways to program dBase ... and then thought we died and went to Heaven when Clipper came out.

Clipper CEO Larry Heimendinger asked me to proofread his Clipper programming book and test the disks included with the book.

I also helped start IDBUG ... the first International Database Users Group. We sponsored a network of BBS's ... and published a quarterly magazine.

Did you ever use GRUMPFISH? Its author, Greg LIEF, was a friend of mine.

I really loved those days, and we enjoyed helping other database programers in the earlier years. Never really made the jump to WINDOWS programming but I'm glad to see you are another "survivor" of the earlier programming years of PC's ... way before the internet existed.

I am familiar with IDBUG, Me and my boss did indeed visited IDBUG and did subscribe to the mag!. Yes, I believed we also used GrumpFish!! wasn't it Grumpfish Library and other tools like reporter?

I even found a Zip file with some of the tools: Here is part of the order information..

Grumpfish, Inc.
1661 Edgewater St NW, Suite 240
Salem, Oregon 97304 USA
Internet grumpfish@chemek.com
BBS 503-588-xxxx

Those were the days!!!

--
Bobkz - Garmin Nuvi 3597LMTHD/2455LMT/C530/C580- "Pain Is Fear Leaving The Body - Semper Fidelis"

Oh boy !

When Globe Turtle mentioned the BBS, that brought back memories. I had an ATARI 130XL with a 300 baud modem. I could not afford a Commodore 64! I really did not know what the modem was for. Once by sheer accident I got onto someones BBS and tried to follow along. Be darned if I could ever find that BBS again later on.

As for floppy disks, we had them then for the 'puter.
Now we still have them, but not for the 'puter.

My first computer, if you can call it that, was a Timex-Sinclair. Had a HUGE 2kb memory. The size of a large pack of cigarettes. Used B/W TV as monitor and an ordinary casette player to load programs.
You'd load a program and watched some squiggley black lines for 20 minutes and then a message the program did not load.

And we complain these days about the odd little glitch happening?

--
Nuvi 2797LMT, DriveSmart 50 LMT-HD, Using Windows 10. DashCam A108C with GPS.

what a memory!

soberbyker wrote:

A little bonus for those of us that started with dial up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dudJjUU9Nhs

Haha and just by listening, we knew if the connection would fail to negotiate.

Clipper / Grumpfish

I started my career with dBase and then was very excited to move to Clipper. I bought a copy of Clipper 5.2 a couple years ago for nostalgia to put in my library. Well I'm board tonight so I pulled it out and loaded it on an x86 emulator for my Mac and I'm working on recompiling some of my code from 30 years ago lol. I Googled Grumpfish because Greg's library is used in my app and thought I may be able to track him down. I met him at a Clipper conference once in CA. Do you still have his contact info Bob? I'm sure this would be a strange request for him smile

I started out with AOL dial up....

Still go to AOL page but getting so tired of the intrusive ads that move, get bigger or other avenues to get you to click on one. I get they need ads to make money but the way they do it does get irritating.

old

I started with the vic 20 and dial up when a game was only 64k, I remember when I bought my first tape drive, then my super large 1 meg hard drive, I remember going to computer meetings at the library .

AIM Problems

Back in the day whenever we fixed software issues, one of the first things we asked was do you have AOL and do you use AIM. If the answer was yes, then that was our first thing to check. AOL and AIM were the cause of most of the software issues. Also AIM had many vulnerabilities and was fairly easy to compromise.

Wow

Honestly, surprised AIM is still around. Was great in it's day.

Thanks for the Memories

lap777 wrote:
soberbyker wrote:

A little bonus for those of us that started with dial up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dudJjUU9Nhs

Haha and just by listening, we knew if the connection would fail to negotiate.

Wow, that sure does bring back some memories. LOL

AOL Bit Him in the.....

Told a friend about AOL and he was brand new to computers. when he signed up and set up his account, he didn't pay attention to the phone number to be dialed.
Turned out it was long distance and not a local number (which was available). He spend hours messing with the internet.
When he got his phone bill, he about went into a cardio incident.
Live and learn.

--
Under no circumstances whatsoever, will logic and common sense be tolerated.

Compuserve was my first Internet Exposure

My first Internet exposure was with Compuserve. Compuserve preceded both AOL & Prodigy if my memory serves me. At the time Compuserve was very basic and I remember that to do an Internet search the first word you had to type was "go" plus another search word. I don't recall seeing any online images at the time, just text.