CompuServe forums being shut down on December 15

[robkelk]

The Register: Remember CompuServe forums? They're still around! Also they're about to die

Who here is surprised that they were still in existence?

No reason given, but The Register speculates that it's because they can't be monetized - which, if true, wouldn't surprise me at all.

[Bob Schroeck]

Who here is surprised that they were still in existence?

<raises hand>

[Star Ranger4]

<Raises hand>
And a moment of silence for the passing of an agent of change, please.
In a very real way, those hosted message boards were the seeds from which the WWW sprouted, a grandparent of todays social media.

[Kilroy]

It does seem strange that I can still remember my CIS ID (72767,2004) when I have no idea what my GEnie account was. Both are almost twenty-five years distant now.

Did anyone else have the CompuServe-Hallmark animated e-card software package? The terminal program that was in it was able to display RLE images on screen as they were downloaded.

[Mamorien]

The Loomis household's CIS# was (70415,1160). I never had GEnie, but I did have a Prodigy account... and I can't remember what the user ID was, only that I was Richard MacDuff in the Douglas Adams forum and Lelldorin in the David Eddings forum (sort of a beta version of the Future Disney Cabinet).

[Inquisitive Raven]

Who here is surprised that they were still in existence?

<Waves>

Unlike some folks here, I don't remember my CIS ID, although I do remember that CompuServe used octal for them. I didn't have accounts on any of the other big-name services of the time. Indeed I remember staying far away from Prodigy both because the early graphical interface sucked, and the fact that they pioneered monetization by advertising.