How Much Did Those AOL CDs Cost? A Lot.

[mindless728]

i used those discs as a Frisbee, fun times

 

[cookoy]

seem like a lot of CDs go to the same mailing list addresses.

 

[that_id]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]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.[/citation]

Yeah, we need more businesses to act like babysitters so parents don't have to tear themselves away from 'Dancing with the Stars' to make sure their kid is actually doing homework...

 

[that_id]

[citation][nom]bildo123[/nom]... 95% of the people that loved AOL were pretty much computer illiterate and loved the fugly browser and "You got mail" saying.[/citation]
95% of the population pretty much IS computer illiterate.

As for the discs, I'm glad that I can open a magazine / my mailbox these days without having an AOL disc fall out of it.
Fortunately the business model is obsolete now that almost all software is downloaded almost instantly.

 

[Guest]

Back when AOLer was a cussword used by proper nerds.

In Europe, hardly anyone knew that such a thing as the internet even existed. Only freaks and academics used it. But then came the AOL kids from the US and polluted news groups with their rubbish and their flame wars. Later came business and dragged in the European equivalent of AOLers (T-komers?), then came politics. Sad story actually. Except for the bandwidth explosion.

I used a 14k modem to make local calls to my university and then connect from there. It was cheap and surfing worked well because web pages were mainly text with an occasional icon. Hail to Mosaic/Netscape, the revolutionary web browser! I used to check my mails and read news groups with pine. That's a text-only command line tool, kids. I also spent much time playing in a MUD via telnet. That's a MMORPG for you. Text-only, of course, but open to extension by every user who had a high-enough level.

Ahh, good times. And all of that with nothing but a telephone line. I always pitied those who bought their pre-packaged internet from the likes of AOL. In fact, AOL could have copied *their* internet onto those CDs they were churning out so massively and save the actual connection! With a free update every week, including their email, people would have been just as happy.

 

[TechDicky]

[citation][nom]billsmithem[/nom]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?[/citation]

Hahahah, ok, so I'm not the only one that is a little long in the tooth on technology... and I have to say, you have me beat. The only thing I played with before the 8086 was a TRS-80. I did use one of those (Model II or III) with an 8" floppy drive. But you've got me on the rest of them...

 

[dapneym]

We would always give them to my aunt. She used shedloads of them in her art. I think we may have made a few ornaments out of them as well.

 

[f-14]

i used them as frisbies and that quickly evolved into target practice. i saved the jewel cases and used them for my mix cd's. put one unopened disc in a time capsule, saved 1 of every version unopened as a collectors item in a box and threw the box in a closet(you never know 20+ years down the line) made a toy periscope with some and a carpet tube for 2 of my cousins, made a prism baby crib mobile for a friends 1st born, went around the twin cities to about 10 best buys and various other stores like office max, office depot, compusa, computer city, circuit city and took all their free discs and made a nerds home gym for the guys in my IT class after i ran circles around them while mowing them down in the tiny basement of splatball inc. to which they subsquently replaced the wheels on my truck with them the following day and having to rollerblade 15 miles home because they hid the wheels in the mississippi river on campus. that was the last time i parked on the downhill side of campus.

 

[techcurious]

i used them as frisbies and that quickly evolved into target practice. i saved the jewel cases and used them for my mix cd's. put one unopened disc in a time capsule, saved 1 of every version unopened as a collectors item in a box and threw the box in a closet(you never know 20+ years down the line) made a toy periscope with some and a carpet tube for 2 of my cousins, made a prism baby crib mobile for a friends 1st born, went around the twin cities to about 10 best buys and various other stores like office max, office depot, compusa, computer city, circuit city and took all their free discs and made a nerds home gym for the guys in my IT class after i ran circles around them while mowing them down in the tiny basement of splatball inc. to which they subsquently replaced the wheels on my truck with them the following day and having to rollerblade 15 miles home because they hid the wheels in the mississippi river on campus. that was the last time i parked on the downhill side of campus.

oh shucks... now you are just making crap up..

