How Much Did Those AOL CDs Cost? A Lot.

[jj463rd]

[citation][nom]aaron88_7[/nom]A handful of highly efficient Prius cars would consume far more oil than producing all those discs. Considering most people don't drive vehicles nearly as efficient, I'd say it's a bit hypocritical to criticize a major corporation for their marketing efforts when the criticizee is consuming more oil for their own personal uses.Let's not forget that AOL played a major role in developing the internet for mass appeal. In the mid 90's if you wanted the internet you usually got AOL. I still remember the day they stopped charging by the minute and gave everyone unlimited use. It took forever to get through to their overloaded network....but unlimited internet access, mmmmm now it it's hard to believe we used to pay by the minute![/citation]

One thing that I liked about AOL is that they supported Windows 3.1,3.11 WfW for a very long time up till around 2003 if one used it shortly for retro computing.Their news forums were a disaster though as later if someone didn't like (disagreed with)one of your posts they could flag a fairly innocent post and AOL would boot you off the Internet which became a bad annoyance if one was later doing a large file download on dial up access.I left them long ago.Afterwards I went for Qwest DSL with MSN which was fairly inexpensive in my area and it was a far better experience.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

I wish AOL was still around as strong as it was. At LEAST it provided a safe atmosphere for it members. There needs to be that sort of control on the Internet. A better way to get tracked and a better way to get banned. Unfortunately, the Internet has become one big Pedo's Playground. There's THAT side of it, and there's the piracy issue. I remember going into AOL chat rooms and running into CAT (Community Action Team) members that would moderate chat rooms. I miss those days. This was when chatting was actually enjoyable. Too bad AOL couldn't maintain the same level of service, and compete with the FREE Internet. Maybe Google should acquire AOL.

 

[gman0417]

In the early days they were sending floppies. I would erase and reuse them.

 

[techcurious]

I would stick a couple of them on the wall behind my desktop PC, with the recorded surface facing away from the wall and towards the back of my PC. My PC was as close to the wall as possible and was in an unmovable frame attaching it to my desk. So this way, The CD's acted as mirrors and made plugging and unplugging of wires into the back of my PC easy

 

[Guest]

I had a friend who filled an entire wall in his pool room with AOL discs and other junk-mail CD's he came across. Looked pretty cool.

 

[Guest]

If you were REALLY lucky, they would send the CD is a plastic box, similar to what a
DVD comes in. That was definitely recyclable.

 

[slimbones]

They make awesome Christmas tree decorations! Put lights on the tree first. Then, just push the branch tip through the center hole, data side OUT, and repeat. You need a good 30 or 40 at least, but I collected them from neighbors, friends, and relatives.

 

[bhaberle]

[citation][nom]iamtheking123[/nom]And look where it got them...nowadays no one uses them except maybe for AIM (if that's still owned by AOL) but beyond that they're nothing.[/citation]


You'd be surprised. AOL is one of the leading online advertising companies now. They run sites similar to Tom's and get ad revenue. They also have their own ad services that people use to put ads on their own sites.

 

[nukemaster]

-Outdoor Frisbee(was outdoor since they did lots of damage when they hit things, hell they damaged drywall with ease) , even better a toy car motor plus a cd holder(once up to speed pull the motor down and watch the disc fly) from a discman, boy did that send then flying

Microwaved many of them

Lots of coasters

One in a rarely used dvd players stops some dust from getting on the lens

Etch art into the label side and have it show on the data side. Yup did that too.

Never once did I end up installing it

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]InTheCity[/nom]Nice way to waste a butt load of oil. Douchebags.[/citation]
who cares about oil when you can make fuel from corn and algae...the question is, will this corrupt government let it happen?

 

[skora]

I affixed them to the hub cabs of my 92 ATE. That's an All Terrain Escort. That's right, rocking the bling on 4 cylinders.

 

[snotling]

[citation][nom]tomate2[/nom]never seen one on those before... [/citation]
and to create what the archeologists of the future may call the AOL layer when digging in our dirt.

I mean, Oil is one thing but pollution? nobody needs more trash.

 

[warmon6]

I think somewhere in my house we still have some of those old AOL disk still wrapped in it's box. :lol: as some people said, they were sending them out to quickly for there own good.

