Stefano Paganini: mining for web, marketing, technology, fun

Digging in my vintage-computer mess, I found this pack from Xmas 1994 – labelled Software ETC.

 

I barely reminded that a long-time friend, Claudio, brought me this stuff from a trip in the USA – where early Internet was booming, back then.
These are the greeting packs, introductory kits and installation floppies for some of the very earliest Internet Service Provider in the USA.
By today standards, it seems so funny to read their “services” descriptions and the amazing features they were leveraging.
It’s been some 20 years since this internet access software was released, mostly for Windows 3.1 !, and now Internet is something we all take for granted (or not?), be it mobile or on a desktop computer.

Here are some crazy features and staggering figures:
- America Online stated that you’d be able to access “over 60,000 files to download”,
- Compuserve offered “over 2,000 online services”,
- InterRamp offered Mosaic, Veronica, Gopher and “all leading online solutions”,
- “NetCruiser is a snap to install… best of all, once you’re on, you neve have to issue a single Unix command” (LA Times),
- Prodigy said its services were able to “give your kids the learning edge”.

As you can see, mosy of these ISPs are no more in the business or have been acquired by another giant or changed business altogether…