 

[arges86]

Although the NetZero disks were harder, they made amazing 'frisbee' like devices

there are several pine trees in my parents neighborhood that have these disks (or fragments of them) still embedded in the trunk. If you could get a nice overhand throw, those suckers would travel 40 yards or more

 

[Pawessum16]

Being born in '92 I was relatively young when these discs were being sent out. I remember I had the curious urge to scratch up and break a CD, and so that's what happened to them when my mom would hand them to me. "You mean I can actually scratch and destroy this CD?"

 

[randomhero1090]

C02 pistol targets.

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]billsmithem[/nom]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?[/citation]
Wow, it's been a long time since I've even thought about those 8" floppys. I remember thinking how awesome the DSDD disks were when they came out and really hating the tape drive on my C64 when I needed to store larger programs/data.

As far as the AOL CDs, I always nuked them.

 

[wolfram23]

I loved those CDs back in the dial up days. I didn't pay for internet for probably a good 2 years or so.

 

[michaelahess]

Covered my neighbors front door with them reversed, made a hell of a mirror.

 

[aaron88_7]

[citation][nom]that_id[/nom]95% of the population pretty much IS computer illiterate.[/citation]
Beat me to it.

But to those who say AOL was for computer illiterate clearly you were missing out on the best part of AOL. Picking up hot chicks! Back then girls still thought it was a bit of a novelty to meet random nerdy guys from the internet and hot chicks were too stupid to use anything other than AOL. It was great. Now hot chicks know better to ask for a picture first to make sure you look like some wannabe gangster douchebag before hooking up. No fun anymore now, I miss those days lol

 

[chosenlast]

The activation codes were good admin passwords. The two random words combined were sometimes very funny as well.

 

[belardo]

Didn't AOL and other services charge more when the user had a faster modem?

AOL didn't do anything for the internet. It was a computer communication community for the typical person. Techies used Usenet, FidoNet and BBS and didn't pay a dime.

I used a service for TRIAL mode for a few weeks, long enough to download a good BBS client program... then that was it.

 

[orionantares]

I found a box full of them one day while cleaning. They went to Best Buy for recycling.

 

[9450392956]

What is all this

 

[mtyermom]

I did all of those things, actually. Fried them in the microwave for the light show, used them as coasters for a while and eventually used them to cover a wall in discs.

 

[the_ub]

[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]

Seriously dude? Have you never even heard of AOL Time Warner? AOL is a very strong and evolving company. They attained a massive subscribing base in the early internet boom, hell, some say they made the internet boom. They had a lot of money. I think they knew 56k would soon be outdated via broadband, so they bought up Time Warner while they had the money and resources. Ever heard of Time magazine? thats AOL. ever heard of warner brothers? thats AOL. yea, look where it got them...

 

[lysinger]

Whey they used to send floppy disks, I remember 3.5" disks and I only had a 5.25" drive so I gave the disks to my rich friends (the ones old enough to have part time or full time jobs, I was young ^_^). I used the CDs for coasters and burnt one up in a microwave to see the sparkly light show. I'm glad I didn't use my microwave, the burnt plastic smelling smoke could not have been healthy for the owner when they next cooked in it.

 

[Guest]

Cut some of them up into moon and star shapes and made a mobile for a friend who just had a baby.

If you needed more, you could pick up a handful at just about any store....

 

[husker]

[citation][nom]Belardo[/nom]Didn't AOL and other services charge more when the user had a faster modem?AOL didn't do anything for the internet. It was a computer communication community for the typical person. Techies used Usenet, FidoNet and BBS and didn't pay a dime.I used a service for TRIAL mode for a few weeks, long enough to download a good BBS client program... then that was it.[/citation]
Wrong. AOL was the first ISP to offer unlimited internet access for a flat monthly fee. Before that, it was always pay-per-minute.