 

[igot1forya]

I used to order them online (from the 3.5" disk version), and as soon as I'd get them I'd format them and add to my collection of new disks

 

[awood28211]

I remember getting thin metal tins complete with a CD and documentation inside... But a friend and I took the AOL CD and put a battery operated clock from a craft store... the kind that's just the motor, hands and battery case...through the hole and made a CD clock. At the time it was still a year or more before we saw these being sold commercially... i think he still has it actually. The 100 or more CD's I received over the years I either passed on to less-savy people who wanted net or just tossed them. Excellent way to fill a landfill...

 

[igot1forya]

Once, I ordered a whole bunch of CD's and Floppies to my neighbors house - they were addressed to: "Move your d*mn truck" as this guy would always park in our parking space. After about 30 CD's, he got the point.

 

[marraco]

They spent more money harassing us that really making something useful and valuable.

They tried to build walls around, treating us like sheep to be limited and squeezed.

Fortunately, they failed, but are trying again by the way of destroying net neutrality.

 

[sevir]

I was about 12-14 years old when these discs came flooding in the mail. My friends and i would collect as many as we can and fuse them together to make shields. They were awesome! huge reflective shields. We would make swords out of newspaper and wrapping paper rolls and have LARP fights in the back yard. Good times!!

 

[prgmhorse]

made great targets for my shotgun

 

[TechDicky]

Ahhh AOL... It takes me back... Lets see how old I am compared to others out here on Toms...

Did you ever:

Use AOL, CompuServ, or Prodigy?

Use a BBS (Bulletin Board Service)?

Use a BBS that was purely command line driven (no graphics, no clicking)?

Use a 300 Baud Modem?

Use a Modem that you actually plugged your phones handset into (Acoustic Coupler)?

Use a computer with a 5 1/4" Floppy (not the 3 1/2" like the AOLs"?

Use a computer with a Monochrome Monitor (only one color either green or amber)?

Use a computer with a Turbo Button (meant to slow your computer down from like 10 MHz to 8 MHz or so)?

Haha, man I feel old now...

 

[billsmithem]

Microwave: Think "Energy weapon strikes Enterprise saucer section" (don't recommend more than 3 secs on high)

A friend used to bolt battery operated clock mechanisms into the center hole and glue numbers on the face.

I think there's still one somewhere under all the junk in the trunk of my car.

 

[billsmithem]

[citation][nom]TechDicky[/nom]Ahhh AOL... It takes me back... Lets see how old I am compared to others out here on Toms...Did you ever... Haha, man I feel old now...[/citation]

Yes to all of the above. Did you ever:

Write code on an intel MDS800 8080 development system?

Use a computer with 8" floppy drives?

Write an assembler for a Fairchild F8 4-bit processor in 8080 assembly language?

Use a system with a 4-bit processor?

Use a DEC microNova 16 bit minicomputer?

 

[ulysses35]

all those CD's and all that money and the en result is ??? pants software AOL like you to use to browse the net. Im not 100% sure if AOL didnt invent bloatware

 

[bildo123]

[citation][nom]yao[/nom]I received a lot of such CDs. They arrived too frequent than needed.[/citation]

This. I remember getting a CD what felt like every other week, it was crazy. What was ironic was getting my parents AOL account completely terminated (punters/bots/other chat channels) whoops. Low and behold however, about six months later, maybe even sooner the CD's kept rolling back in. DSL was just starting to come out around that time in which we made the switch and never, ever looked back at AOL. Let's be realistic, 95% of the people that loved AOL were pretty much computer illiterate and loved the fugly browser and "You got mail" saying.

 

[dark_lord69]

"When we went public in 1992 we had less than 200,000 subscribers; a decade later the number was in the 25 million range"...
And now it's back down to the 200,000 (or less [if any]) range.
Do you know why AOL died out?
1. Tech people such as myself hated it.
2. It was a filterd and packaged internet that blocked websites.
3. They didn't adapt and become broadband until it was too late.
4. They had the mentality that they would always be number 1 and didn't need to change desipte critics such as myself.
5. AOL users were comonly thought of as computer illiterate.

I always thought AOL sucks and I'm happy to see that they went down in flames.